Cote d'Ivoire

Côte d'Ivoire is a culturally rich and ethnically diverse nation, home to more than 60 distinct ethnic groups whose traditions, languages, and artistic expressions collectively shape the country's national identity. The largest ethnic groups include the Akan, Gur, Northern Mandes, Southern Mandes, and Kru peoples, each with unique customs, social structures, and oral traditions passed down through generations. Music and dance hold a central place in Ivorian cultural life. The country is widely credited as the birthplace of coupé-décalé, a popular genre of dance music that emerged in Paris in the early 2000s among the Ivorian diaspora and quickly spread across West and Central Africa. Traditional music features instruments such as the djembe drum, balafon (a wooden xylophone), and kora, often performed during ceremonies, festivals, and rites of passage. Ivorian visual arts are internationally recognized, particularly the intricate wooden masks crafted by the Dan, Baoulé, and Senufo peoples. These masks are not merely decorative; they carry deep spiritual significance and are used in ceremonial rituals, initiation rites, and community gatherings. The country has a strong tradition of weaving as well, with hand-woven textiles featuring bold geometric patterns that reflect ethnic identity and social status. The nation observes both Christian and Muslim holidays, reflecting its religiously diverse population — approximately 42 percent of the population identifies as Muslim, 34 percent as Christian, and the remainder practice indigenous spiritual traditions or a blend of faiths. Religion is often intertwined with traditional customs, and many communities observe rituals that blend ancestral beliefs with formal religious practice. French remains the official language and serves as the primary medium of education, government, and commerce, though Dioula functions as a widely spoken trade language across much of the country. Family and community ties are deeply valued, and extended family networks play an essential role in social support systems, decision-making, and cultural continuity throughout Ivorian society.

People wear both traditional and Western style clothing. In cities people wear pants or blue jeans with shirts, with many of the women wearing pagnes or brightly colored dresses. Traditional clothing is most common in rural areas. For men traditional clothing includes shorts or a short piece of cloth wrapped around their bodies with long robes for ceremonial occasions.

The Ivorians are kind people who enjoy inviting others for dinner they believe those who are blessed enough to prepare a meal should share their good fortune. In many villages people eat together in a common area. Women and girls eat as a group, Men eat as a group and young boys eat as a third group. They eat with their right hand. It is considered rude to reach across the table and they want everyone to receive similar amounts of food. Coughing, sneezing and talking during the meal is considered rude. If you need to cough, it is customary to leave the meal area. After the meal a bowl of water is passed around to cleanse the hands.

In rural areas, before the meal, a calabash (bottle gourd) with water is served, and people wash their hands in it in turns: first an honorable guest or the head of the family, then everyone else in the order of seniority, so by the time it gets to the children, the water can be dirty. Children eat together with adults, and their responsibility is to hold the calabash with their left hand so that it does not spin or shake. An adult will not scrape the food out from the bottom of a pan, as then the children who cannot eat quickly and are not as agile, will be left hungry. After the meal everyone thanks the elders for the treat, and their reply is: “All the thanks should go to God!”

The peoples of Côte d'Ivoire will serve the meal to a guest in a separate calabash: the more honorable a guest is, the more food he is offered. But a polite guest will not finish his meal, and will leave something to the host’s children. The people of Cote d’Ivoire sometimes give food to their children in separate calabashes and the children boast in front of each other that the one who got the biggest portion is loved by his mother more than the others.

Ivoirians eat yams, plantains, rice millet, corn and peanuts as staples for their diets. The national dish is fufu (foofoo) which is plantains, cassava or yams pounded into a sticky mass and served with a seasoned meat and sauce called kedjenou (KED-gen-ooh). Kedjenou is made from peanuts, eggplant okra or tomatoes. A typical side dish is a porridge made from grated cassava called Attieke. Meat, chicken and fish are popular among those who can afford it. Many dishes have hot peppers and fresh fruits are a typical dessert.

Hospitality is a way of life. Men dominate interpersonal relations with the village elders being respected. Women take care of the children and many women have more than five (5) children. Different ethnic groups have their own traditions. A common ritual is initiations rights where participants undergo endurance tests. In rural areas many marriages are arranged, in the urban cities young people choose their own spouse. In the rural areas marriage can take place at a young age and many of the girls are married by age fourteen. In some groups funerals are central to the village. Among the Akan when their is a death in the village all villagers shave their heads.

