Woman Enters Man...

Since we didn't have Liberian visas, Booboo and I decided to go back through the forest region of Guinea, on the Most Gorgeous Roads of our collective lives and enter Cote D'Ivoire on the west, in the region called Man. The more we learned about the rebel strong-hold there, the more nervous we became about having to deal with that when every single border control officer was already demanding bribes. The others weren't so bad: in Sierra Leone, they suggested giving an additional sum, although they didn't recquire it. Ha! The second time back in Guinea, the small soft-spoken Very Pulaar man said, "Wait but you have to pay us!" I got little farther in my speech beyond, "No we don't!" before he settled back with a little giggle and said, "Okaaaay." Bless the pulaars.

On the way out of Guinea, we literally woke up some guards who quickly tried to look as important and professional as they could, while wiping the sleep from their eyes. My favorite part was when the "security officer" said in english that he should really check our bags, otherwise how would he know what's in them? Booboo said, "I just told you!" in a petulent 8 year old voice. Then the best part: she fist pumped to the said, and in the way that you'd hiss, "Yessss!" she said, "Trust!" I bit my lip to keeo from busting out laughing and tried to solemnly nod along instead. They all let us go with their phone numbers.

It wasn't quite so funny in Cote D'Ivoire. Our reservations were not unfounded. The rebel soldiers were all high on power trips and carrying their guns showily everywhere. (Ahh, compensation.) The plan Booboo and I decided on beforehand was that I didn't speak french well-- only pulaar and english. My goal was to channel Reece Witherspoon from Legally Blonde, but less annoyingly. So we smiled and said, "What???" a lot, and giggled. At one point I was having trouble summoning a credible giggle (since I actually understood the lewd things they were saying), so I literally said out loud in english, "Giggle....!" and the ridiculousness of that in turn got a few good ones out of each of us.

At the first post, the men were all over us and it wasn't too hard to be legally blonde until they were tired of asking for money. We accepted banana cookies and nodded a lot and shook everyone's hand and didn't say or "understand" much more beyond answering our destination and saying, "touristes!" The other guys in our car with whom I'd talked to a bit must have been suspicious, but they didn't rat me out.

The next one was the worst. A camo-clad guy on the back of a moto demanded my passport and shouted about it not being stamped. So we had to leave all our bags and our arguments with the massa bus people and trudge over to the gendarmerie.

I said, "Assala Malykum" and the leader rebel soldier answered, "But I'm Christian! How dare you greet me like that!" and his underlings cackled. I tried not to roll my eyes and said, "Well then greetings under the eyes of god..."

Oops! First Legally Blonde slip! I quickly stuttered some unintelligable ameri-french, but his eyes were narrowed. So we began our worst exchange with the rebel soldiers. This guy was ridiculous, not used to ever hearing "no," and a fan of playing with his gun.

The rest of my L.B. performance should win me an Oscar, if I do say so myself. Things went mostly like this:

Rebel Leader: "I don't care that you have your rubbish visa! It doesn't matter here! This is a war-zone and now you need to answer to us. We don't work with that embassy, so now you must pay us too! It's the only way!"

Me: "Yes... visa?... we have... no to-pay..."

The guys were all quite scary and prone to shouting and on the inside my heart was racing and I kept having to swallow. On the outside, I did my best to maintain the same L.B. placid expression. I concentrated on appropriately balancing my three weapons: stupidity, charming feminine wiles, and the side of justice. Mostly the first two.

When things fell too much on the last point, "You... here... to live?... is good?" + smile + small giggle. Woo, back in balance.

When we still weren't paying, he brought in a "translater." Luckily his english was almost as bad as my fake french. I batted my eyelashes at him. (Who knew people could successfully bat eyelashes outside of loony toons? But, YOU CAN.)

After a very long and tiring interrogation; I finally stammered that we didn't even have enough CFA to give them-- just enough for the bus that was waiting for us! This was not far from the truth. I asked them if there were banks and hotels in Man. The mood wasn't at all set for this touristy question, but I wanted to blatently ignore the mood and make them feel in some sort of authority still.

They finally let us go after getting our numbers and giving us theirs. (They wouldn't have rested otherwise-- with all the other soldiers bound to ask them what they got out of us, they needed to be able to show off something.) Of all the preposterous ideas, though. Like I'm really going to call up some power-tripping jerk and try to have another terrifying conversation with him? What are they thinking? I almost can't wait for them to call my American cell phone while I'm in line at Starbucks or something. I'll say to the cashier, "Hold on, it's a corrupt rebel soldier leader in Cote D'Ivoire... just a second... but I'll have a cappucino..."

There were many more soldier checkpoints after this and over and over we took out our passports, refused bribe demands, summoned fake smiles, and took peoples' numbers. If we weren't young women, I honestly don't think we could have ever gotten through all those with any money left. But instead of feeling celebratory about it, our terror kept growing. On the road, every spotted outfit and farming machete slung over regular peoples' shoulders looked like camo-clad soldiers with guns. Over and over, our hearts hammered from the psychological mirage. When we finally got into a hotel room and locked the door, we hugged each other and tried to laugh. But all night our terror still reigned and we both had camo-clad nightmares.

This experience has given me a new respect for people who go through battles and war. If we were so affected by a single day without even any true threat of being killed, I truly can't imagine what it's like for soldiers or the civilians caught among them. At the same time, I feel like I hate the concept of soldiers more than ever. I know so many poeple becomesoldiers, but I really think it's hard to impossible for this to not negatively affect them. The uniforms, the guns, the power, the separation from "regular people", the tangled responsibilities of following any order and dismissing previous independent philosophies of what's right and what's wrong. What else but these philosophies makes us humans?

I hope I'm not offending anyone by this. I know it's a sensative subject to criticize a practice for which so many of our loved ones have died. But I mean to criticize the system that killed or broke them, not the original people who enter into it.

Anyway, being on the side of the somewhat hunted, I began to wonder what exactly the differences were between rebel army occupation of northern Cote D'Ivoire and American army occupation elseware. I know we're more organized, with at least some official systems in place for answering for your actions. And we have fancier equipment and sweeter rides. But in how many people's nightmares do our American soldiers feature?

To end lightly, I'll share a bizarrely coincidental message from the fates: As I wearily settled back into my half-seat on the bus after yet another check-point, I was starting to doubt the way I was dealing with it all. Suddenly, a moto comes by, and in pink letters on the driver's shirt says: LEGALLY BLONDE. If that's not a sign that it'll all be okay, I don't know what is!