My time in Côte d’Ivoire has been a mishmash of many jobs (just as I like it). I teach English-speaking classes at the Embassy, I run the English Club at the American Space on the university campus, I conduct teacher training for English teachers around Côte d’Ivoire (and Burkina Faso remotely), I teach English to university students at my host university, and I’m writing a curriculum for hospitality/tourism (oh, and I used to run the Women’s English Club before the Merry Band of Freedom Thieves canceled it). So many independent things are happening here; sometimes, it feels like trying to zip-tie a squid.

In addition to my regular job (whatever that means), each Fellow is supposed to have a side project during their fellowship. There is no guidance at all on this one. You pick something you like and do it. Since I have many random interests, I thought this would be easy for me, but putting any concept into action is the most challenging part. Coming up with a project, planning it, and implementing it can be overwhelming, especially when trying to learn about another culture and sound smart in French: Bonne chance, girl.

Fortunately, I have a secret weapon on my side—Adi. He works at the same university as I do and has served as my mentor, colleague, and friend during my time here. Fortunately for me, he is super creative and very funny (since we spend a lot of time together).

We started talking one day about his idea for a public speaking group. Further conversation led us to conclude that this idea should be my side project, but I didn’t want to run a debate-style club. With the state of politics in the US, debate is as appealing to me as sitting in a Yango with a urinal cake. Instead, I decided that I wanted to create a club modeled after my favorite storytelling organization in the US—The Moth.

We decided to call our group Story Connections and it took us a couple of weeks to pull the idea together. We created a group of people (primarily women: FU, Mr. Cheeto President) who decided on their stories, wrote them (in English), refined them, and practiced them to prepare for a final event.

We had 11 storytellers on the night of the event. The stories we heard that night made us all laugh and cry – I am not exaggerating. There were stories about war, sexual violence, overcoming tremendous obstacles, and acceptance. I have rarely felt more proud and motivated by a group of people before. Imagine standing before a live audience and telling a personal story in a language other than your native language…. Remarkably difficult to do and very inspiring.

We filmed all the stories that night, so we plan to create a YouTube channel for our group. When it’s ready, I’ll be sure to share it here so you can laugh and cry with me. I also told a story that night (teachers must be the models, after all), which I might share here. It’s a good one.

In January, we started our group again with a new group of storytellers. We currently have 61 participants. Yay!