A Date on the town with Rebel Leaders

Rebel Bachelors

So you’re a New Yorker of some years, let’s say, and you get a phone call from the leader of an African rebel army. It’s his first time in the States, and he wants you to show him the town.

I was heading south through Connecticut in mid-September, somewhere near New Haven, when my phone buzzed. It was Alain Lobognon, a spokesman for the rebels who have controlled the northern half of Ivory Coast since a failed coup attempt against President Laurent Gbagbo in September 2002.