Guest Blog: Côte d'Ivoire Elections from the Eyes of an Expat

For the past few months I've been living/working at a boarding school in Duekoue, Cote d'Ivoire, also known as the country with 2 presidents. I arrived at the beginning of October, thinking I would get there just in time for the beginning of the school year. However I soon found out that many things would start 'after the elections'. There were girls who were waiting to come to the boarding school until after the elections and at the technical school where I teach English there were many students absent. We had a few normal weeks where almost all the students were there, but in the past 2 and half months we've missed 3 entire weeks of school along with a few days here and there.

Now after the second round of elections things have really come to a standstill. People are scared and there are more rumours than you can count. It doesn't help that the state-run TV channel is constantly spitting out pro-Gbagbo (the incumbent) propaganda while the other news channels have been cut off. The way the government uses the media has been one of the most interesting things for me to see. For example one night after some UN-bashing by the state-run news channel, they explained that they would now be showing Hotel Rwanda. Then they showed a few clips and every clip they chose portrayed the UN in a negative way- like that the UN did nothing to stop the genocide there and even made it worse. Then today on a state-run radio station they claimed that ONUCI-FM (the UNs radio station) inciting people against Gbagbo was the equivalent of the way Milles Collines radio in Rwanda encouraged one ethnic group to kill another. To me that comparison is a bit of a stretch.

For the people in Duekoue the situation is exhausting and stressful. Food prices have increased, the price of charcoal skyrocketed and at times was hard to find at all. The girls at the boarding school don't exactly have a lot of cash to throw around so it has been really hard on them. When I ask them what they think about the presidents they say, 'I don't care who it is as long as theres not war' or 'I just want a president'. The siuation makes me really upset and I'm not even from here, so I can only imagine how I would feel if this was my country.

I left Duekoue yesterday for Abidjan because I'm supposed to fly home on Saturday. The timing is really not ideal because apparantly the new government is going to move in to the government's offices tomorrow or Friday, but it's not clear how that will happen because the army loyal to Gbagbo is currently protecting it. However Outtara (the newly elected president) has the support of the UN and the former rebels. Here in Abidjan everyone is saying that it just can't go on like this. It's too tense, the people are tired and something is going to crack. Yesterday I walked around for just a few minutes and my feet were black from the dust from the tires they burnt to protest Gbagbo's 'victory'. That will probably be the last time I go out until my flight on Saturday because the nuns I'm staying with say that as a white person it's just not a good idea to go out. So I'm hunkered down, just waiting for Saturday and hoping that between now and then things don't get too hot.


Anne Koch-notedivoire.blogspot.com

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