As expected, my first friends in Côte d’Ivoire have been an eclectic mix of people. The group at this point mainly consists of a couple of Americans who are in similar positions to mine and a group of Ivorians who are very confused/intrigued by me. I also have a group of future friends in the hopper, although most don’t know I am targeting them for the future friend zone.

One of my American friends, JM, is an architecture professor from the US who is assigned here as a Fulbright Scholar. He was born in Italy, raised in Venezuela, emigrated to the US, and lives in South Florida with his 90+-year-old mother. He has visited over 120 countries and lived in many of them during the course of his career.

This guy is such a great mix of interesting, funny, and fun that he was my perfect first friend. Also, he hauled his mom out of South Florida and set her up with him in his apartment in Abidjan. She doesn’t speak French or English (not that English is a useful language here) and has a bad knee. That should tell you most of what you need to know about this guy.

Early in my time here, JM asked me if I would like to join him and his mom on a day trip to Grand-Bassam, a nearby beach town. I needed no convincing. I knew little about Grand-Bassam other than it is a place that everyone talks about. He also invited me for dinner at his apartment when we arrived back in Abidjan that evening. That sounded like a heavy lift to prepare dinner after a big day out, but I’m not in a position to turn down any invitation that comes my way.

The day we left, JM told me that he had hired a tour guide to take us on a walking tour of the village to look at the architecture since there were a lot of French colonial buildings in that area. His mom would not be joining us for that tour, given her bad knee, but he planned to sit her at a cafe for the duration of our tour.

JM rented the Yango so we could get to Grand-Bassam. Like Uber, the Yango app has different service levels at various price points. An “Economy Yango” will get you a car, sometimes well-kept and sometimes not, occasionally with seatbelts and always with the windows down. If you order a “Comfort Yango,” you get the exact same thing but with the windows up and the air-conditioning on. Most times, I hire an “Economy Yango,” as I’m fairly acclimated to the heat, but for a longer drive, the Comfort Yango is definitely the way to go. Unfortunately, JM rented the Economy version for that trip, and I could feel the secondary regret seep out of every pore in my body as we sat in a giant traffic jam, un-seatbelted, baking in our tuna can car. We got pulled over by the cops once during the ride, at which time our driver looked very nervous, and his hands started shaking as he handed over his ID. Hmmmm. That did not inspire confidence.

Once we arrived in Grand-Bassam, JM installed his mother at a lovely hotel restaurant and told the waiter we would be back soon to order lunch. JM’s mom had a bottle of water and her iPad loaded with sudoku, prepared to sit tight for a bit. The tour guide arrived, and we were on our way for the walking tour.

What I thought would be a short tour (maybe 1-1.5 hours?) turned into a 4-hour epic journey around a small town where we saw every monument and building. We saw run-down colonial mansions as well as shacks lived in by the people fishing off the coast. It was the most comprehensive tour of any tiny town that could exist. During the entire time, I was thinking about JM’s mom sitting at the hotel with only water and sudoku.

When we FINALLY arrived back at the restaurant, the server seemed scared that something had happened to us. He likely anticipated being stuck with this elderly Spanish-speaking woman if we never returned. By this time, it was about 4pm, and JM ordered his mom lunch, partially because she was hungry and partially because the server wanted some compensation for the day of subtly babysitting this woman. JM ordered lobster for his mom, which apparently is her favorite.

I think the people in the kitchen had to go to the fish market to buy the lobster and then cook it because the enormous lobster meal arrived at the table around 5pm. JM said we should share it because he didn’t want to eat much. After all, we were having dinner at his house, which I was beginning to doubt with every passing second.

As it turns out, the ocean at Grand-Bassam is unswimmable unless you want to die, which I don’t, so once the meal was done we were ready to leave. I volunteered to order the Yango for the return trip to Abidjan at around 6pm. I had two motives in this endeavor: 1) to share the cost of the trip with JM, and 2) to order a Comfort Yango for the return trip. After the 20,000-step day, I needed some sweet AC. Before ordering the Yango, I just ran to the bathroom to prepare for the return trip, and while I was in the toilet, JM ordered the Economy Yango because he is kind, thoughtful, and apparently a glutton for punishment.

As expected, the traffic jam was in full force when we hit the main road for Abidjan, and I had never felt more smelly, gummy, and downright repulsive in my life. To pass the time in the car, JM talked about everything he would make for dinner that night, including two kinds of soup, lasagne, grilled chicken, a vegetable platter, and a salad. In Venezuela, they must eat at midnight because although I love to host dinner parties as much as anyone, that menu would take the better part of a day to prepare, based on my past experience.

When we finally arrived back at JM’s apartment, I was exhausted and wanted to cancel our dinner plans. However, I knew a rude move like that would get me stricken from the guest list for future events. Did I mention this was a Sunday? I was certain that this dinner would put us into the wee hours of Monday morning, but that’s not great from a job perspective. I forced myself to lean into this strange day and sit my sweaty self down to enjoy it.

As we arrived at the apartment’s front door, JM’s key refused to turn in the lock. Gah! This story seems to last forever…..

We fooled with the lock for a good 15 minutes, at which point JM called the building maintenance person to help. If anything, the societal systems in Côte d’Ivoire are even more elusive than in France, where you will get an eye roll and possibly a receiver slam when you ask someone to do something useful on a Sunday evening. At that point, I knew this night would never end, and I believed JM and his mom might be staying at a hotel that evening. I finally made the door lock incident the reason for my departure.

Having a friend like JM is fantastic because he perfectly blends eternal enthusiasm and suspension of reality. It is an exciting combination.

I happily ordered my Comfort Yango for the ride home.

ps – The maintenance person arrived about 20 minutes after I left. Phew….

Below you will find some of my future friends. They walk every morning at the same time that I do and I am slowly trying to infiltrate their group.