A Tuesday in Korhogo

I don’t know if it was the joy of AC – first on this trip! – or the previous day’s tiredness but I slept long.

I managed to get out of the hotel at around 11am. I wanted to change the room to one without fan. It was a bit strange, first the caretaker said there were no rooms available at the moment so I should leave the bags with him till someone leaves the room but when I did so a room was found. A room with fan is 5000cfa only. I don’t think I’d be able to find a cheaper room in the CFA zone. There is no light in the bathroom, I have to flush the toilet with a bucket. There was no water in the morning but the caretaker said it’s because he “switched it off”. He switched it on for me and I was able to take a shower.

The previous day during my long bus hours I saw an email from my bank regarding the blocked card. They still insist I go to the police even if I’m in another country. I think it’s bureaucracy at its best – only to get a paper confirming that I was at a police and I was even wondering how I’d have to explain everything to everyone and in French and would they even know and be willing to help? And the time things take over here…. Ugh.

So the first thing I did is I went to the police. I took a moto for 500cfa and the man took me to the prefecture. There I explained my issue to a man sitting in front of the building and it was going well until I she to say the word India in French – the shady transactions were done in India – and he didn’t seem to understand me. I know Indian Ocean is ocean indien but the adjective doesn’t translate to the noun. When I said the word India in English he didn’t get it. India in French is l’Inde pronounced (Polish transcription) as lęnd, I’d never guess, French is weird. After all that hard labour of explaining my story the man called another man and I had to tell the story again. And it seems they didn’t mind anything in my story except they told me I have to go to commissariat, which is somewhere else – they even knew what I needed from the police.

So I walked to the commissariat where again, at reception I tried to explain the story. The man I was talking to possibly wasn’t listening, some people were coming up to him so he was talking to them, then a phone call and over here answering a ringing phone is a matter of life and death and so, being interrupted all the time I told my story – and he sent me to another building.

The other building inside looked like a warehouse full of everything. Was this where I would be giving a statement? In the “warehouse” someone led me to a door and let me in. When the door opened I wished I had a camera on me filming the scene. Inside two women were sitting talking to a police officer and the police officer was sitting, his bare feet on the desk, full relaxation mode. When he saw a white man entering he immediately assumed an official position, asked me to sit and kept talking to the women. One of them was complaining about someone that the person is impossible to reach, doesn’t answer his phone so the officer started writing a notice for the person to show up at the police station – a convocation. He even established that it should be at 5pm and is the woman OK with the time when he remembered my presence and in the middle of writing the convocation he asked me why I’m there. So I explained my business and it took him a while to understand what I want from him but then he realised I want to have my complaint registered.

He wrote my issue on a paper – literally a sentence – and sent me back to the reception when an officer took an officially looking writing book and started recording my complaint. The complaint was recorded in two sentences, in red ink, the rest of the complaint record was taken up – in blue ink – by questions of where I’m from, where I live and when I was born and what’s my parents’ names and where I stay now. And the had no idea where my hotel is. And they even didn’t believe a hotel like this – it’s called Homan 1 or Homan de Korhogo – exists. I had to show them on the map, we had to work out in which quartier it is located – and later on it turned out Google Maps had the location of the hotel completely wrong – and then he took out a piece of paper size 2cm by 3cm recorded my complaint’s number, time and date – in red ink – and I was sent back to the officer in the warehouse.

The officer looked at the paper and said that’s all I need but anytime I need something I can call him up. He brought out a piece of paper, put an official stamp with his name and wrote down all his four phone numbers. He even said I could call him up from time to time because that’s “what people do.” True. Then he did ask me for my phone number.and he brought out a book which had a long list of names and phone numbers and I wrote my name and Polish number – the more important one, the officer would like to one day come visit in Poland – and my Ivorian number.

It all went better than I expected. I thought there would be dragging things on, delaying, asking me to come later or the supervisor is out for lunch or he is not around, come tomorrow. I was done in an hour.

Out on the street I bought myself a bunch of bananas, six for 500cfa. An elderly lady stopped by and asked me to buy for her, too. I gave her one. Immediately a small group of children materialised and demanded the same or maybe some money.

I walked on the Bank Street, which was what it said it was: banks. I wanted to change money.

It wasn’t easy. Bank after bank said they don’t do that, they all directed me to Banque Atlantique, which was at the end of the street.

At Banque Atlantique the security man said they do change money but there is no “network” so they can’t help me. When I asked where else I can do it, he said there is a bank inside the post office where they do it.

So I walked towards the post office. On my way I asked at a transport agency about transport to Kong, where I wanted to go the next day, there is supposed to be a mud mosque Mali style there. Then I saw a coffee shop. I find it quite impressive that these “shops” are no more than wooden shacks, although they come with wooden high chairs bar-style and are really rudimentary yet they have espresso machines, rundown as they may be but still churning out espressos. And the coffee is 100cfa per cup, really. So I took two cups, I asked about coffee beans but roasted ones and the man told me to go to Abidjan. 500kms South.