Football (soccer) is the most important sport. Griots or storytellers and storytelling is a favorite pastime in villages and stories may be told well into the night. Carving decorative objects is also a favorite pastime.

The people of Cote d’Ivoire value dancing as way of expression and passing down values from one generation to another. Some dancers jump up high or throw out their legs high in a swift rhythm. Among the Dan or Guro in Côte d'Ivoire, women dancers stand almost still bending their bodies, and only the lower parts of their bodies vibrate.

Dancing is a favorite amusement for villagers, and they take it very seriously. A village may have several associations of young people whose purpose is preparation and organization of celebrations, during which they dance in public. Some of these societies are secret, to join them one has to pass special ceremonies.

The routine of going to school in Cote d’Ivoire, especially the rural parts of the country is considered a recent development and thus has to be accommodated within the normal routines that have gone on for ages. On a normal typical day children and especially girls will have to wake up at about 4:00 a.m. in order to take a long walk to the nearest water pump and fetch water to be used by the family for the day. The water pump could be about 3 miles away on average and the children will be getting back home at about 6:00 a.m. However in months when there is drought in some areas, the trip to the water pump takes a good part of the day so school is not given priority then. Those who do not make it to the water pump will have to do with pond water which is known to be contaminated and spreads disease. Once back home children will hurry off to school after a quick breakfast, which inmost cases is likely to be left over from the previous nights dinner.

The journey to the nearest school is also another walk since there is no school transport especially in rural villages. Since most schools may be far away the children do not waste time at home after coming from the water pump. The trek may be anything like 3 to 5 miles before they arrive in school ready for classes which begin at 8:00 a.m.

The normal school routine begins by a daily assembly where announcements are passed on to the children before they disperse to their various classrooms. The normal school day begins at 8:00 a.m. and goes on until 3:30 p.m. with a lunch break of about one hour. The official language of communication in school is French and the lessons take between 35 and 40 minutes. When it comes to mid morning break children freshening up and they have to share a few pit latrines in the compound. It is also time to catch up and play games. In most cases there are no balls and other playing facilities so children learn to improvise and play different games in their own groups. At lunch hour there are some schools, who offer hot lunches for the kids and where that is not available children will take water or simply play without eating lunch. In most areas in Cote d’Ivoire there is rampant poverty and there is no place where that is reflected better than the state of school buildings. In some cases the school could be a single building with one teacher that has to prepare all the children for most of the primary school. Most of the buildings are basically walls without roofs, doors or windows, which have been destroyed or looted during the civil war that has been going on in the country. Over crowding is the norm with the population in a single classroom sometimes as much as 100 children for a single teacher. There are some areas where they do not have trained teachers because they all have fled so any person with some form of formal education is allowed to teach. In a typical class, pupils sit at broken desks under a collapsing ceiling while the teacher copies the day’s lesson from the only tattered textbook. Primary school education is meant to be compulsory from the age of 6 to 11 but many children do not attend preprimary education. Classes are organized into three – two year cycles namely preparatory stages I and II (CP1 and CP2, or Cours préparatoires de première et deuxième année), elementary levels I and II (CE1 and CE2 or cours élémentaires de première et deuxième année), and intermediary levels I and II (CM1 and CM2 or cours moyens de première et deuxième année).

The end of the school day comes at about 4:00 p.m. on average and the children need to walk back home. Once they get home there is little time to play or enjoy any leisure time because they will need to help their parents with household chores. These may include preparation of the evening meal and cleaning up the compound. The evening bath is usually taken under the stars when darkness is just beginning to set it. Any homework given at school must be completed before night falls and is not usually supervised because a good number of parents are illiterate. The evening meal, usually the only one in some families is shared with the whole family around a fire which may also act as a source of light because in the poorest families they may not have a kerosene lamp. There are however other children who do not manage to go to school at all. They are forced to work with their families in their cocoa farms and many are forced to do extra work outside the home in order to supplement the family budget. Some children begin working as early as the age of 5. Because many families are polygamous and there are many children, schooling becomes an extra expense that some parents do not want to bother with.