Gio is oneof the ethnic tribes in West Africa. The village is located in the East of Côte d’Ivoire, bordering Liberia and Guinea, where I went to see the Stilt Dance and make two vlogs previously. For someone first in Africa, this was so interesting for me. So I took a lot of pictures, like always.
The drive to the villages from Man was scenic, you see how the scenery changes from tain forest to savanna forest.
Here is the view of the whole village.
In the tribe, men and women live in seperate cases and kids stay with the women. You can tell whether it belongs to men or women from the color of the roof, because women cook inside sometimes, so the roof is darker than the men’s.
The hut extended to the case is the tomb of the family member.
Gio villages are divided into quarters. Each quarter is headed by a “quarter chief,” that is mostly oldest male in the family. The spot in the photo above is where the council make decisions.
Inside woman’s hut, woman and kids stay in this huts. In Gio tribe, men are allowed to have several wives, during the days where men stay with one wife, the wife cooks for the whole family, including other wives and kids…
The holy forest is forbidden for outsiders to emter. It’s where grown up men learn how to make masks and how herbs function.
Some practical infomation:
There isn’t public buses to go to these villages, it’s around 150ish km away from Man, you can either rent a car or get a driver to go. Driver costs 10-15€ ish per day. Plus everything it costs around 70€ per car, so it’s good if you can find some more people to share.
If you decide to drive there to the village, don’t forget to bring some candies or little gift for kids there.
For the Stilt Dance show, it’s better if you can get it arranged in advance, normally locals can get it arranged and don’t forget to bring 4 times smaller notes (500cfa) to tip the mask guys, otherwise they get angry. For the dance itself it costs 15000cfa p.p. Pay directly to the chief of the village.
If you go with the guide, you find them in fb group: West Africa Traveller.
