Day 15 - 17th March Drive to the far west of Cote d'Ivoire, and another tribal ceremony

Photo above - Yacouba tribe mask ceremony. More photos below

An early start to drive to the far west of Cote d'Ivoire

We left the hotel at 8am to start the next stage of our trip west. Traffic was light as we left the city of Daloa. Most of the cars in the city were the green taxis that operate here. We are driving to a mountain town in the west of the country called Man with a population of about 150,000.

Once out of the city, the landscape became green and lush. The road surface remained good, and the traffic light. We passed though rice fields, then rubber plantations and cocoa plantations. The rainy season is due to start here in April but there are signs it might be earlier. At one point we came to a large river Sassandra where there were some fishermen working, and we decided to walk over the bridge to get a better look.

Exploring a local village

A bit further down the road the landscape became a lot more mountainous. Shortly after, we stopped at a random roadside village to look around. It was fascinating to see the houses, the villagers drying cocoa beans, mothers with babies, washing on the lines, kids running around. We met with a guy with eight children and three wives. This is completely normal here. The first marriage might have been arranged, but then later he decided to choose his own wife, or two. Most children do not go to school, but one of his kids aged about ten was already a mechanic. Most people do not have a birth certificate and so no id card. Most villagers do not speak the national language of french. They either speak their own tribal language, or a west African dialect that is spoken across several surrounding countries. Essentially they are not much concerned with what is happening outside their own small village, and as long as they can farm, look after their families etc they are content.

We then returned to the van to continue on to Man. We arrived at about 1pm. We booked into our hotel and had lunch, then later in the day, after the worst of the 34c humidity, we headed out again.

The mask ceremony of the Yacouba

At 4pm we got back into the van and drove for about 40 minutes into the forest to visit a Yacouba tribe village. The roads were dirt tracks and very bumpy. We walked through the village to find where the villagers were doing a ceremony to ward off bad luck in the village. There is a group of five or six guys with two poles each which they bang on the ground and hit together in a rhythm which is accompanied by a couple of guys with percussion instruments. They play and chant to call out the mask from the forest. This masked dancer removes the bad karma and takes it with him back to the forest. I loved this ceremony particularly musically. It was fascinating how the masked dancer moved.

During the ceremony the mask greeted us the males, by shaking hands, but the culture does not allow for the mask to touch females. Also, kids being uninitiated, cannot be touched or they will be cursed, so the kids all ran away when the mask came near them.

As usual, we were given a really friendly welcome by the villagers and the children. We got another warm send off from the children as we drove off. We then returned to the hotel. Tomorrow we are traveling deep into the forest to visit the isolated settlements of the Guere people.