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 realized I had miscalculated. Odienné’s tiny airport was about an hour’s walk to the city… Continue reading Linguacultural Lessons from the Jula of Odienné: Exploring Côte d’Ivoire’s Northwest
Category: Côte d’Ivoire
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 it, you’ll certainly hear it spoken in Abidjan and many other parts of the country.… Continue reading How to Learn Nouchi like an Ivorian
My First Five Days Living in Yamoussoukro
Dimanche The bus ride to Yamoussoukro takes four hours long, 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. But I still sit in my exhaustion and hunger and an overwhelming sense of… Continue reading My First Five Days Living in Yamoussoukro
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 up north. But between the dusty weather and a general sense of not feeling well,… Continue reading On Becoming More Human in 2022