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 old bit of foam on a concrete floor in the more salubrious homes; depending on the season you’ll often have a motley collection of biting insects to deal with and just getting there will probably require a buttock crunching ride over a dirt track.

I’ve gladly endured all this and even more spartan surroundings, primarily because of the people. Here the guest is king. There’s a humble generosity to the hospitality that is unlikely to be equalled in big towns and cities, where even there it’s likely to put much western hospitality to shame.

Any attempt to understand Africa that doesn’t involve village life will be sorely lacking, not just because tradition has been less eroded by modernity and city living but because for many Africans the village will always represent home in some way. Unless separated by generations of city life and distance, even the big business, iPhone wielding suburbanite is likely to retain a physical and emotional attachment to the family village. Of course this is changing but much of African urbanisation has only taken place in recent decades so as not to have yet erased these connections.

Unless you’re just making a fleeting visit, one of your first actions has to be a visit to the village chief, for which you’ll need to be bearing a bottle of booze. No need to splash out on a twenty year old malt, the cheapest firewater will do just fine.  To be honest the subtleties of anything more refined will almost certainly be completely wasted. Should the chief be Muslim cash will do nicely.  Not only is this a matter of respecting tradition but if you’re doing anything more than just visiting friends the chief’s blessing is vital to ensure smooth passage of any business. The few chiefs I have met have been nothing but welcoming and very pleased to have a foreigner come and stay.

Greeting absolutely anyone and everyone is a required courtesy and although not everyone will speak French you can stop and talk to pretty much anyone who does: the concept of being in a hurry to get somewhere is not a big thing in West Africa, least of all in villages. As I’ve written before, interacting with young children can be a bit different. That’s not to say they’ll have an inherent dislike for you but they may have had little or no experience of white people. This leads to almost the entire range of possible reactions to you saying hello to them: from an unbridled joy where you will have been the best thing to have happened in their week, to an utter terror which could result in them bursting into tears or running away in fear. The variety of combinations and intermediate reactions between these two poles are endlessly entertaining. From laughing hysterically whilst backing away nervously, to politely waving with an expression of abject horror on the face. If you’re staying with a family, some children may bond with you immediately and others may take several days to overcome their fear. Without fail the parents will always urge their children to get along with you even though they will find a child’s fear of you highly amusing.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about villages is how cosmopolitan they are. All the villages I’ve been to recently had at least four significant groups of people, identified by their different languages. Terms like tribes or ethnicities can be simplistic or problematic and the subject deserves a future post of its own. In addition there were usually other individuals or families who came to set up a business or marry into a family with whom they had connections. There is a strong entrepreneurial spirit in West Africa which motivates some to move not just to neighbouring countries in search of a business opportunity but beyond: there were people from Benin, Togo and Mauritania as well as the nations at the borders in the places I went to. Given that all the borders in the region were a colonial imposition, bearing no relation to linguistic or cultural traditions, they’ve been largely porous as far as most people are concerned. Particularly in the regional grouping of ECOWAS countries, governments provide very little impediment to movement for local people.

Even in pre colonial times there were movements of people for similar reasons and the variation in communities is often the result of much longer term processes than recent economic pressures such as Burkinabes  coming to work in the cocoa industry. The different groups tended to have their own quarters in the villages,  with the larger ones having their own chiefs under the overall village chief.

At a church service I went to in the village of Presso two indigenous languages as well as French were used, with a woman translating the two ministers’ sermons. Unlike linguistically challenged Brits, bilingualism is relatively common in Africa and many are familiar with more languages, even among uneducated farmers. Being somewhat more lively than the typical English Sunday service, with a drummer and keyboard player bashing out the tunes, we all had a good boogie and singalong.

All the villages I’ve been to have Muslims as well as a number of denominations of Christians. Traditional religions can also be found in most places, although they are a minority generally these days. Much African culture is derived from these religions however and even some of its practices, such as making offerings to appease spirits, will still be used by professed followers of the Abrahamic religions.

The numerous styles of traditional house made of wood and mud are gradually disappearing in favour of more durable concrete blocks and almost every roof is now corrugated metal sheets. Even when still being used the traditional buildings are often for cooking or storage rather then living in any more. Bare concrete is the most likely flooring you’ll find, although the occasional tiled room is not unknown. As for carpets, don’t even think about it! Many houses are little more than a shell of blocks, divided into rooms with a roof on. While for many this is simply the result of poverty, things like smooth walls and paint just don’t seem to be a priority for others – if you’ve been brought up in a mud hut it probably hasn’t occurred to you to check out wall paper catalogues or IKEA furniture.

Few people feel the need to surround their property with walls or fences. Walking through a village invariably means coming into close contact with families going about their daily lives in front of their houses and they’ll be only too happy to chat. You’ll never hear someone shout, “get off my land”! In many cultures land ownership was something introduced by us colonials.  Just one of the many ways that Africans lived under communist and anarchist principles centuries or even millennia before Europeans thought of them.  If you do see a fence, it’s far more likely to keep animals out than in, such as to stop them eating young plants. I have literally never seen animals in a fenced field anywhere in West Africa. Livestock just wanders around wherever it wants,  munching whatever it finds and strolls back to the vicinity of home in the evening. Even in central Abidjan I’ve seen sheep and goats wandering along main roads.

