For those wondering about the weather here, there is an amazing consistency: hot and humid. Note the comfort level [5th column from the left] quite a shock to the system after wintery Paris for a few weeks.
As the SIL Center is basically closed down over the weekend, and I arrived late on a Friday, I spent the next day doing grocery shopping [twice!] and walking around the neighborhood. It is located in the Cocody neighborhood, and, more specifically Riviera Golf 1, which I believe I mentioned before. Most expatriates live in Cocody, where many embassies are located, or Marcory. The areas of Yopougon, Abobo, Koumassi and Port-Bouet have a tendency to be more working class but more and more affordable middle-class housing is being built in these areas. There are many apartment buildings in the Riviera Golf 1 area, but also pockets of individual houses. Although some of the houses near where I am staying are huge villa-like structures, the roads and sidewalks leading up to them can be hazardous. For more information on neighborhoods, you can click here.
And you could have this right next to your house:
And this morning I met the young man I will be training on the library's software, Clément. He is apparently interested in working in translation technology, and had some training in that field at SIL earlier this year. He has also been assigned to work in the library, seems quite bright, but is a bit lazy. I have also met Ryan Goodlin, responsible for language programs, but not his wife, Marianne. They are one of the families with young children, which SIL-Abidjan hasn't seen in quite a while.
I also was also absolutely elated to see translation consultant Cornelia Wuesthoff, visiting with two of her friends, Inge and Christina, as I understand she is basically telecommuting these days from Germany. They will be staying in Abidjan for 2, almost 3 weeks as well, so that is great news! Cornelia came by this evening to look at her "old" apartment, because before moving back to her home country during the early days of the Coronavirus, she had lived [from 2008-2020], in the very apartment where I am currently staying. Apparently it was she who had the ceramic tiles installed on the walls of the kitchen and bathroom... which explains why they were much nicer looking ones than those in most of the apartments I've been in here! It will be a bit awkward doing anything with the three of them during the week as I am supposed working with Clément, and this weekend is Easter weekend. Today, I understand, they visited the Cathedral downtown. It is also my understanding that they will be traveling to somewhere in the southwest of the country, so that the upcoming week looks unpromising as well... They are primarily here for the dedication of the recently completed translation of the New Testament into the Godié language, a project in which Cordelia played a role as a translation consultant.
[Cordelia Wüsthoff]
I was surprised, but delighted, to learn that Kathryn Seay from Mali is also here. She apparently telecommutes and occasionally flies back to Bamako, but doesn't want to get caught up in another country evacuation again. She has been "evacuated" from Mali at least twice, and I remember her from when she spent time in Burkina Faso during one of those evacuations, along with a number of expats from SIL-Mali, a number of years ago. Kathryn has some library responsibilities in Mali, so I brought her up-to-date on funding.
Kathryn mentioned that the CMA missionaries and UN/Peace Corps volunteers have been leaving the country, and it is particularly difficult for the French living there, as they are clearly unwelcome now with the new country alignment with Russia, and Kathryn said that there are now images of Putin on the sides of the truck convoys...
The SIL Center is offering something new this year--a "restaurant" for lunch during the week, which is most welcome. The covered rooftop of the building, sometimes used for meetings, is the venue. There are usually two main choices per day with some add-on options. Although I met some of the expats during the break in the morning, I met a few more at during lunch there. There are two young single women, besides Kathryn; Emily [from Atlanta] and Christina [from Canada]. There is also another young couple, Lindsay and Jack Campbell, also with several young children close in age to those of the Goodlins. I think they are from southern Virginia.
I am now linked to the kitchen staff via Whatsapp and they will send me the day's menu. Today I had poisson-Tchep, a Sénégalese dish with fish and vegetables over brown rice. It looks a bit like this and can also be made with chicken:
This is what the leftovers look like coming out of my refrigerator:
And this evening Ezéchiel messaged me letting me know that the main computer has been down in Ouagadougou and that they may have to [horror of horrors] reinstall the library software... I am not looking forward to this because they will inevitably want me involved somehow... It will likely involve me on WhatsApp talking to Damien and Ezéchiel in Ouagadougou, me sending ResourceMate a message through their "chat" function, and the RM team somehow accessing the library computer in Burkina. But I will just have to wait and see...
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