Last week, my Ivorian colleague invited me to a cultural festival at the local university, and I was, of course, happy to attend. What does a cultural festival mean? I have no idea.

Here is the pattern of my life here: I get invited to an event. I say yes. I don’t know exactly what I agreed to, but I know what it might be. I arrive at the event. I think I am at the wrong event because what is happening does not resemble what I expected. Then I suddenly see the person who invited me. I am confused, but I go with it. Repeat this 3x per week.

The cultural event was this situation but amplified. The event was supposed to start at 10, so I arrived at 9:45. My American colleague, Jim, and I were seated in the front row because, apparently, we were honored guests. As usual, the event was not even close to starting at 10, and at about 10:45, my Ivorian friend asked us to step outside to get ready for the event. I thought I had already been ready, but apparently not.

Once outside, students rushed us, holding large swaths of African fabric, different kinds of jewelry, things for my hair, and face paint. It was not enough that the Americans were in attendance, but it was important to the crowd that we were also dressed appropriately for the occasion.

After about 15 minutes of preparation, we reentered the room to loud applause. Jim was wearing no less than 5 yards of fabric wrapped around him in a strange way that he had to hold to walk. I was wearing a makeshift skirt, a necklace, and anklets made out of macaroni (which I believe were supposed to stand in for cowrie shells), an African headband, and white tribal face paint.

Everyone rushed to take pictures of us, and we posed for photos for at least 20 more minutes. When the program finally started at 11:30, I turned to Jim and asked him how I looked. He said, “You look good but in an appropriating kind of way.” Truth.

You can’t see my macaroni anklets in this photo. They were festive!