In our hospitality and tourism class, my colleague and I asked students to make a list of places that people should want to visit when they come to Côte d’Ivoire. The students listed many typical things: the various beaches, the mountains, Ivorian restaurants, and some locally famous neighborhoods. As the students were shouting out all the places, I wrote the names on the board at the front of the room. Then a student yelled, “fetish houses.”

It was a mental record scratch moment. One second I was thinking about a beautiful beach scene and the next my mind was filled with an Ivorian dominatrix with a whip and a leather outfit.

“Do people really come to Côte d’Ivoire for fetish houses?” I wondered aloud. This student insisted that on many occasions, tourists asked him to be taken to fetish houses. So I wrote “fetish houses” on the board.

Who am I to say what passes for tourism here?

Later in the conversation, I wanted to find out more about the fetish houses because I had not heard of this allegedly popular tourist pastime during my time here. It is a fairly religious country and the idea of leather and bondage didn’t mesh with my understanding of this place.

When I questioned this guy further about the money for sex scene in Côte d’Ivoire he was confused. It turns out that when he said, “fetish house” he meant a place in a village for tribal ceremonies with traditional African masks, tribal dancing, and rituals. That makes a lot more sense than my leather/bondage image.

One of two things could be happening here: 1) my mind lives in the gutter, or 2) the fetish house terminology needs a bit of clarification from an English language perspective.

In any case, I vote that we keep these sacred places off the American tourist agenda.