I already talked about my arrival in my village called “Déahouépleu.” Let’s continue talking about life and adventures in my village. As a reminder, I was in the village to develop a village vegetable garden during the summer of 1967 while my schools in Gagnoa were closed for the summer. Déahouépleu was a Yacouba village located in the middle west part of the Ivory Coast near Danané and the border with Liberia. I lived in the village during my summer project.
In our garden, our work had progressed to the point where we had fifty-six planches, including four pépinières. The last family to plant was the Group Chief’s family.
The Delegate’s family also finished about the same time, although they had planted a couple of planches earlier.
This meant we had finished the planting.
The most difficult problem facing us was the necessity of daily upkeep, which the villagers were not so prone to do. While this was easy for me to say, it was important to remember that these villagers still had the responsibility to attend to their own fields. In other words, our village garden project distracted them from their normal daily work.
On the evening of August 6, I paid a visit to the Delegate Yomi Maurice. I learned some concrete things about him. He had an interesting family story. He told me about his three wives. In 1940, he married his first wife. They had four children together. Evidently, he married his second wife in 1942 but divorced her in 1944 (he didn’t say why). Thus, temporarily, he practiced polygamy. Meanwhile, three of his four children died. According to Maurice, the Delegate, his first wife was a sorceress and was the one who murdered her children. About the time she intended to kill the remaining girl, a fetish killed her instead and thus ended the menace. In 1946, he married his third wife, with whom he had four children. His oldest appeared to be a young man, about nineteen years old, who got married about four months before I arrived in the village.
L-R: Villagers working in the village garden; Family Chief Gabriel with Village Chief Lambert holding a long bean; Yomi Maurice, the Delegate; plus the Village garden.
For four years, between 1939 and 1943, Maurice worked in a small store in Danané. Because it suddenly started to rain, I could not finish listening to him and hastily returned home. The rain was extremely heavy. I remember one time when I first arrived in Gagnoa and returned to the Agricultural Station with Jacques Arrivets. About a kilometer before we got back to the Station from Gagnoa, Jacques had some car trouble in the car that he was driving. He stopped at the side of the road and got out to look at his engine.
Standing in the rain while he looked at his engine made him absolutely drenched in just minutes.
August 7 was Independence Day for the Ivory Coast.
It won its independence from France on August 7, 1960. While the French served as agricultural engineers and secondary roles for the country, the president, the head of the parliament, and the heads of the various ministries were all Ivorian. They were very proud of their country but appreciated assistance from France, the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, Taiwan, and other countries.
Sadly, I lacked sufficient money to go to Daloa for the national celebration, but I decided to go to Danané to observe any folklore dancing that I loved to see in particular. The most interesting sight in Danané was seeing five masks on stilts, that is, five people dressed in their traditional clothing wearing the masks and standing on stilts. They staged a running race which struck me as pretty imaginative—trying to run while on stilts. Three of the masks made a fast start while the other two just tootled along at their own pace, more like two tortoises. As they slowly moved along, the two managed to dance a few steps as they went, delighting the audience.
Afterward, I sort of crashed in on the Sous-Prefect’s luncheon party, and I was not wearing a suit either. Despite having no invitation, I asked the police officer at the front door for admittance. He asked the Sous-Prefect for instructions, and he waved to him to let me in. I really stood out because I wore no suit like the other guests. I wore only a yellow-patterned boubou shirt (a loose-fitting, short-sleeved tunic), a pair of green slacks, and tennis shoes. At the party that had a loud-booming live combo band, I saw Mr. Coulibaly, the Chief of the Sous-Section. He was a big, chubby man and very friendly. He informed me I had a letter from Abidjan. After lunch, he drove me to his house, where he gave me the letter. To my surprise, he offered me another meal, which included rice and a sauce containing cabbage, shrimp, and, of course, hot pepper with red wine. He was extremely courteous. He expressed his apology and embarrassment at failing to invite me to lunch the previous week. Typical African hospitality, I thought: very outstanding. Then, he invited me to lunch every Thursday during my stay in Danané, after which he gave me ten eggs. To top it off, he asked his chauffeur to drive me back to Déahouépleu.
