If there is anything that my time living in France taught me, it’s that simple stuff takes 10x longer when you don’t know what you’re doing. In comparison, the start of my time in Côte d’Ivoire has been made slightly easier because at least I am fully aware of how much scrappiness it takes to survive when you can understand 90% of a language but can only produce 50% of the necessary words to be understood.
My phone was one of the first things I needed to sort out after arrival.

Remember the days before cell phones? Maybe you don’t, but I do. Rather than doom scrolling, we filled our time with other stupid things like ironing clothes. But now, living without a phone seems impossible to imagine. Life in Côte d’Ivoire would be very different and challenging. No cell phone = no Yango = no getting out of bed in the morning.

So, luckily, Tim was here to fight the battle with me at the Ivorian equivalent of Xfinity called Orange. I knew my phone did not have a physical sim card, so I needed an esim. This is where things get confusing for me. Since the “e” in esim stands for electronic, I was, and am still, confused about why you must go to a store to get one. However, you do.

Upon opening the door at Orange, I felt like I had stepped right back into any Xfinity store in the USA. There were lines of people sitting and waiting, and like any long and annoying line, it’s important to figure out how to join the line. Past Steph would have just sat down and likely wasted even more hours of her life trying to figure out the line process, but current Steph is the survival version who will waste no time being patient.

Tim and I spied a large touchscreen computer in the corner and noticed people going to it to enter information. Of course, this was the way to join the line; however, we soon realized that to join the line, you need to have an Ivorian phone number, which I clearly did not have. Doom loop. So, survival me decided to enter the only Ivorian number I had in my phone – my colleague who had met only once named Adi. As much as it might be awkward to text a person you barely know to tell them that you used their phone number at the Orange store, sitting in a crowded room without joining the line is worse. Luckily, Adi has a sense of humor.

Well, I’ve learned that waiting in a phone store is the same experience no matter where you are in the world. Sadly, bored people waiting for hours doesn’t even make great people-watching.

Finally, when it was my turn, 3.5 hours later, things seemed to be going well until the absolute last moment when an error popped up on my screen. Gah! There’s always something…… My phone was not completely paid off in the US, which means that the sim card is blocked until the last payment is made. Dejected, we trudged home to pay off and unblock the phone (which takes 48+ hours). Grrrr.

Orange attempt #2 came a few days later after my phone was finally unblocked, which happened to be Tim’s last day in Côte d’Ivoire. Again, we joined the line and waited for hours to finally get to the front of the line and try to explain the story of what happened last time. In French. Since it’s hard enough to explain in English, “Yes, I bought an esim, no it doesn’t work, my phone was locked, and now it’s not, blah, blah.” The woman helping us seemed very unsatisfied with her unfortunate position as our helper that day. You could tell she was hoping to help someone with a simple bill problem.

Finally, it seemed like the problem was solved and we sprang out of Orange like a spring, relieved to reenter the blazing sun. However, if you’ve been following these stories closely, you know that something unexpected usually happens just when I’m feeling confident.

On our walk home, Tim had the bright idea to see if I could actually text someone with my new number. The dude is a genius. Guess what? No texting was available, and the Orange account I opened to pay my phone bill was now locked. WTF. We turned around in the street to march back to Orange even though it was almost closing time. I said, “I don’t think we’ll have time to wait in the line again before they close.” That’s when Tim announced in his most privileged white man voice, “We’re not standing in a fucking line!”

As we entered the store, the woman was even less pleased to see us than the last time, and Tim approached her desk even though there was another customer there. “Take a ticket,” was her response. Damn. No amount of white privilege is getting this phone fixed.

We left the store, knowing that I was on my own with this problem since Tim was leaving that night. Dig deep, Teleen.

After Tim left, I cried for 5 minutes, hit my sadness time limit, and got to work. I spent the next two hours on Google, trying to solve my problem with the esim. Guess what? I somehow solved the problem! However, I didn’t solve the problem of my Orange account being locked. Damn.

On day 3 of sitting in Orange, I felt a strange camaraderie with the poor souls there. I even recognized a few people from my first two times in the line, and they were usually the clueless white people like me. At one point, I took it upon myself to help people use the computer to get in the line because it became clear to me that many people here are not necessarily computer literate. I was the strange white lady, Orange assistant, jumping up to help confused people enter their phone numbers in the computer and get a line number.

The third time at Orange was a charm. I finally found relief after another 3-hour line wait. The phone was finally fixed, the account activated, and I was forced to resign from my unofficial job as the Orange assistant.