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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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one of Rocheline's uncles, and a little girl - Anjou - who'd decided to adopt us for the day) took the baca for about 15 km to arrive there. The security guards of the factory went to get the person in charge, who then took us on a tour of the place. Anjou had to wait at the gate with the guards until we came back.

It was fairly interesting to look around, although one curious thing was that most people weren't actually doing any work because the factory wasn't functioning at that moment. In fact, there are peak times where there are loads of grains to process, and off peak times where there are no grains, the machines are all shut down, and the workers are obliged to come in anyway and do jobs like cleaning and maintenance. We also took a look at a reservoir from which they pump water for use everywhere in the factory (for various parts of the processing, and also for washing or drinking) - it was actually quite a beautiful sight, a bit incongruous beside a hulking, greasy factory. Then we visited the laboratory, where they do various tests and research to improve the factory processes. There were no Europeans on site, but the company (SIPEFCI) is in fact owned by Belgian guys who have their offices (and nice villas) in San Pedro, and who come now and again just to check that everything is running smoothly.

Beside the factory there is also a fair sized village with a large market, which we had a wander around. We bought some more mineral water, biscuits, vegetables; etc. and stopped off in a maqui to have some cool beers and cokes.

Supposedly there's a bit of money to be made in growing palm trees. Some people in the village tried to talk me into planting palm trees (or rather, paying people to plant and tend them, and coming back every so often to check them out). They take about two years to grow big enough to start producing the grains, and then you can rake in the cash. Field workers are paid only ...