Along with all the other Peace Corps Volunteers in the Ivory Coast, Peace Corps asked me to take a break and return to Abidjan to meet with Jack Vaughn, the new Peace Corps Director, on Thursday, August 17, according to the letter I received [NOTE: Jack Vaughn succeeded Sargent Shriver as the Peace Corps Director]. We actually met with him for about an hour. He appeared to be quiet, sincere but not as impressive as a speaker as Sargent Shriver. With our group, he talked about our peace mission and his philosophy about the Peace Corps. He emphasized his view that our role was to seek increased understanding, union, and peace.
He mentioned that by the end of 1967, there would be 14,500 PCVs in fifty-eight countries throughout the world. After speaking, he answered questions. After the break of several days, I returned to my village by way of Gagnoa, where I picked up some seeds from Gerard.
Sunday evening, I met with Delegate Maurice, Village Chief Lambert, several family chiefs, and some other interested parties. I discussed the concept of different varieties of vegetables and showed them examples of six varieties of eggplant, one of their favorite vegetables. In addition, I urged all of them to make their own gardens. I showed them the new seeds and chayotes that I had brought back with me from Gagnoa.
So, the next day, I had many visitors. They included Lambert, the Village Chief, and two or three family chiefs.
One Family Chief, Bleu Kean David, came to get some seeds. He took lettuce, piment (pepper), eggplant, Baselle spinach, and Green Amaranthus spinach.
He told me he had made five planches. A little later, Oukoua Gbéada, another Family Chief, came. He ate breakfast with me. He took seeds for lettuce, Noir de Bouaké beans, piment (pepper), eggplant (two varieties:
Florida Market and Yacouba Sylla), Baselle spinach, Amaranthus spinach, and Hiré tomatoes. After breakfast, we walked about two kilometers to his field. We drank palm wine, a custom that happened frequently in this village. While I was there, I saw nine planches, although they weren’t very wide and varied in length from four to six feet. I suggested how he should plant his seeds in a nursery and directly on the planche. We applied some fertilizer on the planche he used for his nursery, and I recommended he should plant his seeds in a few days.
On Friday, August 25, almost alone in the morning, I worked in the garden and planted a chayote in place of another vegetable that failed to grow due to numerous pebbles and stones. I also weeded some. Two villagers helped me. One weeded one planche, and the other one cut the long grass to supply the mulch or paillage. Then, they watched me work. In the late afternoon, I visited the garden of Bei Guéu Pierre, one of the villagers. He had made twelve beautiful planches, including one pépinière. He had placed stakes in all four corners of his planches. The width of all planches was one meter, exactly as I taught; the length of five planches was ten meters, one at eight meters, and six planches at seven meters. He covered all planches with palm leaves and began to build a fence around his garden. It totally amazed me how well he followed my teaching.
After seeing his formidable garden, he and I chatted for a while, during which I learned more about him. Possibly one reason for his exactness in his measurements apparently was the fact he was a mason by profession. Father of two boys (five and three respectively), he was married for ten years—since 1957, when he was eighteen years old. Recently, due to his father’s aging, he returned to the village to help him.
Materially, he appeared fortunate.
He owned a Mobylette, radio, a couple of very stylish shirts and slacks, and in his house, he had his table and chairs, a buffet cabinet, and a hammock. I certainly enjoyed knowing this cheerful person.
In the evening, I played a game called manh that I played many, many times while I stayed in Déahouépleu. I also visited Lambert, the Village Chief. We chatted in particular about different customs of divorce, marriage, and circumcision. We began by talking about divorce and the concept of “separation of the body” among the Yacouba. Adultery was not usually a cause for divorce since everyone in the family was married to each other. Therefore, if sexual relations occurred between two family members, it was accepted and acceptable. Adultery happens only when individuals from different families engage in relations.
The Chief distinguished divorce from the “separation of the body,” which was the separation of husband and wife.
The latter was not a divorce because marriage still required certain obligations, such as the care of children.
In case of divorce, the children would remain with the mother until they were seven years old. Then the father would return and would take the children with him. He would give his former wife some presents, like a couple of pagnes, for having cared for the children. In this society, the right to keep the children belonged to the father.
When we talked about circumcision, Lambert told me that when the family chief decided he had enough children for the ceremony of circumcision, he would request permission for the circumcision from officials to perform it. “Enough” meant apparently about twenty children.
