Home » Burkina Faso » Welcome To Ottawa - Population 300

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

Displayed times (last time: )

or playing Awali - a game played with pebbles and a piece of wood with 8 holes in it, where the object is to capture as many of the opponents pebbles as possible. It was quite amusing to watch André play this - they play at an amazing speed, throwing the pebbles into the holes (the final two pebbles being thrown into two holes at the same time), and when he won he would pick up the board and slam it down upside down (as a kind of victorious outburst of joy). Could you imagine chess champions doing this - check-mate, then wham with the board!

Most of the work tends to get done by women (in the fields, cleaning, preparing and cooking food, etc.) and the younger men (in the fields, trapping animals, building houses, etc.). Children also work clearing the 'brousse' to allow crops to be planted and grow unrestrained, washing clothes, running messages. If you want to buy something it's quite common to send a kid to get it. Only about 50% of children go to school in Ivory Coast. From what I saw they mostly go to school at an early age but many of them drop out due to lack of money to buy books and uniforms, because their parents want them to work in the fields and also the system of classement.

The classement is a system whereby pupils have to obtain a mark for the year of at least 50%, to be allowed to move up to the next class. These marks are calculated from exams throughout the year for various subjects, and also from an end of year exam (and an average is computed for each child to decide whether he/she may progress or if he/she will have to repeat the year). This procedure starts from primary school - i.e. aged five upwards, and since typically only half of each year gets the required average mark, this leads to children not advancing quickly enough, and dropping out early or only being educated to a certain level.

There is also a practise of changing birth certificates, since I believe there are cut-off ...