Starting 2023 [An Intermission]
I never really finished the year 2022. Instead of at a New Year’s Eve party, I found myself on a plane from Chicago to Paris, working on a research essay and drinking merlot. For four of those hours, I spoke…
Category Africa
Linguacultural Lessons from the Jula of Odienné: Exploring Côte d’Ivoire’s Northwest
Lesson #1: I jatigi ye jɔn ye? Who is your host? There were two major reasons I traveled to the north, and neither of them involved getting stranded in a dirt field. As I looked down at my map, I…
How to Learn Nouchi like an Ivorian
On dit quoi? At first glance, Côte d’Ivoire’s colorful argot can be difficult to decipher. Some call it a dialect, some call it a creole, while others may consider it a completely different language. No matter which way you see…
That One Time I Got Arrested in West Africa (and my first experiences of culture shock)
I. Silence Speaks Louder than Words It is 2AM and I am sitting barefoot in a white plastic chair. Behind me, two men, armed with shotguns, tower in silence. An old man sits across from me. He stares at my…
My First Five Days Living in Yamoussoukro
Dimanche The bus ride to Yamoussoukro takes four hours, and five if you count the time waiting for the bus to depart. After one week of orientation in Abidjan, you would think I’d have relaxed my Westernized conception of time.…
On Becoming More Human in 2022
If you close your heart to everyone, it defeats the point of travel. I didn’t travel much over the winter holidays. I tried to visit a friend an hour away in Bouaké, with the intention of going all the way…