Boundiali - Fulani - Pottery - Gunsmith - Odienne

The restaurant is empty when we arrive for breakfast, so we wander over to a counter with bread in covered containers, and help ourselves to a couple of pieces each. Like a hovering kestrel, a waitress appears, takes the plates with the bread off us and puts it back in the container, and motions for us to go and sit down. We do as she suggests, and consider ourselves well and truly told off.

When she later appears to take our order, David asks for fried eggs, but as my tummy is still feeling rather fragile, all I want is the aforementioned bread with some Marmite that I have brought with me. Eventually David's eggs arrive, as does some bread for me. Plus a couple of fried eggs with onion and red pepper, which David is thankfully happy to eat while I have bread and Marmite.

My unwanted eggs that I didn't order

Fulabougou Village

We leave the hotel and set off across the local airfield, and further along on rough sandy tracks well and truly off the beaten path.

The local air strip

We are heading for the small village of Fulabougou, inhabited by the Fulani tribe.

Life in the village is simple, with basic mud and straw huts, no electricity, and few possessions.

Men and women have separate sleeping quarters, with the women sharing their huts with the children. Polygamy is not generally practised.

The husband's house

The wife's hut

The interior is dark and to our standards, primitive and spartan: A large bed with a shelf above for possessions, and a few pots and pans.

The bed used by the wife and children

The shelf above the bed

Cooking utensils

Again Lamin has brought gifts for the villagers, the ladies get Maggi stock cubes and soap, whereas the men are given tea.

There are also sweets for the children, of course, and these kids are much calmer and well behaved as the bon-bons are handed out than the ones yesterday.

The look of sheer adulation on this girl's face!

Mathias explains that it is undoubtedly because their teacher is present.

The teacher

There are three classes a day, the first one from 06:00-09:00, followed by another one between 14:00 and 17:00, with the last one taking place in the evening from 20:00-22:00. The children, who are mostly Muslim, write in Arabic on wooden tablets.

Most of the villagers do not know how to read or write French, the official language of Ivory Coast. Communication amongst themselves in the village is mostly in Fula, the local language of the Fulani tribe.

The youngest mother in the village at the moment is seventeen, whereas giving birth age 14 or 15 is not unusual, especially as the majority of the villagers do not know their exact age.

The ladies travel into town to attend the maternity hospital for the birth of their child.

We first encountered the Fulani people in Mali in 2001, and soon discovered that the ladies of this tribe are amongst the prettiest around. The Fulani women, with their lighter skin than many of their neighbours, are viewed as both mysterious and alluring, and seeing the young girls on today’s visit does not disprove that claim.

The young boys are handsome too.

Lip Tattoos
For centuries, tattoos have been a form of cultural expression throughout the world. The Fulani lip tattoo, known as tchoodi, is no exception. This body adornment is seen as both a symbol of beauty and an emblem of cultural identity. The lip tattoo, although a painful experience, is considered a rite of passage into adulthood. Each design carries significance, representing aspects of identity, lineage, and social status within the community. Lip tattoos also hold spiritual significance, with some designs believed to offer protection from malevolent spirits and ensure fertility and prosperity.

Fulani Braids
Also known as feed-in braids, this elaborate hairstyle now famous throughout the world, has its origins with the Fulani tribe. These braids were worn for centuries to symbolise ethnic origin, marital status and social standing.

This lady is busy undoing her daughter's braids, which will take her several hours. She will finish untangling them tomorrow, then she will wash the hair and create some more braids.

Fulani Braids were traditionally different from other braid styles, such as Ghana Braids or Cornrows, by the inclusion of a single braid in the centre of the scalp. Over time and with the modernisation and globalisation of communities, however, the braids are now created in many different ways.

Before we leave, we gather the youngsters around us, and take some photos to print out and give to them.

The teacher holding the picture, with Lamin looking on.

The children are intrigued to see themselves on the prints, and one young lady asks if we can take a photo of her and her dad, the village chief. We oblige, of course.

The village chief and his daughter

We leave the village behind, driving ‘off-piste’ through the forest to join the main road to Odienne.

Lunch

As we did yesterday, we check in to our hotel, the Les Frontiers, and order lunch as soon as we arrive. The reception has wonderfully comfy seats, so we sit there and order a drink while we wait. Not only do the staff bring us beer, they also carry a table through from the restaurant for us to put the beer on.

The staff carrying a large table from the restaurant into the reception for us.

David enjoys a beer while making the most of the comfy seats in the reception

Once the lunch is ready, they even bring that down for us, so that we don't have to walk up the steps to the restaurant. Talk about VIP service!

