End of the year cleaning and reorganizing is here for my office...
My daughter has been helping. While loading some footage for me she cleaned out my desk drawer - the one with about 20 years of things I felt important enough to put aside to have when I needed but haven't looked at since - but they are important....I pulled a small notebook from the now organized stacks of business cards, a 35 millimeter slide of me dressed like little orphan Annie from 82', a small knife, small screwdriver and lots of misc papers -
I wrote in the notebook in 2003 when I traveled to Cote d' Ivoire, West Africa.
Some of this is very stream of conscience. I've clarified and commented on some things in parentheses but
here is what I wrote:
"8-3-03
I spent my 43rd birthday on a plane to Cote D'Ivoire, West Africa. Invited on this trip by Scott Graber a lawyer and journalist who like myself has an interest in Africa for quite different reasons. My initial interest is music, his is political in the sense that the complications of the continent intrigue him and several others on this trip. I was asked to document the volatile situation and to hopefully bring back some positive images of this area recently struck by civil war.
I arrived in Cote d'Ivoire with Scott, Steve Cheney, a retired military guy (Brigadier General, USMC (Ret)), Marilyn Sophocle (Professor at Howard University and dir of Ideas Inc.), Rodrick (her partner) and Herve from Ideas, Inc, a PR firm out of Washington hired by the Ivoirian government. Our first gathering was over dinner the evening we arrived.
(Intro to doc I produced)
-Airport - twisted through a very modern airport by several government reps-our luggage did not go through customs. We were led to two Pequots with drivers Babo and August. (they took us everywhere and became our friends)
Hotel Ivoire - high rise building on the water (lagoon) that had seen its heyday in the 70's perhaps.
(at dinner) We had had a discussion about the political state of many African countries including The Congo.
Lumumba - the son of murdered Congo president in the hallway-
(Patrice Émery Lumumba (2 July 1925–17 January 1961) was a Congolese independence leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from Belgium in June 1960. Only ten weeks later, Lumumba's government was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis.[1] He was subsequently imprisoned and murdered in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the governments of Belgium and the United States.)
Breakfast with Lumumba and interview.
Ministry of Finance at his office
Interview at the US Embassy.
Eating in the downstairs Italian Res. (although the hotel looked like it once housed several restaurants - the basement Italian restaurant was the only one open - we'd spend most every night there having dinner - discussing the day and what was to come. The food was pretty good and there was a always a buffet which in Africa is a little scary sometimes - I do recall they had good strong coffee every morning)
Grand Bassan - Alpha Blondy's restaurant on the beach (hotel and restaurant that had these amazing 10 foot wood carvings of Africans - dozens of them in what appeared to be a party, dance hall open space. It appeared that we were the only customers they had that day.)
- play djembi at the shop (we stopped in a market shop that sold drums and I shocked the store keeper and our party with playing a djembe - who knew the white girl could play!)
riding the horse
The wedding and the reception (stopped in at a city hall to announce we were there to film and came upon a wedding party. They invited us to film and to follow them to their reception which we obliged, champagne and cake)
Sidiki at The Cultural Center ginger beer and hibiscus juice ( Sidiki, the very animated, commanding director of a very impressive cultural center hosted us for what seemed like hours...we also attended a concert there that started about 3 hours after it was suppose to)
Flag beer
Kuyo - oil guy cowboy - treated us to lunch at the seaside restaurant
Ayame - The cousins house ( Dominique is Marilyn's cousin, an international lawyer that was building a castle on the side of a hill. When we first saw it I thought it was a large hotel - it is a place you need to see to believe. Massive rooms with wall to wall art, frescos, wrap around balconies that have a view for miles, a basement thats a church....It was still under construction but almost complete. We had lunch at the home he'd lived in his adult life that was small, modest but comfortable.)
lunch at Dominiques - Perrin Champagne, cigars (of course I had one) - the guys in the village ( we walked into the village to find a large group of men playing some kind of bocci ball and sat with a group that wanted to tell us about the "real Cote d'Ivoire")
The handicapp organization
The reception with the (blind) singers
The women's group ( I openly wept while at this meeting as they described the hardships and agony of war -how they were trying to cope -their courage was amazing - There was another gathering we attended that was in a meeting hall filled with several hundred people - I could never tell whether these things were arranged for our benefit or if we were just invited guests to things already in place. These folks were testifying to us about the horrors of war and seemed to look to us to tell their stories and to get them help. It was brutal and wrenching, people breaking down in sobs and then gathering themselves to finish their story)
Religious ceremony a the Pres - house (this was a Christian service that lasted for hooourrrssss although there was a point where we were singing and dancing around the room. Pres Gbagbo was not there and I have no idea who the 50 or so people were in the service)
2nd brief meeting with the Pres (at his house/headquarters, they served us cocktails and he met with us for about 10 minutes)
3rd and last meeting at his office w/many soldiers
As we pull up to the Presidents downtown office - complex we are preceded by several trucks with soldiers jumping out with their rifles. This was not a pleasant sight necessarily. We had been told several times that the dates between Aug 1 and 8th were dangerous times for the President - no real explanation of that but the feeling was that the days around Independence day - Aug 7 were to be avoided. (There had been an attempted coup about 6 months before we were there. A lot of the conversations were in French so sometimes it was challenging to know what was going on - I had to rely on Herve or Marilyn to translate)
We were told that he had cancelled all of his appointments during that time. Interestingly enough when we pulled into the complex they didn't even search our cars and didn't search our bags until we were in his office and then did not search thoroughly. I in fact had my camera running most of the time on the sly...
The courage of the people it seems is the story. Their perseverance and determination not to fight.
(the folks we talked to were trying desperately to find a peaceful solution to the conflicts wreaking havoc on their country)
To try and carry on.
The hotel filled with UN vehicles and representatives. I met a gentleman from Nigeria on the peacekeeping force. (interesting my next trip to Africa would be Nigeria)
The elevators (sometimes they worked)
Herve (Herve has become a good friend of mine and I'm thankful he was on that trip)"
anyways - that's what I wrote - glad I did cause I had forgotten about some of it.
Whew - interesting to reflect and think back on that adventure. It took some convincing to get me to go - I didn't know any of these people before I met up with them in West Africa and I had no idea of what was in store. Researching the area before I went gave me cause to be concerned but I wouldn't trade the experience.
That was the first of three trips I made with Ideas Inc. and if I didn't have the footage to prove it - I may think it was one of those crazy dreams I have sometimes...
