Election reflection

We’re at the end of our week off and it has been an interesting week for sure. I’ve been honing my time-killing skills, making cookies and yesterday I watched some chickens get killed. Lots of new experiences.

Two weeks ago one of the girls made these cookies and they were so tasty so I wanted to see how they’re made. We went to the market to buy the ingredients, but since the market was only like half full, it took awhile. It was hard to find coconuts and then it was hard to find flour and the prices are all higher than normal. All thanks to the elections. The recipe calls for coconut flakes so of course we bought 3 coconuts and grated them. I prefer to buy the pre-made flakes in a bag, but shockingly that wasn’t available at the market. The recipe wasn’t very complicated but it was interesting to make them with the girls because the rolling pin was an old coke bottle and the cookie cutter was a glass jar. The cookies turned out ok but we ended up being kind of rushed at the end and in Sr Yvettes opinion they were ‘not good at all’. So we’ll try again another day.

Another food-related experience was yesterday I went with Sr Vicky to this farm where we usually buy eggs but this time we bought 5 chickens too. The guy tied them all together and we took them home. I guess they’re really into the whole free range/organic thing here. A little while later I was outside when I came across the gardener, Rudolph, who had just killed them. None of them ran around after having their heads cut off so it was a bit of a let down. After that the girls took the chickens and put them in big plastic buckets with warm water to pluck them. Just plucking chickens with my girlfriends, the usual. I took a whack at it and removed a few feathers, but once is probably enough for me. The girls asked, ‘don’t you do this where you live?’ As I explained how it’s a little different (ie frozen nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs) I imagined my friends and I hanging out, plucking chickens. It was kind of hard to imagine.

Election shenanigans are still going on and the deadline for the electoral commission to announce the results came and went. Then yesterday afternoon the commission announced that Outtara (not the current pres) won with 54 percent. We watched it on a French TV channel, but the Ivorian TV channel didn’t show the press conference. A little while later, while we were watching our favourite Telemundo soap opera, an announcement went across the bottom of the screen saying that only the constitutional counsel (controlled by the current pres) can announce the results because the electoral commission missed their deadline by 12 hours. Then they closed all the borders (sorry all you Liberians who were trying to vacation here) and cut all the international news channels. I guess they cut it in Abidjan first because we were still able to watch the French station even as they announced that they’ve been suspended from Cote d’Ivoire. Today though I guess it’s cut everywhere because we no longer have it.

The constitutional counsel has 7 days to announce the results. So another week on hold where no one does anything. It really ticks me off and it’s not even my country so I imagine people are pretty mad. The current president has been there for 10 years, but I guess that’s not enough for him. I guess for him the power is worth the huge lose of productivity and the sporadic violence. His whole campaign was about peace and his campaign symbol was even a hand giving the peace sign. Ugh.

So that’s it for here. Just waiting for the ‘results’ so things can get back to normal. Most importantly I hope the tailor has been able to finish my new outfit. Just kidding but really I hope things get back to normal.

Thanks for reading!