fighting corruption

Back from a two-week assignment in Sierra Leone, I finally have a few minutes to record the very last part of my holiday in Cote d'Ivoire, an encounter at the airport as I was on my way out of the country.

By the time of the encounter I suppose I was not in the best of spirits, having got to the airport to find that my flight was not listed on the departure board and finally, after lots of initially fruitless conversations with people, finding that it was delayed by several hours - enough for me to miss my once-a-day connecting flight in Ouagadougou.  More conversations followed, and eventually they were persuaded to re-book me onto a different flight, this one going directly to Dakar but requiring me to wait another three hours before I could even check in.  Thankfully I managed to grab one of the six seats in the pre-check-in part of the airport ... where I was grateful for my emergency muesli bar that I always travel with and the half-bottle of water that remained in my bag.

So, finally in the check-in queue, I was pulled aside by a man in military uniform to be asked what was inside the paper I was carrying.  I showed him that it was not a weapon, but just a wood-carving that I'd bought the previous day in one of the stalls next to the Grand Bassam museum.  He muttered something that I didn't catch about papers and left me to continue my check-in.  At that stage, zipping the rucksack straps into their cover, I put the wood-carving in too so that I didn't have to carry it as hand luggage and risk forgetting it on the plane.

But as I walked towards passport control, the same man appeared.  "Did you forget?" he asked, "Your papers!"  A bit confused, I showed him my 'papers' - airline ticket, boarding pass, passport ... but this wasn't what he was after.  "Your papers for the wood-carving!".  Of course I didn't have any 'papers' for a $20 wood-carving ... and so was told to accompany him to the office.  The office of the Department of Forests and Water, where a besuited gentleman was sitting behind his desk.  They started to talk to me about people smuggling artifacts out of the country, and how I had to have export papers for my little carving.

It was now clear that they were trying to extort money out of me.  I kept it friendly, laughingly telling them that my carving was not an 'artifact' but a cheap copy made in the workshop next to the museum, and that I knew 'artifacts' when I saw them, recounting a story from 1999 when a villager in Pays Dogon (Mali) tried to secretly sell me one of the village masks, how I felt a 'power' of some sort emanate from the mask, how I'd have loved it but it wasn't right to buy it, etc, etc.  & that the shop in Grand Bassam hadn't given me any papers so if these were really necessary then we would have to recall my luggage and take the carving out.  They smiled and said that was not necessary, that they would let me off this time, but in return did I have anything for them?  I tried to look confused and told them that I didn't.  So they tried to clarify their request, asking if I had any money from my home country - dollars or euros.  At that, I launched into another friendly tale about the pound, the euro, Brexit, etc ... but it didn't entirely derail them.  So I decided to tell them (very politely) how the UK has two laws that operate globally for British citizens, one being an anti-corruption law that prevents me from giving money to government officials if it is not in an official transaction with a receipt.  That I wasn't saying that this was corruption, but that it might look like it to someone else, and I didn't want to get into trouble...

At this point the soldier left and was replaced by a different soldier, and the besuited official said he could give me a document.  So he filled in an export form, on headed paper, listing my wood-carving, signed it, and handed it to me.  "So, the payment!" he demanded.  I looked at the form.  "I don't see any amount on here..."  "It's 5,000 francs" (not too much - equivalent to US$9 - but on principle I don't want to ever pay a bribe).  I explained that I could not see that written on the form anywhere, which was therefore not a receipt.  Exasperated, he said I should have got a receipt from the stall where I bought the carving.  "No, a receipt for the 5,000 francs" I explained.

"Madame, I cannot give you a receipt."

"Then I cannot give you money."

I looked at him and he just sat there, saying nothing.  So I got up and walked out of the room, fingers mentally crossed that he would not follow - which he didn't.

I had spent twenty minutes in that room.  In a situation where I know many would have felt compelled to pay.  I'm pleased that I have the experience (and, to an extent, the protection of my white skin) that enabled me to hold out, but so cross that these things happen.  Many Africans moan about their corrupt presidents, but that corruption goes right down through society, and if people pay up it will continue.  On my way into Sierra Leone I saw one man hand over money as he took back his passport from the official in passport control.  Just wish I could do more to stop it, that I could fight it rather than just resisting it on a personal level.

the different faces of religion in Cote d'Ivoire


Besides watching traditional mask dances, my tour group in Cote d'Ivoire also visited a few religious sites.  My favourite was this 17th century mud mosque in Kong, not even mentioned on the tour itinerary so a real treat.  Apparently it is no longer used, but is maintained due to its historical significance; the larger nearby mosque in the same style is still in use.

Much more well known is the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in the administrative capital, Yamoussoukro.  Constructed at great expense, as a near copy of St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, it can hold up to 18,000 people but our guide told me that only around 700 people attend the service there most weeks.  At least the former president who commissioned it (Félix Houphouët-Boigny) had the good sense to 'donate' it to the Catholic Church (to John Paul II who was pope at that time), so the annual $1.5m upkeep is borne by the Catholic Church and not by the people of Cote d'Ivoire.  A bit of a white elephant in my view, some of my group were very impressed by it.  I don't think it is even worth putting a photo here on the blog!

I was more impressed by the snakes and fertility symbols on the fetish hut in the village of Niofon...


In terms of mainstream religious buildings though, I was impressed by the much more modern St Paul's Cathedral in Abidjan.  It has some amazing stained glass windows in a modern, African style such as this one to the right.  The largest window appears to me to depict the African paradise (garden of Eden?), with lush vegetation, elephants, monkeys and colourful birds, and a few Africans bearing bowls of fruit as gifts for some dour-looking white men getting out of a boat onto the beach - white men who in my interpretation are about to upset the existing social structures, impose borders in the wrong places and generally exploit the continent ... thankfully I hadn't expressed this view out loud as our guide explained that they were missionaries who had brought the words of our Lord Jesus Christ to the continent.  Hmmm...



mask dancers and traditional hunters in Cote d'Ivoire



Whilst I once spent a day in Abidjan following a cancelled flight, I knew there was plenty more than the National Museum that I got to see that day.  In particular, the country is well known for a variety of mask dances.  These dances, most commonly associated with funerals, are hard to find on your own - it's just a matter of luck if you arrive in a village when a funeral is happening - so, a little reluctantly, I signed up to a tour.  That way I would see dances organised for the benefit of the tour group - still the same dancers, the same music, and the same costumes, just for a different purpose.

We were a small group of very well-travelled people, so even the long hours in the tour bus involved some interesting conversations, as we travelled the length and breadth of the country.  We saw, I think, six different ethnic groups performing their dances for us, accompanied by musicians playing traditional instruments.  Of course a still photo cannot capture some of the amazing moves, but I can at least show some of the costumes.




As well as watching the mask dances, we also met a group of Dozo, the traditional hunters who also work, when needed, as militias, or 'defence forces' for their communities.  Whilst they are apparently sometimes now employed as security guards and they played a significant role in the recent civil war, their hunting is highly tied up with magic, so their hunting attire is covered with amulets to variously protect them and to strengthen their vision and hearing.  Music is also an important part of their tradition, and after an opportunity to ask a few questions of a group of Dozo, their griot (the singer, who is kind of the group history-keeper through his songs) and a couple of musicians accompanied us in our tour bus into a patch of sacred forest.  It was a bizarre experience driving along in the bus with these guys around us inging and playing music:


The griot had a tremendous voice and a twinkle in his eye, and I have to admit that we three women in the group all kind of fell for him!