Spaghetti Bolognaise - again.

Libreville Pottery Village

Mathias explains the whole process to us: “The men go to the river to find clay, which they sell to the women. A trike full of clay will fetch around CFA 15,000 (around £20). The clay is dried in the sun for a few hours, and in the evening the women will start pounding it, adding water and kneading before modelling the pot, which then receives a second drying process before being fired.”

Today we are not seeing them throwing the pots here, rather they are busy firing them. Up to 50 pots are fired at the same time, a process which takes two to three hours.

When the pots come out of the kiln, they are a reddish colour. While still hot, they are rolled in chippings from the bark of a local tree, which turns the pots black.

The pots are then dipped in water to create the ubiquitous shiny glaze.

The lady we speak to has been making pots since she was ten years old, and it is a craft that is handed down through generations, with the whole family being involved.

Most of these ladies are from the same family

It won't be long before this young cutie starts helping out

Any broken pots are pounded to a powder and used to make new pots. Nothing is wasted here.

This is the main pottery production in Ivory Coast, with customers coming from all over the country to buy these pots.

While not at all unfriendly, this is the only village where I have not felt 100% welcome with the children stabbing their fingers in my arms, and pulling at my hair while giggling uncontrollably.

Gun Workshop

In the same village, we visit a gunsmith who specialises in refurbishing old guns as well as producing new ones from scratch.

The Chekemadobu family have been gunsmiths for generations, here one of the workers shows off the gun his grandfather used.

He demonstrates how the powder is rammed home...

...and shows off the shot pellets used.

The older guns were not made in Ivory Coast, they came from France originally. While his grandfather's gun is not for sale, others are refurbished in this village and sold on to farmers and the Dozo hunters (more on those tomorrow).

A 12-bore cartridge is inserted into a more modern gun.

We are also shown how they create weapons from scratch, starting with a metal pipe

Plus the trigger mechanism

Becomes the next step - the barrel of the gun

David checks out the barrel and sight

Another one of the workers is preparing a different gun.

Everything is made by hand, here the gunsmith shows off how he creates the pellets.

The bullets starts its life as a metal rod, which is heated and hammered.

The end is bent into shape in preparation for the spherical shape to be created.

Careful use of the right tools and skills learned over a lifetime means that the end quickly becomes a round 'ball'.

With a swift action, the end is removed from the rod, and hey presto: you have a pellet.

I can’t help but wonder if the irregular shape of the bullet makes any difference to the the aerodynamics and accuracy of its direction when fired.

As our demonstration comes to an end, we are approached by a young man who we have seen hanging around. He tells us (via Mathias) that he is very keen to have his photograph taken with us.

Unfortunately he doesn’t have a phone, but one of the workers takes a picture with his phone. We go one better, and take one with my phone which we then print out for him. The look of curiosity, amazement and sheer delight when we hand him the print warms my heart.

Hotel Les Frontiers

The hotel looks modern with a large swimming pool (sadly no water) in the centre, and the main building (reception and restaurant) on one side, and the rooms on the other.

The restaurant and other public areas

The rooms

Our large room is in a block of its own, and very clean and airy.

Our room, circled

The bathroom is modern, but sadly there is no water in the shower, and the toilet seat is not attached.

The air-conditioning is blowing out plenty of air, but unfortunately it is hot, rather than cold. We tell reception and go for dinner, leaving the maintenance guy in our room to sort it out. As the temperature outside is cooler than that in the restaurant (and considerably cooler than our room), we sit outside by the (dry) swimming pool.

While the menu is a padded ‘booklet’ of several pages, they only have (some of) the items on the front page.

David orders poulet au frites, while I stick to just a portion of frites. I have eaten more fried potatoes on this trip that I have in the whole of the last year!

Just as we are at the end of our meal, the maintenance guy comes over with a mobile phone, showing us a message on google translate: “Terribly sorry for your inconvenience sir, for your comfort and convenience we will have to move you to another room.”

While I finish my meal, he and David go off to transfer our stuff to the room right opposite our original one.

Our new room, across from the old one

It looks like it was once two separate rooms (evident by two entrance doors, one which has been blocked off), which have now been converted into a spacious suite, complete with pretty Christmas lights. I believe we could be the only people staying here today. We did not see any other guests at lunch or dinner.

The seats are comfortable, and we have pretty strong wifi here too, so we pour ourselves a Duty-Free rum and Coke and stay in the air conditioned lounge chatting and surfing until it is time to go to bed.

Thank you to Undiscovered Destinations and their local team for arranging this incredible adventure for us.