Lambert declined to tell me who the “officials” were. They usually performed the operations on young boys and girls when they were about seven years old. While they healed, they would be isolated in the bush. The boys would live together, apart from the girls. During this isolation and healing period, the youngsters would receive their traditional education through admonitions and proverbs.
For example, they would be told not to steal. This was all that Lambert would tell me. It was very interesting to learn this.
L-R: Two generations of villagers; “Old Soldier” sitting with other villagers; the Manh game that I loved; plus a Village Elder, “Old Soldier,” and Village Chief Lambert sitting together.
On Saturday, many visitors came to see me in the morning and later in the evening as well. A drizzly rain fell all morning. I actually collected three buckets full of rainwater from Anatole’s roof. Anatole served me some palm wine. Most of the morning, I played manh with a youngish man who visited me often. It got to the point I could beat him fairly easily. As I recall, I won the first game, but he defeated me in the second, while the third was tied. Then I beat him five times in a row. In the afternoon, I even defeated the Old Soldier once. He was an elderly man who had served in the army and wore his army jacket and hat a lot. After I beat him, he came back and beat me twice, which was the usual result when I played him.
In the afternoon, five young girls ranging in ages from four to thirteen danced brief dances or series of dances. One of the older girls blew a whistle after a minute or so of dancing. This was done to aid the girls from becoming completely exhausted because the dances were so strenuous and demanded enthusiastic effort.
In the evening, evidently, the Village Chief spanked Fa-Thérèse, his daughter, who assisted me with the washing and other household chores, for failing to work well with me. It bothered me that, while there may have been a reason to spank her, the delayed timing between her apparent act and her punishment did not seem appropriate.
In other words, the timing seemed to me to be too long.
At the end of August, I got discouraged about the garden work because it appeared like it was just about nonexistent. It seemed like nobody worked in the garden—even to water it. I started to question myself. Is this normal behavior or custom? Was I too bossy during the initial stage of work? Did I adequately explain the reasons for gardening and its procedures? Did I effectively explain those reasons? In the evening, I got some unfortunate news that may have shed some light, at least to a little extent. While Gabriel, Anatole, Lambert, and I sat around a table. Anatole’s wife entered carrying Anatole’s dinner, which was some sort of foutou mix with a little dark leafy sauce. We all laughed—except Anatole. Probably Gabriel and Lambert thought I would laugh at their food. However, I was amused that Anatole’s wife had become so impatient.
Instead of waiting for him to come to eat, as he habitually did, she brought the food to him when he did not come.
I noticed that she had done this at least twice previously.
However, Anatole became embarrassed and angry. Later, he told me he was thinking of sending his wife back to her parents and forgetting about the money he had paid for her. This meant divorce, of course. He told me when he found a young lady who pleased him; he would send her away.
His grievances were more profound than the aforementioned incident. A couple of days earlier, he gave his wife some money, about 100 francs, to buy some rice for dinner, but she failed to buy it and failed to prepare any dinner. He had not eaten in three days except for some hot chocolate that I gave him in the mornings. Unfortunately, that wasn’t all. Anatole felt his wife was negligent in caring for the house key that resulted (according to him) in his eighteen shirts and seven pairs of slacks being stolen. That made him very mad, as one would expect.
Another time, I ate with Gabriel, a family chief, his wife, and a friend. She prepared some rice and a sauce of okra leaves.
Fortunately for me, she put a little piment (hot pepper) in the sauce. When we finished, Gabriel invited me to ask his wife to prepare anything for me since I had tasted her cooking. At a different time, I ate with Dro Ban Emil, a smiley, short, stocky family chief, at his house. We ate rice with a piment liquid sauce with no leaves or other garnish.
On the evening of the last day of August, we held a meeting of the family chiefs, with Lambert, Maurice, and other villagers present. I explained I was discouraged by the poor attendance at the garden. Again, Village Chief Lambert and Delegate Maurice made promises to improve.
The next day, because I really was determined to accomplish something in the garden, I trudged over there with my hands full of seeds, fertilizer, tools, and a Mildor duster (the brand of applicator). Paul, the Group Chief, urged me not to remain in the garden very long because it was not good, he claimed, for me to work alone. However, I did not perceive him willing to ask the villagers to work with me. On the way, I passed by Maurice. He also felt it was not good for me to go alone. So he decided to talk with Lambert. However, before I went to the garden, I received many morning visitors as usual. These visitors included Lambert and David, the family chief. One of the villagers, Gomet Anatole, came and requested seeds for his personal garden, which I happily gave him. He had made five planches. So I gave him three varieties of eggplant and seeds for Akissi okra, Baselle spinach, and Hiré tomatoes.
