More Photos From the Abissa

The Abissa, an 11-day celebration that includes singing, dancing, the honoring of chiefs, and an appearance by the King and the Queen Mother, offers an incredible opportunity to take lots of great photos. Here are the first few in the series I took in Oct-Nov 2008.

Portrait at the Abissa

Here's one of the portraits I took in 2008 at the Abissa celebration in Grand Bassam.

Interestingly enough, genetic analysis has revealed that at least 30 percent of our present-day African-American population is descended from people in this area, people from the N'Zima tribe. Duting the slave trade, slaves from this area were valued more highly than others. They were thought to be more beautiful, more handsome, and stronger. They were given the nickname "Apollo slaves."

Getting to Cote d'Ivoire from the United States

Twice I have traveled to Abdijan, Cote d'Ivoire, from the United States. Each time I went by a different route. I thought for those of you contemplating going to this part of West Africa, my experiences might help you decide which airline to take.

On my first trip, I went via Emirates Airlines. Since I am in Northern California, I first had to fly to JFK in New York, then board the Emirates Airlines flight. This flight took me across Africa (and across the Sahara) to Dubai, were I had about 8 hours layover. Emirates included a free night on a nearby hotel, so I got at least five hours sleep before boarding my next Emirates flight. To reach West Africa (first a brief stop at Accra, Ghana, and then a one hour flight on the same plane from Ghana to Cote d'Ivoire), we onhce again had to cross the Sahara. Let me tell you, the Sahara is immense. Simply overflying it in either direction took a huge amount of time. The Emirates trip took forever. I think I was traveling close to two days. not something you want to do if you can avoid it.

Fortunately for us folks on the West Coast, Emirates has since started flight from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Ghana. If my sense of geography is not totally confused, this would involve only one overflight of the Sahara, and would also avoid the flights between San Francisco and New York. I haven't flown by this route yet -- perhaps I will try it the next time I go to Cote d'Ivoire.

Let me just say that Emirates is a superb airline. The service is wonderful and the food is considerably better than the food served on most of its competitors.

The next year (2008) I went to Cote d'Ivoire by a different route. Again I went to JFK, but this time I boarded an Air France flight to Paris. I had several hours at the airport in Paris, then I boarded the flight to Abidjan. Again, excellent service and excellent food.

So your choice must be based on convenience and whether or not you perhaps wish to spend a few days in Dubai or Paris. I plan to spend a little while in one or another the next time I journey to Cote d'Ivoire.

Photos of Chiefs # 1

Portraits of the Chiefs # 2

Here are some portraits of chiefs that I took in 2008 when they were assembled at a function honoring them at the Abissa celebrations. My favorite ones are those that look straight into the eyes of the individual. Each one of these faces communicates something, and most of them differ in what they are communicating. Several of the 35 or so people there were women. I know just about nothing about the anthropology of Cote d'Ivoire and whether or not women are sometimes chiefs. But the culture is a matriarchal one -- inheritance goes through the mother, not the father -- so it seems at least possible that these women are indeed chiefs. If I discover otherwise, I will correct this narration.

Africa's Poor

In Cote d'Ivoire as in many other African countries you cannot help but notice that millions of people live in poverty. If you have struck up a friendship with any of these impoverished people, ma single questions nags at the back of your mind: how can these people be lifted out of their situation into something economically better

Between Abidjan and Grand Bassam lies a stretch of highway that passes through an area I was told is inhabited by Nigerians. The poverty there is dreadful. Huge piles of trash that make a few spots look like an American dump, thousands of rudimentary shelters, and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. I mention the sight not to judge anyone, but to note that the sights in this stretch of road absolutely force anyone but the most jaded to reflect on poverty and the difficulties of lifting anyone out of it.

This is a problem I have been wrestling with for moire than a year.

Obama's Election in Ivory Coast, West Africa

Were the people of Ivory Coast delighted by Obama's win ? You bet they were. When CNN announced that he had won, the hotel ballroom where the Obama Election Night watch was being held erupted in shouts of joy and happiness. The next day, a stranger came up to me in the streets of Abidjan, reached out, shook my hand, and said, "Thank you Thank you ! Thank you ! "

I'm Back from my 2008 Trip to Cote d'Ivoire

Hello, Folks,

I'm back from my 2008 trip to Cote d'Ivoire. Took the last few days in October and close to 3 weeks in November. As I mentioned in my blog describing my goals for the trip, I did indeed take about 4,000 photos, so I may well have a good enough selection for a photo book. I am still transmitting hundreds to an organization I took many of them for, but I will get back to posting many of them regularly here, too.

In the meantime, happy holidays to those rare individuals who actually come to this blog and look at my pics. May 2009 be your grandest year yet !

Coming Up -- The Abissa

I am now not quite a month out from my departure this year for Ivory Coast. It promises to be an especially interesting and exciting one.

Like last year's trip, this one will be primarily photographic. I'm planning on taking 4,000 to 5,000 photos. My objectives will be threefold: 1) To get enough photos to finish a photo book on Ivory Coast and The Gambia; 2) To photograph the Ivory Coast Bodybuilding Championships for my friends; and 3) To photograph the last few days of the "Abissa."

The Abissa is a local holiday said to last approximately two weeks. As I understand it -- and I reserve the right to be wrong and to correct my mistakes as I learn of them -- the calendar of the N'Zima people, who occupy an area that is now comprised of Southern Cote d'Ivoire and part of Ghana, is 50 weeks long, The extra two weeks are given over to celebrations and occur at approximately the same time each year. My trip was scheduled and my air travel reserved for dates that bring me to Cote d'Ivoire for just the last few days of the celebration. Next year I should plan on coming earlier because I will miss the first week of the event.

While I am there at the end of the celebrations, there will be a reception for N'Zima businessmen on one day, another reception for N'Zima chiefs on another, a procession of 50+ bodybuilders dressed as traditional N'Zima warriors through the old French Capital of Grand Bassam, and a bodybuilding competition. There may be dancing and drumming and all kinds of other things packed into those last few days, too, but I don't yet know what the schedule is like.

Two especially interesting aspects of this celebration -- I am told, and haven't verified it from several sources -- that husbands and wives get rid of their pent-up aggressions against each other by cross-dressing and publicly making fun of each other; and the Abissa itself is said to represent the origins of Caribbean carnivales, the idea having been taken from this area by slaves who were shipped to the New World.

Granbd Bassam, where the celebrations take place, was for just a few years at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, the colonial capital of France in the area. This ended after about six years when an epidemic of yellow fever wiped out 3/4 of the people, both locals and French. The capital was quickly moved elsewhere, but many of the old French colonial-style buildings are said still to be there, some restored, many in disrepair and occupied by squatters.

I will try to get photos up in this blog soon after my return in mid-November.

Looking Forward to This October - November

I shall be returing to do photography in Cote d'Ivoire this October - November, and I am greatly looking foward to it. I shall be spending five days -- my first five -- at Grand Bassam, a beach area that used to be the French administrative capital of Cote d'Ivoire until early in the 20th Century yellow fever wiped out a large number of the French. The area has been nominated as a special World Heritage Site, and if the United Naions has not yet designated it as this, it may do so soon.

What is special about the timing of my visit is that I shall be able to photograph dancing and traditional ceremonies involved in the Abissa, which is a celebration lasting up to two weeks that is said to be the ancestor of all Caribbean carnivals, including the one at Rio. This should be a rare opportunity, and I should return with hundreds of photos -- no, thousands -- some of which, I hope, will be great ones.