Côte d'Ivoire

After finishing a long trip around Africa in the Seychelles, I flew back to Miami convinced I’d had enough adventure for a while. It didn’t last long. Africa kept calling me back, and before I knew it, I was on another flight, this time to Côte d’Ivoire. I began by exploring the country’s capital, Yamoussoukro, home to the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, officially recognized as the largest church in the world. From there, I continued to the bustling economic capital of Abidjan, whose energy, traffic, and modern skyline made it feel very different from many of the other cities I’d visited in West Africa.

One thing that fascinated me was the city’s strong Lebanese influence. Many of the restaurants, cafés, and businesses I found myself visiting were owned by ethnic Lebanese families whose roots in Côte d’Ivoire stretched back generations. Lebanon has an extraordinary diaspora relative to its size, with millions of people of Lebanese descent living outside the country. Seeing such a well-established Lebanese community in West Africa was another reminder of how interconnected our world has become, and how people can build lasting homes far from where their stories began.