Today was the International Day agains HIV/Aids, aka World Aids Day, and naturally it was celebrated all over Côte d'Ivoire. Even though the Ministère de la Lutte contre le Sida (the Ministry for the fight against Aids), seemed to have forgotten about it and was doing some works on their website, so it was not ready to be visited today:
In Abengourou there were several activities during the weekend, including a football league between different schools in town, an ecumenic mass and an art exhibition. The vernissage of the art exhibit took place yesterday afternoon at the Alliance Franco-Ivoirienne, which is one of the nicest places to eat or have a drink in Abengourou. One of my friends was involved in organizing it, so I attended all of it during several hours. The thing is that any event with authorities present in it, even if these authorities are very local, needs to have many repetitive and boring speeches. I guess otherwise it doesn't feel important enough.
Some of the works of art were quite interesting, though, especially the sculptures around the garden. I saw a lot of eyebrows raising while looking at them, and with good reason. Take a look at this one, for example. What the hell is this woman doing?
According to the artist, who was there answering some questions about his works, the overall theme of the sculptures was that nothing should be taboo or embarrassing when talking about HIV/Aids, everything should be discussed. Such as the female condom, which was discussed at great length with some visual aids as you can see below:
Today at 8am the students of Abengourou marched around the center of town with banners. Some of them had the usual messages to be expected, such as this one saying "Ensemble contre le Sida" ("Together against Aids").
But other signs were more interesting, like the one by the awesomely named Réseau des Planteurs contre le Sida et les Grandes Endémies (the Planters Network against Aids and the Great Endemic Diseases), saying: "Planteur sain, cacao sain", which means "Healthy planter, healthy cocoa". Do I need to add that the guys had great costumes made of cocoa tree branches?
Other signs were written using Nouchi expressions (Ivoirian French) such as the ones below. I'm not sure about the meaning of the one on the left, but the middle one says "Pas d'enjaillement avant mariage", which literally means "No enjoyment before marriage". The one on the right says "Qui ne fait rien, ne risque rien, et n'a rien", which means "The one who doesn't do anything, doesn't take any risks, doesn't get anything".
Then we enjoyed another official marathon of official speeches and a never-ending awards ceremony in the City Hall's gardens. The awards were for organizations and people who had shown great commitment to the fight against HIV/Aids in Abengourou, and each time they had to call somebody to give the award and pose for the photographers.
For me, the big hightlight of the day was seeing the King of the Indénié sitting in his throne throught the whole thing looking, er, royal. Naturally, they honored him with a couple of awards but he didn't collect them personally, only getting up at the very end to be greeted by a select few and get into his car. While being sheltered by a golden umbrella by his aides:
Next on my list: visiting the King's Palace and, who knows, even meeting him.
If by any chance you didn't get enough of World Aids Day in Abengourou, then you can satisfy your needs at Ndzulo's blog.
