01/26/2024 Bikepacking The Ivory Coast Day 171 : Kong

Kong impressed me. I rolled in relatively early with the plan of taking a half-rest day. Everywhere, women were sweeping the streets with crafted brooms made from sticks and grasses bunched together. They had to lean over, because there was no broomstick. Presumably that lumber had been put to other uses such as cooking or food mashing.

If your had been teleported straight from the US, your initial reaction might be to exclaim, “this place is dirty!” But for me, it felt clean. Most importantly, though, I had a sense that people actually cared. Kong gets an “A” for effort because caring goes a long way towards a better Africa.

Hoping that I could procure some chain lube in a larger village, I went around to the motorcycle shops showing my white wax lubricant as an example. As in the other villages, this caused people to laugh amongst themselves.

“But what do you use here for the motorcycle chains?” I asked. These motorcycles have to contend with the same bug-dust as me, yet their chains appeared clean and never noisy.

A kid ran over to grab a beat up, plastic quart bottle of motor oil. He dropped out a few black drips: Used oil from the crankcase is recycled into motorcycle chain lube.

I said “no thanks.” Then they asked if I wanted “new.” They took me to a glass bottle that had a tiny puddle of clean motor oil at the bottom.

“No thanks.”

This is all these guys have to work with. I was a little embarrassed to be prancing around with my "princess-and-the-pea" chain lube.

It’s the same story in every village. By the way, along this route at least, motorcycle repair shops outnumber any other type of business.

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I had decided to visit Kong because of its UNESCO world-heritage mud mosque. You are allowed to enter, and even though I’ve been in Muslim territory for nearly 90 days now, I’ve yet to enter a mosque. I went inside, snapped a photo, and left. With all the time I have spent amongst Muslims now, it is clear to me that the physical building is the least important part of Islam.

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After a week of being unimpressed with Ivory Coast, the country did an about-face today. I met several kind and generous people; it was reminiscent of the time spent in Morocco or Mauritania where I’d be constantly invited to tea. In fact, I was given water (in bags) for free… twice today. I insisted on paying; they insisted harder, which only made me want to tip them more. In the end, these nice conversations always end abruptly with the men running off. They have to go pray. If you haven’t figured it out by now, the Muslim people have impressed me. The men talk softly and gently. Seeing a mosque in a village is a good sign, except that it means that God can interrupt you at any moment. Well, at least he has a well defined schedule.

******

Later, I’d meet Coulibaly Yacou. Luckily, I got him to type out his name. I knew he was a good guy because he started showing me photos of his “little” brothers. One lives in France with his (white and French) girlfriend. The other lives in Italy.

“I am going to go to Algeria for work,” he said.

I saw that he had already built two little businesses in the tiny village. A micro-cafe, and a humble cell phone shop.

When I asked him about his businesses, he said, “There isn’t enough money. Little by little”

He didn’t have too much inventory, but I knew he could keep growing his businesses like other people have.

Then he said, “I’m going to go through Mali to get to Algeria.”

Ugh. My heart sank. Here is this ambitious, smiling young man, and I have the story that Foday in Sierra Leone had told me fresh in my mind. (You may remember Foday from episode 156. His friend had been killed in Mali, as terrorist kidnappings for ransom are increasingly common there).

“Isn’t Mali dangerous?” I asked.

“No.”

I didn’t want to be the Negative Nancy to his dream… but I worried. I asked him one more time if he thought it was dangerous… but in the end kept silent on Foday’s story.

We changed the subject to my wife and why she isn’t here. I told them she didn’t want to come because Africa is difficult. He asked, “Is Africa difficult?”

I said, “it is..." but then a little surprisingly, I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Being an introvert, it is sometimes challenging to handle so many “kill you with kindness” interactions at once… but how could I explain that to him? He lives here. It is difficult having such a limited selection of food, but again… not something I wanted to mention for obvious reasons.

He must have read my mind: “The food here is good, no?”

I pointed to my bike where I had packed the 3 rolls of cookies I had just bought from him… These were the only “calories” he had for sale. All 3 of them laughed before I explained that is all I eat. Coulibaly ran behind the shack and came back with one of those huge yams, the dirt clods still sticking to it.

“Is that good?” I asked

“Yes! Very good!”

From the looks of it, the people in this region practically subsist on mashed yams. At least at this time of year.

Yeah, I can’t rightly tell someone here that Africa is difficult for me.

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This morning, I came across another roped barrier, and from a distance I could see a woman and her motorcycle driver being detained. Her arm was outstretched with some money.

I slowed down, hoping I could figure this out. The guards were not taking the money. I crept along, finally arriving at the rope. They quickly let it down for me, and once I passed, they pulled it back up. Slowly I watched in my mirror as the woman continued to attempt to give the soldiers the money. This continued until I could no longer see them. I’m sticking to my theory from episode 169 that some people are being blocked from travel based on their ethnicity.