Village life in Ivory Coast

  Why would you want to stay in an African village in a country like the Ivory Coast? There’s little immediately evident appeal: no big sights to see; limited or no electricity and certainly no plumbing –  your shower will come out of a bucket and if you want a crap you’ll have to squat over a pungent hole in a dingy shack that’s steaming hot in the day and roach infested at night; you’ll get to sleep on an…

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Drinking at the doctors in the Ivory Coast

Booze or medicine It’s a common dilemma for the poor, hard-drinking man: spend your limited funds on medicine or get drunk to disguise the symptoms? However, in West Africa they have found a unique solution – make booze into medicine. In the Ivory Coast it all starts with the basic ingredient of palm wine or Banji as its known. Sap from certain varieties of palm is tapped off every day from the living trees to be delivered to the thirsty, although…

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