Coasting along the Ébrié lagoon, we passed by the local villagers in their long wooden boats, casting their nets for the first catch of the day.  Pink-backed pelicans and African darters flew along with Dad at the helm, into the beginning of a promising day. We were nearing our part of the narrow coastal strip. We could tell by the way the lagoon tapered a little, and by two particularly large palm trees bowing over the muddy water. They had been battered severely during last year’s rainy season but managed to stay whole despite the heavy rain.

We rented the piece of land that our paillottes were on from the local chef du village. Part of the rent deal was to provide a bottle of Gordon’s Dry Gin to the chief every time we used the place. 

The chief wouldn’t let us dock until he had the bottle safely in his withered old hands. 

“It’s as if he can smell the damn gin,” Mum said one particular time.  Without fail, as soon as we could spot the dock from the boat, we would spot him too, on the shore, waving at us with enthusiasm. His wide Cheshire grin reached all the way out to us in the lagoon. His appearance always jarred me.  A shirtless torso revealed protruding ribs. Threadbare shorts hung loosely on his waist, accentuating stick thin legs. Afro curls, pepper-colored with age, matched his unkempt beard which protruded from his chin in asymmetrical clumps.  

Dad pulled the throttle back into neutral putting us into coast mode as we slowly drifted towards the dock. He looked over his shoulder and his eyes fell on the bottle. He looked at Simon and said, “Can you throw the bottle to him?”

“Yeah!” Simon jumped up with glee, grabbed the bottle, steadied himself first, then hurled it with a grunt towards the sandy shore. The bottle landed with a thud in the black sand, at the chief’s feet.

“Merci…Merci bien,” he shouted over the noise of the boat’s outboard engine.  He waved goodbye and disappeared into the African bush. Simon and I played “find the chief” at the end of each first evening we were there. We would find him under a different palm tree, each time, passed out with the bottle of gin lying empty by his side. His sons, at some point after dusk, would come by and pick up their inebriated Dad and carry him home without a word.

Dad docked the boat with ease. Quinn was the first one off the boat. Despite his wounds, he skidded off the side of the boat and jumped onto the shore. The only thing we could see of him was his long spaniel ears popping up above the tall grasses as he bounded through the bush towards the paillottes.

“I’ll moor the boat, Dad!” Simon shouted, also nimbly jumping off the bow of the boat onto the sludgy shore. Simon and I were always competing against one another, like typical siblings. I scrambled off the boat with him. We raced to see who could grab the dock line first. Simon beat me to it, only just. However, bringing the boat in closer needed our combined strength, so we pulled together and tied the bowline around the tree.  The boat’s engine purred softly as Dad brought it towards the water’s edge so Mum could jump off directly onto the shore. Once the boat was moored, I grabbed hold of Simon’s hand  and whispered in his ear “Come on, let’s go!” Before he could agree, and Mum and Dad could say otherwise, we were both laughing and running down the sandy path through the rough scrub towards the paillottes. I remember many a time, along the way, we would pick up pieces of fallen branches as large as machetes. We slashed at the tall brush along the make-shift sandy trail, pretending to be explorers in the jungle. The deafening sound of cicadas surrounded us as soon as we left the shoreline. It felt like we plunged into an alternate reality. We reveled in it. 

“Careful of the snakes, kids!” We heard Dad’s muffled warning, as we rushed off. There were snakes in Assinie; horned vipers, mambas, pythons. The black mamba was the one to be wary of. We knew how deadly they were. There had been a few sightings but Simon and I weren’t too worried. We knew that snakes, in general, were more scared of us than we were of them.

The chattering of birds up in the trees was so loud it was ear-piercing, but it felt wonderfully liberating, allowing us to feel free, like all the creatures that surrounded us. We had a few minutes of this loud raucous song, then as the path wound closer to the ocean side of the sand bar, the birds grew quieter and the powerful sound of the crashing ocean waves took over.

The guardien’s hut was about half a mile before the main entrance to our piece of land. When he heard us dashing by he knew that was his cue to the start of his weekend job. He sucked his teeth, stumbled over one of his chickens that pecked at the ground, and ambled slowly towards the lagoon side to help fetch the bags and supplies from the boat. Simon and I waved to his half-naked, pot-bellied, snot-nosed, sparkly-eyed bevy of children and shouted bonjour to his wife. She was sweeping the sand outside their hut, wearing a bright green and orange kaftan covering the bottom half of her body only. The top half was naked. She was multi-tasking; a tiny newborn suckling from one breast, and a slightly older child, on her back, swathed in cloth, suckling on the other breast, which was flipped over her shoulder. The first time I saw her magnificent breasts I was fascinated. I had seen nothing like them before. They were long and thin reaching down to her waist. She would wear her breasts like a scarf around her neck to tuck them away. 

The sea mesmerized Simon and me, drawing us in with its hypnotic roar. We flicked our flip-flops off and ran through our land, passed the main living hut, the bedroom huts, the toilet, and shower hut, past at least twenty palm trees, dodging and jumping over abandoned coconuts that had fallen from their nests.  The beach rose up to a crest of bright, white sand and then plunged down into an enormously wide golden sandy carpet towards the dark blue ocean. The expanse of blue went as far as our eyes could see.

