91Èȱ¬

My African journey continues. When you go to Ivory Coast - everything you come across tells you about the best African football player Didier Drogba. The sheer biological vitality of the rainforest, while you drive to his village, hints at where the strength of Drogba comes from. The abundance of all kinds of cars and lorries tell you the story of Ivorian dynamism. At one of the checkpoints I noticed a driver begging an official standing on his knees and theatrically grabbing his head with his hands and, rather than being disturbed by it, I remember cheeky dives of Didier with appeals to a referee.

All along the road to the village of his family (called Niapraiho) kids - those who are not selling packed water to passing-by drivers - are playing football. I see plantations of coconuts, rice, rubber: hard work tells me how difficult is the way to success.

In Drogba's village

Finally we are in the village where the elderly and the young are gathered in the house of the village-chief, wearing on his shoulders the whitest towel as a sign of his high position and of respect. I've seen Drogba several times with a white towel around his shoulders and I now understand why. We are introduced to his father, Albert, and I ask him: 'If not a football player, who would Didier have become?' - 'A doctor' - says his father without any hesitation. 'His charity organisation is building a hospital in Abidjan' - he says. 'As for our village, he built a water distribution system here'.

Every boy in the village wants to become like their idol, Didier Drogba, but what about girls of the village? 'I would like to marry' - answers a girl of 10 years of age, and adds: 'A football player like Didier'.She doesn't know the word WAG, but she gets the concept.

Clay houses

We go see some traditional houses of the village - the ones which Didier must remember from his childhood. They call them 'papeau' here and their walls are made of the wood-grid filled in with clay. We in Uzbekistan have the same kind of houses, which are called 'sinch', but I suddenly remember English Tudor style mansions, which are built in the same manner. I think the technique is called 'wattle and daub' and somehow I imagine that Drogba must live in one of those mansions. But it gives me another metaphor about the unity of human race: though we could be made of different clay and wood, the way we are turned into a wall is the same.