UNTIL THE DAY

Living on Ile Boulay, Baie des Milliardaires, one of the most exclusive places in Abidjan, has not been the dream I thought it would be the day my wife first suggested that our peace of mind was right there on the famous isle, awaiting us 20 minutes from the mainland by way of a short boat trip… And, also, that we should forget it all and make it happen immediately…

The financial and technical challenges of building a brand new, fully equipped and thoroughly functioning house in a place so infrastructurally remote it bares no evidence of running tap water (outside of private boreholes every single homeowner has to build if he/she ever plans on surviving), combined with the everyday marital affairs of diverting point of views and full blown arguments about how to do things took far heavier a toll on my mental and physical state than I could have imagined.

Nearing completion, the whole ordeal had already left me with a clutter of opposite feelings ranging from utter bitterness to actual amazement, even elation, at the very manifestation of it all. Now completed and having been so for a full year, the beautiful villa named after our two beloved grandmas, despite being stocked with proof of everyday life like dirty clothes and empty trash bags, is still not quite a home for me…

Perhaps this explains my heightened senses every time I step foot onto the yellowish sand which leads me to this place of mine not quite mine, especially when the kids’ laughters aren’t around to melt away the dread of being cut out of the world thanks to a defective boat’s engine (a rare occurrence) or a shabby internet connection (a common occurrence).

Still, when the sun sits atop the early evening breeze and its light defines that golden hour the artist in me always seeks, I let my mind wonder and my eyes wander around, showing appreciation for the couple of pirogues floating, the many boats cruising and the litany of jet skies whirlwinding at random, the latter, I guess, for wild fun, the prior for nearby private hotel transportation and the first for a chance for local fishermen to throw their man-made fishnets over the troubled, unfriendly, grayish waters hoping to catch a couple of small fishes and bring them home to the family, for the family, little as it may be, has to live…

So I grab an old beach recliner and sit by the lagoon, absorbing the noisy silence and the relaxing view, mosquitos bites and all, while trying to reach for the elusive gratitude inside my heart. And sometimes, only a few sometimes, it happens: the moment when I rush through the sprawling, not-quite-finished-as-intended garden and around the 15-meter-long, nightmare-to-build-and-maintain swimming pool back to my bedroom to pick up Kawhi, then back again dashing to the dock so I can snap a couple of shots before the moment vanishes and leaves me with nothing: nothing on top of the nothing I can’t seem to escape in the very place I thought so naively would fulfill the nothing inside of me.

Until the day it does…