Chad

Because Chad is a former French colony and many of its citizens speak French. The people of Chad include more than a hundred distinct ethnic groups, each with its own language and customs. Families consider children to be insurance for their future and esteem those who have large families.

Greetings are of great importance in Chad. They may be long and elaborate and require a ritualized response. The type of greeting depends on the age of the person addressed or the time of day. In some cultures in the south, it is considered impolite to look directly into the eyes of older people or people with authority. Some groups feel that watching people while they eat is disrespectful.

Chadians generally place great emphasis on clothing. Women often wear a loose top and a length of cloth (pagne) around the waist as a skirt. Men's casual clothes - which look like pajamas - are in the same distinctively 'African' designs, but most of the cloth is imported from the Netherlands.

The most authentic cloths are handmade, designed fabrics, such as woodblock prints and batiks and tie-dyed cloths. Dress is normally conservative and shorts are frowned upon, and the standards are usually tougher for women than men.

Chad has several geographical zones reflected in the diet like this: in the South, the diet is dominated by roots and tubers ( cassava, sweet potato, yam) and by white sorghum; in the Central South, the diet is based on sorghum ( red and white) and on rice; in the Central part, the diet is based on sorghum ( red and white) and millet; in the North the diet is based on millet and dates. Boule is a main staple made from millet and water. As a complement to the different sorghums and roots and tubers, which serve to prepare the staple paste, a sauce with vegetables, meat or fish is served. Cattle or camel rearing also dominates the country.

Fish abound in Chad's lakes and rivers. The most common fish is the Nile perch, called capitaine in Chad. Other fish include eel, tilapia and carp. Balbout (a mud-dwelling catfish) is caught at the beginning of the rainy season. Fish may be dried, salted or smoked before they are sold. Salanga (small dried or salted fish) and banda (larger smoked fish) are popular among Chadians and are exported to Cameroon and Nigeria.

Peanuts are a popular snack and are eaten raw or roasted. Other snacks include corn (roasted or boiled) and fangasou (fried donuts made of millet or wheat flour). Fangasou are also popular for breakfast. In some places, skewered roasted meats in a hot, spicy sauce are sold on the streets, accompanied by French bread. Carcaje is a sweet drink made from hibiscus leaves. It is often sold in markets in small plastic bags.

Okra is very popular in Chad and is used as the base of a sauce called gumbo.

The evening meal is the most important meal of the day. It is served on a large plate set in the middle of a mat. People gather around the plate and seat themselves on the ground. Generally, men and women eat separately.

In the south, however, people enjoy beer brewed from millet. It is called billi-billi when it is made from red millet and coshate when it is made from white millet. Spirits made from distilled millet alcohol are known as arki. Gala beer is also manufactured in Chad.

Chad has several geographical zones reflected in the diet like this: in the South, the diet is dominated by roots and tubers ( cassava, sweet potato, yam) and by white sorghum; in the Central South, the diet is based on sorghum ( red and white) and on rice; in the Central part, the diet is based on sorghum ( red and white) and millet; in the North the diet is based on millet and dates. Boule is a main staple made from millet and water. As a complement to the different sorghums and roots and tubers, which serve to prepare the staple paste, a sauce with vegetables, meat or fish is served. Cattle or camel rearing also dominates the country.

Fish abound in Chad's lakes and rivers. The most common fish is the Nile perch, called capitaine in Chad. Other fish include eel, tilapia and carp. Balbout (a mud-dwelling catfish) is caught at the beginning of the rainy season. Fish may be dried, salted or smoked before they are sold. Salanga (small dried or salted fish) and banda (larger smoked fish) are popular among Chadians and are exported to Cameroon and Nigeria.

Peanuts are a popular snack and are eaten raw or roasted. Other snacks include corn (roasted or boiled) and fangasou (fried donuts made of millet or wheat flour). Fangasou are also popular for breakfast. In some places, skewered roasted meats in a hot, spicy sauce are sold on the streets, accompanied by French bread. Carcaje is a sweet drink made from hibiscus leaves. It is often sold in markets in small plastic bags.

Okra is very popular in Chad and is used as the base of a sauce called gumbo.

The evening meal is the most important meal of the day. It is served on a large plate set in the middle of a mat. People gather around the plate and seat themselves on the ground. Generally, men and women eat separately.

In the south, however, people enjoy beer brewed from millet. It is called billi-billi when it is made from red millet and coshate when it is made from white millet. Spirits made from distilled millet alcohol are known as arki. Gala beer is also manufactured in Chad.

Kwanzaa is a special dish in Chad, eaten during the holidays.

Gorane families are small, consisting of parents, children, and sometimes one or two other relatives. The clan is the most important unit of Gorane life. Each clan controls certain resources, such as palm groves or oases; members of other clans may not use these resources without permission. The Gorane tribes live in the Sahara desert in northern Chad.

A semi-nomadic Arab culture prevails in the Sahel region. Arabs make up one-third of the population. Their basic social unit is the kishimbet, a group related through the male line. The kishimbet is headed by an elder, known as the shaykh. Members of a kishimbet live near each other and follow the same routes during migration.