In the garden, I began to work alone. Eventually, Maurice and Lambert arrived and started to assist—a little. Then Oukoua came. He started to work on his planches and primarily weeded them. After finishing with some other planches, I went over to help him to finish preparations for planting some other planches to replace some dead plants. At this point, who should arrive? Sam McPhetres, the third-ranking Peace Corps staff person for the Ivory Coast, came from Abidjan. His sister, Joanna McPhetres, and Bertin also arrived. Jean, the faithful chauffeur for the Peace Corps, also accompanied them.
I was somewhat pleasantly surprised to see Sam but also somewhat disappointed because I felt the state of the garden was embarrassingly poor. Weeds grew on virtually every planche. Oh, my! He had to see that! I felt it appeared I had done nothing except waste U.S. government money by being there.
Sam was pleased to see the garden site had a fence around it, which none of the other PCVs had achieved. However, he did indicate that their gardens were better cared for. It was nice and encouraging that he could see the positive but gently urge improvement.
After our garden visit, Sam, several notables, chiefs, and the rest of us returned to the village, where they presented a chicken and some palm wine with their apologies that they could not do more since almost everybody had gone to the fields. After drinking the palm wine, we toured the village. At Family Chief David’s house, we talked, taught, and answered the villagers’ questions. One of the questions was about what the villagers would do after the harvest of the communal garden. We answered that they could stop their work, but we hoped they would always continue their own personal gardens. They also asked what they should do with the harvest—eat it or sell it. Sam asked them which was more important to them: the health of their children or a little money.
They strongly agreed that their children’s health was more vital. That was a powerful lesson.
Following this important discussion, we ate lunch. Sam was impressed with our sauce, which contained okra, eggplant, tomatoes, onions, and macaroni. He called it the “best sauce” he had eaten. Before he left, we went to see the personal garden of one of the villagers, Gueu Pierre. Sam was certainly impressed with his magnificent garden, with excellent planches and a shaded pépinière. Sam affirmed that this garden alone made my presence worthwhile. It was delightful to hear that.
A couple of days later, Lambert’s family worked very well to weed six planches as well as to construct A-frame supports for the string beans and mulch the planches. This appeared to me to be the greatest effort in the garden since the initial week’s great work.
L-R: Sam’s sister with village elders; Family Chief Anatole with other villagers; Mr. Coulibaly inspects our village garden; plus other officials with Maurice Yomi, the Delegate.
In the evening before dinner, I played the manh game with Gabriel and Anatole. I defeated Gabriel twice while he beat me three or four times with one tie. If I recall correctly, I succeeded in beating Anatole three times because I started using new opening moves with which he was unfamiliar. However, I lost twice too. It’s easy to see that the games finished quickly to be able to play so many games in a relatively short time. I just loved the game and was always delighted to play it. I believe my playing was a hit with the Yacouba villagers because it showed my interest and support for their culture.
During this time, I posed several questions concerning who decided certain problems confronting their village, the chief, and local medicine. While trying to ask my questions, I was terribly impeded by language to communicate my questions to Maurice, the Delegate.
His lack of knowledge of French was one difficulty, as was my inability to articulate the problem in terms he could understand. My first question involved the following problem. If two villagers came across the same piece of land and both decided that they each wanted to farm the same piece of land, although they held this view without the other’s knowledge, how would the village solve the problem? After several efforts to clarify the question, finally, Maurice’s youngest son understood the issue and replied that the bigger farmer of the two would leave the field to the less advantaged farmer. When the village has problems with thievery, the Village Chief (Lambert), the Group Chief (Paul), and the Delegate (Maurice) would judge the affair. For drunkenness, they put hot pepper in the eyes of the drunk to punish him if he did something bad while drunk.
