With tourism being the main topic in many of my classes this week, I found it quite interesting being seated among the students as a tourist myself. There are many reasons why people travel and the students listed them: for business, to meet new people, to learn about cultures, to profit in some way…They debated about the Ivory Coast’s most prized attractions that bring visitors from all over the world. In my several muses during class that can quickly be confused with daydreaming or spacing-out, I have thought of myself and my travels here. I oftentimes don’t have a motive for taking big leaps like this and being a tourist, except for being convinced by an empowering testimonial from a previous participant or the obvious cultural exchange component that can be attractive to US employers while I’m finding a future job. Why did I decide to go 5,000 miles away from my home, to a place that I know nothing about, to do a job that I have no experience in by any means? Good question. Honestly, I don’t know.
But if I have learned anything so far in my adult life, it’s that sometimes you don’t need a concrete explanation for things. Sometimes it just feels right. You have to do it.
I will say that as I prepared for my travels, there was one resource that always had a catchy view of Yamoussoukro (Yakro): YouTube. During all of the orientation sessions and throughout the final application process for Fulbright, the only answer I could get people to muster about Yamoussoukro is that it is “interesting.” I categorize interesting as not bad, but also not descriptive enough to signal anything else. I grew stressed not knowing (patience is a key virtue that I am learning), so I turned to what I did know. I knew how to type Yamoussoukro into a search engine and this is what I found…History, large roads, and crocodiles! Take a minute and see what’s here; this is my new home!
Ivory Coast Times 