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Guédyo was the village where Rocheline was born. It's also known as Ottawa - the explanation being (as far as I could understand it) that the village was founded by two separate groups of families (one from Soubré district, the other from Gagnoa), hence marriages are allowed between theses two groups who then become brothers-in-law, which in Bété is 'Ottowi', and so they changed this to Ottawa so that it would have the same name as the Canadian town. The Canadian ambassador had supposedly visited the village, filmed it, etc.

Welcome To Ottawa - Population 300

Ajcairns
2005-11-04 20:53:21

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"Are you on vacation?"

"Yes, I'm married to Rocheline, the daughter of Mathieu. We'll be here for another few days then we're going to visit San Pedro, then Yamoussoukro. And you, do you live here?"

"No, I'm here to pick up one of my cousins, then we're going to the funeral of his sister."

"Hmm, sorry to hear that. So where do you live?"

"In Abidjan. I'm a Spanish teacher."

"Ever been to Spain or Europe?"

"I've only visited it via books. I travel by reading books."

"Do you know San Pedro?"

"Yes, I lived there for a while..." (and here he gave me some advise on places to stay, visit, etc.)

And then he started to talk about witchcraft saying, "You know there's a girl in this village, who's very sick, dying."

"Did she take pills?" I asked this because a girl had fallen ill a few days earlier and had to be taken to the hospital (she had taken sleeping tablets, but she recovered).

"No. It's because of witchcraft. There's a list, that was drawn up by the witches and the leaders in this village - that's how they got their electric lighting here.... If your name's on that list it means you're going to die. The only way to be saved is to have your name replaced by someone else."

"Hmm, so where's this list?"

"Hhuh! Who knows? It's all black magic. You know Africa is deep and mysterious. Ah yes, darkest Africa!"

"People in Europe don't believe in all that stuff."

"Hmm. Yes, there nobody believes in it, however it's true."

Another guy came and joined the discussion, and they talked about witchcraft and other problems in Ivory Coast.

Cuadjo was the village idiot, or the guy in the village who was a bit simple (to use more politically correct and diplomatic language). He used to come round ...