When I requested the names of the former village chiefs, Maurice told me originally it was his “father” who was the village chief. His father’s name was Gono Déaple, from which derives the village name of Déahouépleu. When he got too old to be chief, he chose Bah Blain as his successor. Every chief subsequently chose his successor until the villagers elected Lambert. The names of the chiefs Maurice gave me were as follows:
Gono Déaple
Bah Bain
Gai Gbab
Téa Gonobeu (now known as Old Soldier)
Batuea Gonobeu
Zongo Paul
Dohoua Lambert
When the villagers planned to elect a chief, Maurice became angry because he felt he rightfully ought to become chief since his father was the former chief.
Evidently, he refused to participate in the election. The villagers actually thought about choosing Maurice’s older brother. However, because he could neither read nor speak French, they picked Lambert, who had those skills. Then, they chose Maurice to be the Delegate. Apparently, he was then happy as things turned out.
Over the next several days, I tried to persuade Mr. Coulibaly, the Chief of the Sous-Section of Agriculture in Danané, to come to the village to see the garden. (Note: His picture was shown above). I felt such a visit would encourage and boost the work effort for the garden. He somewhat reluctantly agreed. Then Bertin and I went to see Mr. Gomet. He had a bunch of people who talked to him about a serious problem that troubled them.
Since they spoke in Yacouba, I understood nothing. When I greeted them in Yacouba, they were pleasantly surprised. Finally, Mr. Gomet cheerily said in English, “Mr. Gary, come and eat.” He frequently spoke a few English words to me, which I felt indicated his desire to please me, and, of course, it did. What surprised me was the extent of his knowledge of English. Then we ate lunch. During our lunch, I asked him if he had thought about coming to Déahouépleu to see the garden. I was astonished when he replied he was going immediately! Bertin and I recommended that we pass by to see the Sous-Prefect. He readily agreed. When we arrived at his office, he went right in to see the Sous-Prefect. A few minutes later, Mr. Gomet returned to invite me inside. I invited the Sous-Prefect to come to Déahouépleu. He agreed. When asked, I recommended they come the following Monday or Tuesday, whichever worked for them. They agreed on Tuesday. When the Sous-Prefect asked if the road was good, I answered the road was good, but the bridge was poor. He indicated he had a problem with going if the bridge was not good.
Following the meeting, Mr. Gomet took us to see the garden. He criticized the negligence of the villagers. No weeding done. He told them he kept his own garden better. He instructed several villagers on the necessity to keep up the garden. He saw Paul, the Group Chief, and informed him of the Sous-Prefect’s arrival on Tuesday.
Paul didn’t seem to be too happy when I informed him also of the news. Before Mr. Gomet left the village, I requested him to remind the Sous-Prefect of his trip to the village, as he promised. Later, I also informed the Delegate and Village Chief of the upcoming visits of Mr. Coulibaly and the Sous-Prefect.
Friday, September 8, marked the best village representation in the garden in a long time and the unfortunate bad timing of the rain. In the morning, Bertin and I found the Group Chief’s family already working in the garden.
They, including Paul himself, worked hard to weed all the planches in their area of responsibility and to build stake supports for the Baselle spinach and for the chayote. Later, Lambert and his family arrived. They weeded several planches and mulched one or two planches. They did not do any staking or weeding. It seemed that the families were called back from the fields to prepare for the impending official visits. Needless to say, a lot of work was done in the garden to clean out the weeds, mulch the planches, and sometimes stake up their plants. Some families even transplanted tomatoes and lettuce from the pépinière to regular planches, as we taught them.
The transplanting was one technique that helped the fragile plants to survive more successfully in that environment with the heavy rains that would chew up the ground and wash away the delicate plants.
While this important work was going on, Paul, the Group Chief, and I visited another village called Transpleu, located along the road on which the Sous-Prefect expected to travel when he went to Déahouépleu. I explained who I was, why I came to the Ivory Coast (the school gardens in Gagnoa), and why I came to Déahouépleu, as well as the impending visit of the Sous-Prefect to visit the village garden. First, I greeted them in Yacouba, which pleased them. We met their village chief, their delegate, one important notable, and other villagers. I continued to talk with them, with Paul serving as interpreter. He liberally translated what I said, which probably made us more effective. Half the time, I feared he would make them feel threatened, but he always made them laugh.
