Equatorial Guinea

People who live on Bioko Island, or the Bubi society divides people by function farmers, hunters, and fishers.

Equatorial Guineans share respect for the people of status. Greeting one another is considered an important gesture, Equatorial Guineans are friendly and shake hands. People indulge in social interaction where touching or conversing close to one other is considered important as it shows due respect between one another.

Equatorial Guineans try to look good in public,  In Urban areas Western style clothes are worn. Women and girls wear bright colored  pleated skirts with African patterns, starched blouses and polished shoes.  Children in the villages wear shorts, jeans and tee-shirts. Tailored dresses are popular for girls.   Head scarves are also common. People make very little money and many go barefoot.

Staple foods include cocoyams, plantains, rice and peanuts. People eat little meat. Many people only eat what they can grow. The supplement their diets with eggs or an occasional chicken. Meat is the preferred source of protein

when available. Goats, chickens, rodents, monkeys, and snakes are all

eaten in Equatorial Guinea.

Fish are abundant in the coastal areas. A popular dish is ground squash seeds made

into a curd. People in urban areas have three meals a day, in rural areas, people often eat only a light meal in the middle of the morning and a larger meal before dark. One of the most traditional meals starts

with gari, flour made from cassava that is a staple of many dishes

turned into porridge, or spiced as a side dish with added crushed seeds

or leaves, and mushrooms, snails, plantains and skewered chicken.

The family and the clan are very important in Equatorial Guinea. Fang men may have more than one wife and can marry outside of their clan.  Bubi men marry within the same clan or tribe.  The Bubi are also matriarchal and place importance on having girls. Girls are the eyes of the home.

Soccer is a favorite pastime as well as table tennis that was learned from Chinese aid workers. Equatorial Guineans enjoy socializing with family and friends. It is common to see them playing cards, checkers, and chess.

The Majority of children in Equatorial Guinea live in the villages where the day begins early. Children who have to go to school usually wake up before sunrise and the first activity is usually long trek to fetch water for family use before they set off for schools. The lack of water prevents many, especially the girls from going to school consistently, especially in the dry months, collecting water takes priority over every other activity. Piped water is available only in the affluent areas of major towns. As for the boys they may leave school to take care of the few family animals that could be there.

The journey to school is on foot. Because schools are sparse, children from neighboring villages will all congregate in one school, which leads to overcrowding. The journey to school may be long with some children having to walk for over 5 kilometers. Classes begin at about 7:30 am and the lessons usually take close to 40 minutes, with a short break at around 10:30 am when children will play and catch up with their friends from neighboring villages. There is usually a lunch break which is followed thereafter by afternoon classes. Although primary education is free and compulsory, there are several obstacles preventing universal access to the benefits offered by the education system. No legal provision has yet been adopted to determine the scope of the principle of free primary education. The poor rate of school attendance by girls remains a cultural problem. Despite legislation establishing gender equality, the persistence of cultural and/or traditional factors is impeding universal attendance by girls.

Education in general has not been given a great priority here and there is no real development for schools and materials that are involved in learning. Schools in Equatorial Guinea face some of the greatest challenges anywhere in Africa. The teachers themselves are not usually many and very few of them are properly trained to be teachers. This leads to a high student teacher ratio which makes it very hard for the teachers to have time to concentrate on assisting any child who may have special needs in the class. Many classes, which are made of earth bricks, are crumbling. Materials such as blackboards and chalk, books and any other teaching materials are usually very hard to come by so the teacher must do with the little that the government provides. There are some areas where teachers face politically instigated violence because they are perceived to be friendly to the government. This makes it difficult for children to have access to qualified teachers because the teachers fear being victimized.

Classes are conducted in Spanish and everyone tries to learn the language because it is the language in which business is conducted, although English and French are sometimes used.

3:30 p.m. or 4:00 p.m. marks the end of the school day and children have to run home to assist their parents in doing evening chores before they retire at the end of the day. The evening chores include cleaning up and sweeping the compound together with helping in preparation of the evening meal which must be ready by about 6:00 p.m. The reason is there is no electricity in most homes. For those children who are lucky to live next to cities or any establishments that have electricity, studying in the evening is done outside where there are street lights. In the evenings parking lots and any areas with floodlights including the vicinity of factories or even the international airport are filled with children reading for their exams or doing their homework. Children from the same locality usually group themselves together so that they will walk back home as a group when they are though with the evening study period. Those who do not access to lights go to bed as early as 8:00 because there is never anything to illuminate the rooms where they live. Parents require girls to be chaperoned to the airport or any other place where there is light by an older brother or a trusted male friend.