Went to bed too early last night after a diet busting schwarma and beer, following a long day on the project budget ... so I am up very early at the time I like best, the early African morning, before dawn. The Mosques haven't woken up yet, though Islamic stations dominate the middle of the FM spectrum in this city which on the surface is very catholic and middle class. A lot of the population is Muslim though and it's Ramadan so the 'prayer is better than sleep' first call to prayer will soon start. The one and only cock in this very urban area crows all night - the street lights confuse him, I guess (yes they work here). Could be there are no hens around also.

At this pre-dawn time even Abidjan pauses for a moment, at least on weekdays, only the odd security guy on his motor bike checking out the night guards. Once again you wonder how things develop differently in different countries. In all the great Lakes cities motor bikes (the boda boda) are the principal taxi system - as they were years ago in South eastern Nigeria . Only Kigali, run as it is by control freaks, has managed to ban bodas from the city centre .

Here, like in Nairobi, they hardly exist, but sensibly the security companies use them a lot, something I never saw in Kampala, for instance where they use beat-up old pick-ups. Liek in many countries, security guard is a big job opportunity here, and like the guys who pack and carry your shopping at the supermarket, have to be seen like that, just doijng a job to get a crust. Just as the boda riders in Uganda (90,000 youth who would otherwise be unemployed and at a loose end) it is a way to give a respectable, if small, job.

Guards here ('vigils') almost all wear yellow uniform tops like Congolese traffic police. Traffic police and all militias, gendarmes, CRS etc all wear dark khaki and black uniforms making them almost invisible at night, perfect for popping out in front of you and claiming you have been caught on 'radar', or that you ran a red light (yes, they work too). And when they fine you they give you a receipt, if you insist, 'Contravention'. [There are also huge red light districts, but that's another story].

Giving the BBC a rest for the moment, though noting that they have finally discovered the value of mobile phones and have programmes full of their advantage in Africa (I am sure you have read my article on that . If not, it follows). The BBC has been a bit slow on that and their commentator, assuming that anything that isn't the latest GP 99 with bells and knobs must be useless, has to be reassured by a calm-sounding Ghanaian that actually people manage fine on GSM and have thought of a thousand ways to use it. A good contrast to the frustrating news items that say 'and you can get more on this topic on our website' - yes, of course, in Guehebly village here in Cote d'Ivoire, with no electricity, in a refugee camp in N Uganda, or simply when I am taking a bucket bath in the fence 'bathroom' behind the hut where I was living in Juba, I can just get onto the Internet ... I can't even do that in the bath at home. Sorry, one of my hobby-horses!

Listening to an FM which is on all the time, very clear signal with just the right combination of music for me, but which never seems to identify itself. So far they have played the full 'Sweet Mother' the song by Nico Mbarga which is just as iconic in West Africa as Malaika is elsewhere, a couple of jazzy French songs, a kind of Alpha Blondy (Ivorian after all), something pop from Senegal less rarefied than Youssouff Ndour, and a couple of pop arias from opera, and a great Arab/French rap track . I have the impression of someone also sitting up late/early like me just playing what he likes for my delectation. I might even be the only one listening.

In an hour the sun will rise and I will go for an early morning swim ... and read up things I have been leaving to an idle moment. Then go to an urban school to witness the launching of a back to school for girls campaign ... ironical in the context that getting to school here depends on having the right documentation, which itself depends on decisions on identity ... which have been the major cause of the civil war. So the simple task (which is part of my job also) of getting children into school has huge political implications which have often led to violence as locals perceive 'foreigners' trying to take over and 'foreigners (often just from another part of the country) maintain that they are no longer foreign after several generations ...

And the photo above ... well, to do with back to school also. In a lot of Africa you have to be able to touch your other ear over the top of your head to be deemd edold enough to go to school. Many years ago, in Nigeria and other countries on leaving primary, big boys were sent to teachers' college and small onces to secondary school. And in Nigeria there was a hea dof a training college who inisited that he had to check the boys age by having then drop their trousers for him so he could verify that puberty had happeened. But that's another story.