Paul seemed to be one of those people who enjoyed talking and was a crowd-pleaser. After explaining my work and project, I explained how trucks and business people could come to the village more easily to purchase its coffee and other products if the nearby bridge could be repaired. One villager remarked it cost a lot of money to go somewhere in a mille kilo (bush bus) from Danané. I seized advantage of this point to affirm that, if they built the bridge better, it would facilitate entry into the village and thereby reduce the price of taxis and mille kilos. They appeared to agree. In the afternoon, we went to the bridge and found about a dozen villagers working on the bridge. They worked hard to fix the bridge for cars to pass over on.
L-R: The bridge being repaired; one of the village’s homes; another village home; and villagers returning home from their fields or shopping errands.
Bertin helped me to persuade Mr. Coulibaly again to come to Déahouépleu to see the garden. Finally, he did come to look at it. In the end, he not only looked at the village garden but he looked at a couple of personal gardens, too. In the bargain this time, we got Mr. Touré, the Chief of the SATMACI, to go with us. SATMACI was a semipublic-private organization that spearheaded the drive to make the Ivory Coast self-sufficient in rice production.
After some initial hesitancy, both became pretty enthusiastic about what they saw. Before departing, Mr. Touré profusely thanked me and inquired how I had motivated the villagers to accomplish so much. Both appeared extremely content and pleased with the work achieved. I felt elated!
The next day, as I prepared for the Sous-Prefect’s expected visit, I heard cries announcing his arrival. When the car arrived, I didn’t see the Sous-Prefect but three young men instead.
The first one introduced himself as the Sous-Prefect’s secretary. Another served as the chauffeur, and the third person was Mr. Joseph, the man in charge of recording births. While I was disappointed the Sous-Prefect had not come, I was not surprised. I was grateful that he at least sent a representative.
My last formal day in my village of Déahouépleu was Wednesday, September 20, 1967. This was the day to say farewell to the villagers.
Early in the day, before the final reunion with everybody, I walked around trying to find something to keep me occupied. I took advantage of the time to look for the old man Gbadé, Maurice’s older brother. As I had previously done several times, I asked him if it would be possible to buy his manh game. According to the Yacouba, the name of the game should be pronounced as “Ma.”
I loved the game so much that I wanted to take it back with me to the United States. One thing that attracted me were the designs carved on the sides of the wood.
Gbadé replied that in order to sell it, he must receive permission from all in the family. That was not possible at this point in time. After that, I wandered around the village some more.
Finally, at about 11:00 a.m., the word came that they were ready. I gathered up my notes and raincoat and, with Bertin, went to Paul’s house, the site of the reunion. We greeted Paul and then all the other elders. No women were present. Besides Paul, I noticed the eldest villager was there in his colorful garments. Also, the one called Old Soldier, who was the second eldest, was present. Others included Maurice, Lambert, Gbadé, Anatole, David, Gabriel, Tiéffin, Gueu Pierre, and Paul’s younger brother. Just as I started to speak, it started to rain. So we were forced to move into Paul’s house, where he had chairs and two tables covered with plastic tablecloths set up.
I counted about forty people.
L-R: Gary shakes hands with Group Chief Zongo Paul; Bertin and villagers around my Deux Chevaux; more villagers say good-by to Gary; plus the mask on stilts waves good-by.
I explained my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer and how I was there to help them to help themselves. I was there to assist them in their own efforts to grow vegetables. I tried to point out that I could teach them how to augment their harvest through techniques such as using planches, transplanting, mulching, and staking. I reminded them I did not come to make the garden by myself and also tried to explain why a garden was good for them. After I finished, to my complete surprise, they gave me a newly made manh game to keep as a “thank you” for my help. I was overjoyed and thanked them profusely! I really appreciated how wonderful the leaders and the villagers were to me during my short stay.
Bertin and I got in my Deux Chevaux, waved goodbye, and drove back to Danané. Next, we said goodbye to Mr. Coulibaly, Mr. Gomet, and the Sous-Prefect. Then we drove to Gagnoa.
School had started. It was time to get back to my school gardens work.
This concludes our discussion of life in one African village.
Thanks for joining us in our discussion of my book The Vegetable Grows and the Lion Roars: My Peace Corps Service. I hope you have enjoyed our extended discussion about “Déahouépleu” and my chat with Yomi Maurice, the Delegate, how I crashed the Sous-Prefect’s luncheon party, my meeting with the new Peace Corps Director, my unexpected but delightful meeting with one of the villagers in his personal garden, and my very blunt and informative discussion with the Village Chief.