10 Things I Learned from the Ivorian People

1. Greet and shake everyone's hand
2. Its okay to go topless.
- Most women do not go topless, but I did see a few of the older women walking around without a shirt on.  This is one lesson I will not be taking to heart. 
3. Generosity and hospitality are a way of life. 
- Visitors are always welcome.  Guests are always given the best.  My family would always give me the best piece of meat or an egg even if the others did not get something.  My host mother would randomly bring home peanuts or something for me.
4. It's not a meal without rice.
- Rice and sauce is one of the main things that the Ivorians eat for meals.  Some people do not even consider it a meal without rice. 
5.   Names have meaning. 
- Many of the tribal names are given to people for their significance or meaning.  They may mean things like he or she was born on a Monday or even that they never met their father.  My family gave me the Senoufo name of Fonnidjanwa, which means daughter of a forger or blacksmith.  They gave me this name because their family are forgers.
6.  Getting your clothes made for you and picking out the designs is really fun.
- It is just really neat getting to pick out the pattern you want then getting measured and picking out how you want it to look.  It makes your clothes more fun and meaningful.  They also fit a lot better. 
7. It is okay to dance at church (and most big events)...and kind of fun too!
8. Ministry (and even a church) can begin right next door. 
- The family that I lived with had small Bible study meetings with a group of people in their neighborhood.  It was so neat to walk through the town with them to another family's courtyard.  We all sat under the stars and worshipped God.  They prayed for everyone and then read and talked about a Bible passage.  The Christian community and amount of Bible study meetings had grown so large they were building a church just a few feet down the road from my family's house.
9.  Everybody goes to the market when it is market day.
- Market day was every six days.  It was incredibly crowded on that day because everyone came whether you needed something or not.
10.  Prayer is powerful and important.
- One easy way to minister to the people at the clinic was to offer to pray for them.  Whether a person was a Christian or not they really appreciated you praying for them.  The Christians of the neighborhood got together to pray for each other's requests.  When my Ivorian sister had a huge test her friend came over to the house and prayed with her before the exam.  I think we value prayer here too, but I was impressed by how they came together to pray for situations. 
*The people of Cote d'Ivoire were so nice.  Although things may be a little different there, they are some wonderful people.  I thank God for them and for allowing me to see their culture and faith first-hand. 

A Typical Day Living with My Ivorian Family

In the morning, I would wake up, take a bucket bath, eat leftover rice and sauce for breakfast, and rice with my Ivorian dad into work on his motorcycle.  Then in the afternoon we would ride back home after work.  I mostly hung out with my Ivorian sister, Bintou, who was near my age.  We would pull up water from the well to fill a few buckets to use for cleaning and washing.  We would wash the dishes outside.  I was usually not allowed to do the hard ones because I did not do it well enough.  A good washing requires the use of some dirt to help scrub off the grime.  Then my sister would get a fire going and start dinner.  Usually she would mash up tomatoes and peppers or whatever was needed for a certain kind of sauce with a large wooden mortar and pestle.  These would go in a pot, and she would add water and seasonings.  In the mean time we might sweep the dirt courtyard and take the trash to a corner outside the walls of their courtyard.  We had to wash the rice and pick out the stones.  Then I would take another bucket bath because you have to take two every day.  Afterwards I would sit and talk with my sisters and brothers while we waited for dinner.  We ate around 8 PM, and my sister would put the rice in dishes for people.  My brothers and cousins all ate out of the same big bowl.  They all eat with their hands, but gave me a fork.  I tried to use my hands sometimes, but they usually laughed at me so I just stuck with the fork.  After dinner we might watch television together.  They particularly enjoyed WWE wrestling or Indian soap operas.  Frequently people would stop by the house and visit in the evenings.  On the weekends we would wash our laundry, rest, maybe visit people, and go to church on Sunday.

September 2011 - Living in Korhogo

After work on the 6^th, the missionary took me and my bag to my new house.  I was really nervous since I really did not know their customs, and I definitely did not know the language well enough.  My Ivorian family was so nice.  Living at the house with my parents were their four kids and occasionally two of their nephews.  They live in a quartier or suburb of Korhogo.  They have a house and outdoor are or courtyard enclosed by a cement wall.  The house is one-level with four small bedrooms, a living room, food closet, and a shower room.  Thankfully we had electricity so that was nice.  Sadly they did not have a fan or air conditioning.  I was sweating all the time, but I made it through.  The shower room is a room with a tiled floor and drain – not an actual shower, but the room where I took my bucket baths.  My family would heat up water and give me a bucket and cup to use to bathe with.  There were no refrigerators or ovens.  The “kitchen” was actually outside.  The courtyard has a cooking area, a well, a garden, a chicken coop and goat enclosure, an outhouse, and outdoor shower.  The toilet was a walled area made of cement with a hole in the middle.  The cooking area had an awning and a store room by it for pots and other cooking essentials.  They used fires to cook all their food.  There was a freestanding thing that used charcoal and could hold a small pot.  They also would put two big stones about half a foot apart so that a pot could rest on top, and they would make a fire between the two with wood.  This is how they would cook their meals every day.  I shared a bedroom with my sister.  She is one year younger than me, and she does most all of the cooking and cleaning.  My dad worked in the lab at the clinic.  My mom sells charcoal at a local market.  They have a few older children, but they were away in bigger cities finishing school.  I had two younger brothers.  One is eighteen and the other one is eleven years old.  Then I had another little sister who is about four years old.  They had two cousins around ten to thirteen that stay at the house.  I talked more with the children.  They spoke a little bit of English, and I only spoke a very little bit of French.  It took time, but we would converse using really simple French.  We would use hand motions and my French-English dictionary a lot.  I learned so much from them, and I loved getting to know them.