Being rural there’s a lot more on offer to eat, at least as far as meat in concerned, than the usual farm animals. Wild animals are a regular feature on the menu and jolly delicious they are too. However, despite my best efforts to convince people otherwise I have yet to convert any non Africans to the joys of rat. I’m not suggesting you try and drag one out of your sewer and neither would a African but country rats are as good as any other game meat and fully grown there can be nearly as much to eat on them as a chicken. Similar, although unrelated biologically and much bigger, are agouti, also known as cane rats due to their habit of living in sugar cane plantations. So, as human farming activity is actually beneficial for them they are a sustainable food source. During my week’s stay in the village of Satroko I was also treated to civet, a cat like creature but from a different family of animals. Although not endangered in this part of the world, it is in Asia and I suspect its long term prospects may not be so bright as it does taste pretty good. I ought to point out I don’t eat endangered species and certainly don’t encourage anyone else to. Sadly I have seen pangolin for sale a couple of times. Life isn’t so desperate in much of Ivory Coast to mean that an education campaign couldn’t protect them but equally the government are hardly short of pressing priorities on expenditure.

Whilst I’m sure the idea of eating cuddly furry creatures doesn’t appeal to all of you, I’m sure you appreciate that the typical Ivorian villager is hardly in the sort of financial position to be particularly fussy about what they eat or turn down a modest income from hunting. Wild meat doesn’t fetch a huge price so there’s not a big incentive for non professional hunters to join in. The civet cost about $7 and that might be all the hunter caught in a day. Also it’s important to understand that we’re not talking about hoards of guys rooming the forest armed to the teeth with hi-tech weaponry and laser sights. I’ve seen hunters guns that are crude, home made devices, no more advanced than an 18^th century musket. Hunters are a small set of experts making a basic living with simple equipment, not weekend warriors with AR15’s and pump action shotguns.

If you’re used to the huge fenced off fields of much western farming then the land around Ivorian villages will come as a pleasant surprise. Firstly you’re extremely unlikely to see a fence anywhere: any division, if required, is left to strips of natural growth. In Britain people have had to campaign to keep hedgerows because of their important role in preserving wildlife. In Ivory Coast the countryside is bursting with greenery and most relatively small fields will still be at least partly surrounded by bits of land left untouched. Big trees are usually left regardless, as the lack of mechanisation isn’t bothered by a few obstacles. Being the tropics, things grow so quickly that keeping unproductive portions of land clear is a massive waste of effort, especially when you have to do it with a machete. I’m too busy sweating just sitting in my shorts drinking a beer, so the idea of hacking through the undergrowth that will mostly be back to the same size in a matter of weeks doesn’t have the slightest appeal and African farmers are blessed with more than enough common sense to do likewise.

The majority of West Africans still rely on traditional medicine much of the time, as pharmacies might not only be inconveniently far away from many villages but prohibitively expensive much of the time. It is often highly effective, even if some bold claims don’t always live up to expectations. Traditional medicine is integrated into the national health service in Ivory Coast, having it’s own government department to regulate, educate and promote good practice. They even analyse natural products to determine their effectiveness.  Rather than having doctors who cover a whole range of health issues, a village will have numerous people with individual specialisms and the variety of people contributes to the range of services. For example the Moissi, typically from Burkina Faso, are well known specialists in bone fractures. The range of herbal medicines is augmented by traveling sellers: in one village we met a group of Peul women from Niger selling natural products unavailable in Ivory Coast.

While I have seen West African villages that give the impression of being almost untouched by modernity things are most definitely changing. It’s pretty rare not to have mobile phone coverage in many parts of the region these days. I’ve been to villages at the end of an hour long journey over a dirt track to find a phone mast and a good connection. Cheap mobile phones have put communication in the hands of many, so even if a villager doesn’t possess one themselves they’ll have access to one. Where, not long ago a move to the city by a family member could have meant months out of contact, the bond to the home village is always on hand. The well developed system of phone banking also makes sending money to the family simple and quick even on basic mobile phones. Smart phones are still a luxury but again someone you know will have one. Rwanda has started producing its own range of affordable phones, hopefully an indicator of more such home grown entrepreneurship to come, reducing the continent’s reliance on imports. With Chinese motorbikes often only a third the cost of well known brands mobility has improved dramatically. No more hanging around for a vehicle to fill up with passengers before leaving if you’re in a hurry.

Having returned to the town of Abengourou that I first passed through in 2012 I could easily see the improvement that the asphalt road replacing the bare earth connecting it to rest of the country had brought. The quiet dusty town had turned into a bustling regional hub, where local farmers could now consider exporting produce to the capital, rather than have it mashed to a pulp bouncing over a rutted track for several hours. New roads also open up the possibility of improved water and electricity supplies. Hopefully learning from the error of the village of Satroko that had street lighting installed over fifteen years ago before the government realised they had blown all their budget before laying the cable to connect the village to the rest of the network! Lampposts and cables stand forlornly neglected to this day.  As much as I love Africa and can accept the economic limitations it can lack organisational skills at times.

By European standards the villages of Ivory Coast are undoubtedly basic but at least with a realistic hope of gradual progress, the same for which cannot be said of much of the Sahel region to the north, plagued by insecurity.  Unlike those countries, that are extremely dry,  the rains are reliable enough for farmers to bring in the crops each year,  meaning no one is likely to starve.  What is in no doubt however is the hospitality you’ll receive as a guest that more than makes up for toilet facilities and any other luxuries you feel you may be denied.