Life in the Ivory Coast
As I listened as the speaker in colorful African dress talked to the students in Beth Shanabrook’s and Gary Hart’s classes in the Tiffin Columbian Library, I was conscious of how deep and wide my ignorance is about African life and customs.
I came away from the library wanting to know more, so I called the speaker, Craig Hanscome, to ask for an interview. This was not as easy as I had thought. He is now in Georgia, so I rigged up the phone with a towel and safety pins so it stayed against my ear as I listened and typed.
Craig Hanscome and his wife and three children had been in the Ivory Coast in East Africa for twenty years, continuing a seventy year old tradition of mission in that country by the Christian Missionary Alliance church. They plan to return this year.
Over Christmas there was a bloodless coup in the Ivory Coast, and Craig eagerly scans BBC.com for news. They had had a stable government with one ruler since 1960. When that ruler died, the president’s son was elected to succeed him. The new ruler proved to be autocratic. According to Craig, democracy is often very frail in Africa, so no one was surprised when one day soldiers began to riot and the military took over the television and government buildings. The ruler called on his supporters to come and support him. When no one came forth, he was allowed to leave the country quietly. Now it remains to be seen if and when democracy will return to the Ivory Coast.
The Hanscomes have lived in the bush in quite small villages, and also in the second largest city, Bouake, a city of 700,000. When they first came to the Ivory Coast, only two of the ten mission stations had telephones. The rest used public telephones in the city post offices. Now there are phones at every mission post and many cellular phones. They lived, as most people there lived, in a cement block house with a tin roof when they were in the city. This is upper middle class housing. In the villages people often still live in mud brick or adobe houses.
When he arrived in the country, he and an African pastor served twenty churches, but that soon became forty churches, so his chief work was training African pastors and developing lay leadership. There are about 250,000 Christians in the country today. About 30 to 50% of the people in the cities are Muslims.
Tribalism is a great problem in the country, so after elementary school, the government transfers students to other parts of the country for high school to mix the tribes. Students and their families compete fiercely to get into high school because they know they will be better able to provide for their families with more education.
When the children are not in school, they work along side their parents in the fields. Coffee and cocoa, the main exports, require a lot of labor. Everything is done by hand. The ancient practice of slashing and burning the forest to plant crops still is a way of life. The men clear the fields and then the women and children take over and plant and tend rice, plantain bananas, peanuts, and yams, which may grow to weigh thirty pounds. In the villages, goats and chickens roam the yards. They are efficient garbage collectors.
Polygamy is not uncommon, but usually a man will have only two or three wives. The number is limited by the amount of labor that is required to clear the land for the wives to plant. If a man becomes a Christian, the church allows him to keep his wives. If he disowned a wife, she would have no means of support and might become a prostitute.
Traditional religion is an ever present reality. They feel the presence of evil spirits. They sense the presence of their ancestors. Animism or African traditional religion is not unlike paying protection money to the mob to keep from wiping you out. Their good deeds and rituals keep the spirits from doing them harm.
Ivory Coast people definitely believe in life after death. The deceased are believed to go to a shadowland, something like another village, where they continue to affect the lives of their descendants. Craig believes that there are no atheists in the whole country.
In the Baoule culture, the largest tribe in the country, a bride price is still demanded of the family of the young man who wants to marry. This has its abuses, but it also promotes stability in marriage. The man would have to find the money to pay his wife’s family back if he decided to divorce her.
Marriage could be described as a process. A lot of teenagers are sexually active early and gradually settle on a partner. Then negotiations start, or families may arrange the marriage. Christian families struggle with the issue of the cultural attitude toward sexual activity and seek to follow scriptural guidelines. But this is hard as it goes against prevailing cultural practices. The marriage is a civil ceremony as is French custom. If the families are Christian, they then go to the church for a blessing. The young couple may live with either parent for a while until the bridegroom builds a house.
Almost everyone relies on his or her extended family for help if sickness strikes. Grandparents are expected to rely on their children for support if they need it. There is very little support from the government.
Disputes are settled by the village chief. He runs the village on the basis of consensus. The Baoule are a very practical people, and most disputes are settled quickly. Sometimes the village chief has to make hard decisions when the teachings of the Bible conflict with local traditions. His decisions are not taken until they reflect the tribal wishes. The Baoule are a very practical people and most disputes are settled quickly.
The Hanscome family plans to return in July, 2000. They are spending this year talking about their mission to Christian and Missionary Alliance churches throughout the United States.
– Mary