The post office was a few hundred meters up the street from the coffee house. Inside a large modern-looking air-conditioned hall two ladies were sitting. Yes they do change money, 656cfa to euro (official rate, changing euros to cfa is nice this way, everyone pays this), yes they do sell stamps. But to change money can I wait a bit? I can. One of them called up someone to come coz there is a client waiting.

In the meantime I bought stamps, 500cfa each, got 560cfa stamp for this, I wrote the cards which I bought in Bamako. After all that we still waited and finally a man came in. He said the exchange rate is really 655cfa to a euro, took my passport and the euros and disappeared for maybe 20 minutes.

He came back with some forms I had to sign. The official rate is 655.96cfa to a euro and is guaranteed by France’s central bank. I understand all countries belonging to the CFA zone (there are two zones: Central Africa and West Africa, with two different currencies of the same exchange rate but different banknotes) deposit parts of their money in France as well. It was 100cfa to a French franc but after euro this is what we got.

The man brought a paper that stated how much of each type of note and coin I will get and the total amount was 65596cfa. He apologised that he didn’t have the 1cfa coin but he did have a full roll of 5cfa coins! And that’s in the city with constant shortage of small change. Though it left me wondering if anyone will accept 5cfa coins, I didn’t even know they existed.

So I got my 65595cfa to the dot. Outside I bought water for 25cfa and I handed the woman 5 shiny golden 5cfa notes and she thanked me for the change.

I went for lunch. In the city centre there isn’t much so I took a moto, picked a street on Google Maps with many restaurants marked and asked the man to take me there. He had no idea how to get there, I had to direct him using phone.

I sat down in Maquis Central. All space under the tree in shadow was taken, I sat under a thatched roof. I took riz gras – rice with chicken and vegetables, tasty, for 1000cfa and a Beaufort beer for 700cfa. In such places there is a separate person serving food and drinks, food may come from various places around the maquis. The drinks waitress didn’t have change and gave me only 200cfa change from a 1000cfa bill. Next table there was a fight about a change or lack of it with the man and another waitress throwing insults at each other. “You are sick!”

After the food – it was already almost 3pm – I went to Art Centre Dakhanel. Again, the moto driver had no idea, I had to bring up the guidebook and show him where to go.

It’s not as much a tourist market as a street full of workshops and houses/ateliers with the handicrafts inside. A young man named Enza was leading me from one workshop to another. He was very patient and very kind and knowledgeable. I was even allowed to take photos inside! Of course people expected me to buy things but I told everyone I can’t, the masks take space and the journey is long. Noone really insisted. It was a contrast to what I went through in Man, with payment demanded for a photo etc. On iOverlander I read some stories from people who tried to climb the Man’s Tooth and there are some horror stories of money extortion. So my experience, with the sacred forest isn’t a coincidence. Mountain people are greedy everywhere.

I mainly liked the large masks. I have some sénoufo masks at home, I bought them in South Africa. The men also had Dan masks (from Man) and quite a lot of Bambara masks from Mali.

As we were walking from house to house I showed Enza thé Bradt Guide, where there are even names of some of the artists. They all wanted to see that they were in a book.

There is a fetish protecting the neighbourhood on that street but it’s in an enclosure and no we couldn’t see it but if I came on Monday we could slaughter a chicken for the fetish.

I asked Enza about the fetish site that Bradt says is 5kms out of town but that’s really the only description that the book gives. Whether Enza really knew the place or not I couldn’t tell but he did say a place exists and even gave me the name: Chez Lions.

So I did come out on the main road and tried to stop a moto and go there but none of the riders really knew where it could be, some of them quoted crazy prices and after 30mins I gave up and went for coffee in a shop nearby. And there, too, the man told me that coffee beans and roasted are to be bought in Abidjan. But the roasters are not there, it won’t make sense to send raw coffee down South to be roasted and possibly ground only to be brought back to where it grows.

Anyway, after coffee I took a long walk towards maquis for dinner. I stopped in a pharmacy to buy some gauze, I stopped in a beer maquis for a beer. Ajax was playing Juventus and everywhere there was match beamed on the walls. In Maquis Central the place was packed with spectators. I had Guinness and a man came up to me and told me he has food, beef wrapped up in rice, he called it Nem and he said it was Asian. I had no idea what it was. Those were Spring rolls fried. 6 for 1000cfa. Didn’t taste bad but I needed more food. The only alternatives being roasted mutton, beef soup and roasted fish, I gave up and walking back to the hotel I stopped in a shop where I had green peas with bread. The man called the food green peas (petit pois) but they looked to me like chickpeas. It was good.

Then I stopped a moto. The driver seemed to know where Homan 1 is but what he knew was Homan 3. Noone on the street knew where Homan 1 hotel was so we entered Homan 3 and the caretaker explained the directions to the driver. That’s how I found out Google Maps location of the hotel is way off mark. I stopped in a maquis that’s next to my hotel, I’m catching up with my night life after all. Around midnight I came back.