It was hard to believe that the day was just beginning. The sun was not yet at its highest point. I squinted down the long beach and saw Quinn galumphing into a flock of poor seagulls, peacefully going about their daily business, picking out marine worms from the sand. He was in his element. I knew we weren’t going to see him until it was time to go home. It was his paradise as well as ours. He spent the whole weekend chasing and barking at seagulls and crabs and sniffing out other dogs. He was even partial to jumping in the sea every now and then and surf the waves. He always came out looking a bit dazed and half drowned with the force of them.

“Kids, time for lunch!” we heard Mum shout in the distance. My stomach grumbled reminding me that it needed filling before more fun started.

Simon and I ran to the main paillotte where Mum had already stocked the gas fridge and was busy making sandwiches with the fresh baguette that we had picked up at Maison du Pain. Every time I think of those sandwiches my mouth salivates with the memory of how delicious they were. Mine was baguette with rillettes, a thick salty pork pate paste. Simon’s was baguette with butter and ham. We wolfed them down and Mum lathered us with lotion. Even though our skin was an already a honeyed golden brown, with the constant sun exposure, Mum insisted on sun lotion. We ruffled through the bags for our swimmers, threw them on and ran back to the beach.

“Remember, no swimming in the sea until one of us is there,” she called after us. 

The seagulls were still there. Flocks of them. More than usual. Simon and I jogged closer to find out why. They spread their wings and flew away as we approached, their three-pronged prints marking the semi-wet sand. As well as the birds sand markings, there were other strange indentations in the sand. Up close, the indents were round. Simon dug his hand in; his usual fascination with all creatures great and small getting the best of him. He pulled something out of the sand exclaiming, “It’s some sort of sea shell. A whole one too! I bet we can eat these!!” I started digging and pulled one out quite easily. It laid nicely in the palm of my hand. The animal inside was making a quick retreat. Its white softness retreating back into its hard shell.

Mum and Dad walked up to us. They had changed into their swimmers. Dad in his little black speedos and Mum in a bikini bottom. 

“Hey kids what did you find?” asked Dad. “They’re clams,” he said, peering into my hand, “and big ones at that. We should have them for supper. Simon, run and fetch a couple of buckets so we can collect as many as we can. We can make something delicious…maybe some spaghetti and a white wine sauce.” https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/linguine-with-white-clam-sauce-recipe-2011623

“What do you think darling?” he asked Mum, giving her a squeeze. Dad licked his lips subconsciously.

“Great idea honey.”

“Go with your brother Samantha,” she said,  “he could do with a hand in carrying the buckets.”

We skipped back to the paillotte, collected two buckets and sprinted back to the seashore. We saw that Mum and Dad had fished out at least 10 large clams already.

“Let’s get these little buggers in the bucket soon before they dig themselves under again,” said Dad. I marveled at how quickly they disappeared under the sand once our fingers had dug them up. 

We filled both buckets with sea water and plopped a dollop of sand at the bottom of each bucket, giving the clams a false sense of home. We dug and filled both buckets until they were brimming. 

The rest of the day went by. Mum and Dad disappeared for their usual afternoon nap. Simon and I played cards, read and got bored in the living room, impatiently waiting for them to wake up so we could go and swim. Once they awoke, we went body surfing in the sea. The waves were so high and crashed so close to the seashore, the spill came almost halfway up the beach. We surfed until we could see the foam of the waves glow in the dark. Mum and Dad coaxed us out of the phosphorescent water. Our skin, wrinkled and waterlogged, our bodies bone tired from the long day.  

After a quick, cold shower Mum served us the much-awaited spaghetti with clams. It was delicious and juicy.  Simon and I flopped into bed, sandy feet and all. We both fell asleep in a wink, dreaming of clams, crabs and glowing light.

At the time, Cote D’Ivoire, was one of the most peaceful countries on the continent. It was a country at peace with itself with strong ties to some European countries, particularly France. There were numerous white foreigners living there when we were there, but we were still the minority to the local population. The color of our skin made us stand out. Even though we were by no means a wealthy family, we did have more advantages than many Ivorian families; a roof over our heads, a car, extra money for family holidays, domestic help, and such the like. A few family friends or Dad’s European work colleagues would report of muggings or burglaries, kids being unable to play unsupervised in their own back gardens. Apart from the time my Dad was chased out of the store on the way to Assinie, we had few issues, if any. My parents shared some truths with me only recently. One of them being about the guardien, Marcel, who guarded our house in Abidjan. Quite by coincidence he was the chef du village in our local neighborhood. He was a formidable character. His tall lean body towered over Dad who was a tall man himself. His ebony skin was darker than most locals. A constant frown on his beautiful black face. He kept spears in the garage. François, the cook, told us one day that he had heard from some of the locals that the spears were covered in poison. I didn’t believe François at the time but one day Simon and I saw Marcel wiping them clean. The color left on the cleaning rag was a reddish color. Maybe blood, I thought. We were fascinated and terrified by him at the same time. As the chef du village, he was the king on the street. Lucky for us, he forbade anyone to touch our home, and protected it well. 

When I look back at the childhood my brother and I had in West Africa, I realize how lucky we were.  My parents allowed us to roam relatively free. We spent weeks tormenting unassuming lizards, fascinated by their tail-dropping and its regrowth. We trapped praying mantises in corn chip cans and with typical child curiosity watched nature take its course when the females ate the males. We biked to friend’s houses in the local neighborhood and sometimes walked home from the local French school. 

My parents have always said that they felt safe during their time in Abidjan but I have always wondered, if Marcel hadn’t been the chef du village, would our time in Abidjan have been different?