Film night at the Institut Francais

After a few days of malaria and a few days of taking it easy / recovery time, by last Saturday I found myself pretty eager to get out of the house and do something. The week before malaria I had been really busy - my team had visited and it gave me the chance to go to some new restaurants and take a fresh look at the city again. We had a great time eating Lebanese, Nigerian, Chinese and Indian food - I didn't cook all week! So after this week of activity and then a week of nothing, I wanted to find some weekend entertainment. 

During the day on the Saturday I went for a long walk around my area, went to the veg market, and had a beer with my neighbour in our 'garden' (outside). But the real highlight of the day came when I went to the Institut Francais. I had been meaning to go for ages. Like the Alliance Francais in The Gambia they run French classes and a range of social events, including weekly film nights, and cultural exhibitions (for example they co-hosted the Female Artists in Nigeria exhibition mentioned in my last post). This month they have organised a two week long film festival featuring films from French speaking countries, sometimes with cultural dances and food from that country. For example, they have screened films from Chad, Belgium and Senegal to name a few. 

On Saturday night they were showing an animated film from Cote d'Ivoire, so I decided to go. They had chairs set out in the front courtyard, and a screen, and it was quite busy. The event started with some cultural dancing, and then the film was shown (with English subtitles thankfully). I really enjoyed it! The film was Aya De Yopougon, and apart from a bit of an abrupt ending, was really interesting. It really made me think of my friend Alexandra and her partner JP.

After the film I was hungry. My appetite had been really poor due to being ill, so I wanted to find some food that was a bit different to what I would usually eat... low and behold, opposite the Institut was a big fast food restaurant similar to KFC or MacDonalds, so I bought myself a cheese burger and chips and thoroughly enjoyed it back at my house!