The basic social unit or clan of the Sara people is known variously as the "qir ka", "qin ka" or "qel ka", depending on the region. The members of each clan are the descendants of a common male ancestor.

The Sara have important initiation rites to mark the passage from childhood to adulthood, especially for boys. The best-known ritual is the Yondo, which takes place when a boy is 8 to 10 years old. He must pass an extended period in the bush in the company of elders and his fellow initiates, learning tribal secrets. Women are generally not allowed to witness Yondo.

Soccer is the most popular sport in Chad. Basketball is widely played in the cities.

Children in Chad often build their own toys or play with everyday objects. They like to push wheels and tires around, often using sticks. Hide-and-seek is popular, and village boys sometimes carry slingshots, which they use to hunt small birds, such as guinea fowl. Girls play tap tap, a game much like hopscotch. Many people enjoy playing checkers or a board game played with seeds or small stones known as sidjé in Arabic or agra in Gorane.

The day for the Chadian child begins at any time between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. because many schools are usually far off from the villages. Apart from the local children there are also refugee children from neighboring Sudan’s Darfur in some areas who attend local schools. Depending on where they live, some may have to begin with the routine chores in the home before school. The older children or the mother prepares tea and ‘la boule’ - a traditional Chadian and Sudanese dish made of warm bread and sauce. After it is ready the younger children are awakened so that they could get ready for school. After quickly sipping tea, the children hurry to school. Classes begin usually at 7:00 a.m.

The trip to school is taken on foot and the distance to school will depend on where the child comes from and how far it is from their home. They sometimes can walk distances of up to 8 kilometers to reach the nearest school. Many schools are in great disrepair due to the fact that sometimes rebels attack and pull down school buildings. Once in school children begin classes which go on until 3:30 or 4:00 p.m. daily. The children who live in refugee camps usually have a longer break time of about one hour between 9:00 and 10:00 and they can run home briefly. The curriculum in most schools includes mathematics, environmental studies, geography, and Arabic. After the break, they will go back for another one or two hours and go back home until the next school day.

For the Chadian children who live in refugee camps as displaced from other countries or as the internally displaced, they can only get up to four years of education. Even with the little schooling they get, there still is a great problem because of a lack of facilities and resources. Materials are not sent in by anyone so the teachers, most of who are volunteers must try and improvise. The classrooms are inadequate. There is always very little financing from the poor Chadian government for education. On average you will find a class having close to 100 students per teacher. Very few children proceed to secondary education and the standards there are even worse than the primary sections. The greatest impediment to the education of children has been the disruption caused by the civil war which leads to a lack of security in conflict areas and becomes difficult for the government to post teachers and even for children themselves to attend school.

The primary school course begins at the age of six and is run for six years where children learn in what is basically the French Model of Education. There is very little if any emphasis on pre-primary education. The courses of study in primary school usually involve reading, writing, spelling, grammar, mathematics, history, geography, science as well as drawing. Even though six is the official age for starting primary school in some areas you will get children beginning up to the age of 12. It is suspected that only about 40% of school-age children manage to attend school. There are a smaller number of children who attend private schools but this could account for only about 2% of the population and mainly in the urban centers like the capital city, N’djamena. Most villages have only temporary grass shelters that serve as schools and which are usually not strong enough to stand for a long time. Thus there is always a need to rebuild them. The other challenge is that because they are made of grass or straw, they easily become fodder for animals, both domestic and wild and it is never surprising to find that animals got into a classroom at night and made a real mess out of the class. There are other times when children come to school and find animals asleep on the earthen floor of their classes. It is therefore also extremely hard for the children to maintain the cleanliness of their classes. You will find a great majority of children living in refugee camps, both those who are internally displaced as well as the refugee children from the neighboring Darfur in the Sudan. These children, therefore, find themselves reading under extremely difficult conditions. There is usually a lot of tension between villagers and refugees and this extends all the way to the few resources available to children.

There is almost always no homework or very little so when children get back home they will simply play or assist their parents in doing household chores. The setting of the sun marks the end of the day, and dinner will mainly be a dinner paste eaten with any kind of sauce that is available because there is no electricity. The fire from the hearth will also act as the light, and shortly after dinner, everyone will be asleep. When the rains come, the school program is disrupted because the children must assist their parents in sowing and the same thing applies when it is time to harvest millet. There may be times when children participate in village dances as well as celebrations. Young girls will have more disadvantages to attend school. You are likely to find her selling vegetables, flour, or even fruit in the market when the boys are in school and at other times she will be helping her mother with household chores, such as taking care of her younger brothers and sisters, cooking meals, cleaning the house and other chores depending on individual circumstances. The boys may be allowed to go to school and are more likely going to proceed with higher education, to prepare to join their fathers in whatever businesses they are doing. In the village when the boys are out of school they have the responsibility of shepherding the family goats and sheep, and when they become a little bit older they can help work on the family farm. Leisure activities are limited and boys will normally play football (soccer), jump rope, hopscotch, read, and those who can try to write. The rest of the time is spent doing family chores. The families are usually large with an average of close to ten children per family and there will always be relatives such as cousins, nephews, and nieces staying with the family. As long as it looks like a particular family is not struggling as much as the others, then all the relatives will bring their children to live with them.