Africa Kicks: Ivory Coast

I was among five of the BBC Africa Kicks bus community who began the first full day of the tour waving the bus and the rest of their colleagues off to Gagnoa.

We were to follow by alternate means, but only after we had a couple of pre-booked projects in the bag.

The technical and online team had an appointment with the Ivorian reggae artist Kajeem to record a Network Africa video session and an interview.

It is the rainy season here. The temperature remains high but there is a clinging dampness in the air and - worse for an outdoor video shoot - regular rain.

We were setting up the cameras and sound for the recording rather fatalistically, not allowing ourselves much hope that the light rain would cease.

Each camera had an individual bespoke rain jacket carefully crafted from a polythene bag and gaffer tape.

Our guest arrived with his manager, Frank, his guitarist Adamo (Adama Diabate) and backing vocalist Queen Nadeija (Nadege Kablan).

The sunshine decided that it wanted a say and made an appearance as the camera rolled.

While we bagged three terrific tracks for our programmes and website, the representatives of BBC World Service business programmes drove out of the city to meet English teacher and rubber plantation owner, Agoussi Mobio Jacques.

An English speaking rubber farmer in a French speaking cocoa farming country is a great story for an English speaking business team!

The plantation was a 45-minute drive out of Abidjan in a village called Songon M'Brathe, where Agoussi demonstrated the extraction process.

A quick Lebanese sandwich and then we headed north-west out of Abidjan.

As we hammered along the tarmac later a call came in to Lisa the sound engineer's phone; the first 'Live' of the journey had been completed successfully in her absence. Our Hindi producer, Rajesh Joshi, had come up live on a satellite connection into the Hindi evening programme, Dinbah.

Africa Kicks has scored its first goal.

When we reached Gagnoa and were reunited with the rest of the BBC bus travellers, there was bubbling excitement from having been in Didier Drogba's village for the afternoon.

Interviews with Albert Drogba, father of the Elephants' captain, recordings of young aspiring footballers, images, video material - memory sticks bloated with it.

All to come on Africa Kicks.

The last 24 hours we have experienced a hybrid form of travelling, which is mostly about waiting.

Our first official leg of the Africa Kicks journey began with a melee at the Hotel Gloria reception as we all attempted to settle our bills at the same time, mostly with large denomination notes.

The inevitable change crisis brought proceedings to a standstill for a little while.

It did not worry us though because our fine bus was in the local garage having its faulty air-conditioning repaired.

The delay sent the Focus on Africa team hurriedly on ahead in separate transport to make certain that they reached Abidjan in time to come up live on the 1500 GMT edition of the programme.

The rest off us stared out at the Gagnoa rain and waited.

Gagnoa is north west of Abidjan and the area is brimming with verdant vegetation, the rich red earth nurturing baobab trees, banana palms and fruit trees effortlessly.

We boarded the bus at a later hour than was printed in the official schedule, but we had the benefit of a functioning air conditioning system in temperatures that nudge 30 degrees Celsius and air so thick with humidity it weighs down on you like someone else's skin.

The road out of Gagnoa is a decent standard and all of life in the region functions and interacts along its length.

Children in school uniform make their way to class, women with their heads loaded with goods wander to market, and cyclists roll precariously along, laden with firewood bundles and banana bunches.

They share the road with livestock, rattling saloon cars, speeding 4x4 vehicles and grumbling trucks coughing out thick exhaust fumes. And a bus from Benin loaded with a group of international journalists from the BBC.

A comfort break at one of the roadside villages coincided with the first controversy of the journey.

Two of the BBC party asked a couple of women at a stall if they could take their picture. The women happily agreed.

A policeman didn't.

He came across to reprimand one of the two journalists. The altercation was noticed by the the other who, following well-honed journalistic instincts, turned to get photographic documentation of this police harassment.

So we had to wait.

The second journalist's camera was confiscated by the furious official causing quite a furore on the bus.

A diplomat in the form of Amzath Fassassi, our Beninois business manager, who has co-project managed this trip, was despatched to negotiate the camera's release.

They disappeared in fierce negotiation down the road and out of sight.

So we waited.

After some time the diplomacy did its work, the camera was returned to its uncowed owner and the bus rumbled back into motion.

We reached the tarmac speedway of the quality dual carriageway just as the BBC Arabic reporter's live transmission was due.

The bus pulled off the highway and came to a rest in a gap in the central reservation. Everyone off.

The satellite connection was set up while traffic - mostly travelling speeds at the upper reaches of their straining speedometres - roared past, cutting through the thick hanging heat on either side of our broadcast location.

There are 23 travellers on board this bus of dreams and it turned out that it wasn't just the Arabic service who needed to link up with London.

So we waited.

Time passed in the heat of the shadeless central reservation, which was transformed into an ad-hoc multimedia hub; the satellite link transferring audio by ISDN cables and making digital files disappear from laptops and reappear on a server somewhere in Bush House, back in London and in the BBC bureau in Delhi, India.

What was achieved off-set the wait, but by now lunchtime had passed unacknowledged.

Back on the road, our bus joined the other vehicles at speeds that were probably not in the safety brief before we set out.

You tend to let such trivialities pass when the last time you visited the loo was in the hotel room as the day began.

Our later-than-scheduled arrival in Abidjan sent everyone hurrying off in different directions to get their stories before the close of play.

BBC World Service news reporter David Whitty and our Persian TV colleagues visited a local FM station in the Treichville part of the city.

Catherine Byahurunga and Steve Evans of the business unit met with a transport union representative who explained the impact that roadblocks, common in Ivory Coast, have on the transport industry as a whole.

The rest of us scurried to take advantage of the internet connectivity that our Abidjan hotel offered, filing material and sending messages.

After all, there was a real benefit to the long wait - I managed to file more multi-media material sooner for the click http//www.bbcworldservice/africakicks webpages over a decent wireless connection.

You'll see it all here.