The history of Yeale – Part I (more recent)

Yeale, Cote DIvoire, is nestled at the base of Mt. Nimba, and borders Liberia and Guinea. It is the last village you reach by vehicle before the road gives way to a series of bush trails. The bush trails continue into the forest, past homes and settlements, into the reserve, and up and over the mountain into Guinea and Liberia. The bush trails are faint and twisted, and are best navigated with the help of a guide familiar with the many mysteries of the mountain. Some guides have spent a lifetime learning Nimba’s landscape, and even they speak of mysterious happenings deep inside the forest. They speak of things like blue water – water in which even stones do not sink. There are unknown powers and play here, powers best not confronted alone.

However, the forest is not all danger. It has provided life to the people of Yeale for as long as they can remember. It has been protective cover in times of war, and has yielded fruits to eat, and materials with which to build houses. This relationship of the mountain as caretaker, but also mysterious authority, becomes more evident when you learn that “Nimba” means “eldest sister.” (In the Mano language, spoken around the mountain, “nim” means sister and “ba” means elder. This varies slightly from the Yacouba language spoken in Yeale in which “nem” means sister and “va” means elder. The languages are very similar, as you can see.) The Yacouba people of Yeale are a forest people, and their history of expulsion from the Mt. Nimba Reserve (which I will relate in the next installment) is a history of hardship and suffering. Stripped of forest access, the people must now balance the risks of prosecution (for entering the reserve) with the suffering of their day to day life. Because the consequences of entering the reserve (to hunt, fish, get wawter, cut trees, or gather forest products) are so high, most people simply accept their lot, and suffer silently at the edge of what used to be their forest.

In recent years, the suffering in Yeale has been more acute. From 2002-2011 political tensions in Cote d’Ivoire and in Liberia resulted in high levels of rebel activity throughout the country, and in particular throughout the province in which Yeale is located. The first band of rebels arrived in Yeale in 2002. For the next 9 years, a new band of about 15 rebels (armed, and identified by the red bandanas they wore as headbands) passed through each month, and forced residents of yeale to give them food They ravaged crops, killed and ate all of the livestock (which is why there are no longer any pigs in Yeale), and tore apart houses so that they could use the wood for cooking. While they did not kill anybody in Yeale, they did savagely beat people who did not comply with their demands. At one point, they forced the chief of the village to climb up a tree, infested with ants, they then hung him upside down from a branch so that they could beat him as ants crawled all over him. They did this to teach the community a lesson – presumably that lesson was to willingly hand ove your food and donate your labor when called upon. Generally, these rebels (young men, 18-25 years of age) utilized brute force to extract whatever they needed anytime they passed through Yeale. There were three different patrols that came through, reporting to different rebel leaders, and they inflicted so much suffering that most people in Yeale fled into the bush to hide, or crossed the mountain into Guinea or Liberia.

For those people who hid in the bush, the forest provided protective cover. They hid by day, and cooked only at night, so that the smoke from their fires would not attract attention. When they became hungry enough, they would sneak back to their farms or their houses, by the cover of darkness, to collect food or supplies. Most people I talked with hid in the bush for at least a year, and only recently (after disarmament and tentative peace), have they started to rebuild their destroyed houses and farms.

All of this information was given to me by David, the oldest and most trusted guide of Mt. Nimba. He is the leader of all the mountain guides. We talked in a mixture of English, French, Mano and Yacouba (later translated for me), over jugs of palm wine which the chief sent to welcome me. Every evening in Yeale, a group of 20 men arrived to help us drink the palm wine, and women came to sing. On our final evening, we were presented with two chickens, as well as “kola money” (money with which to buy kola nuts). We sat and talked beneath the very tree in which the chief had been beaten by rebels. However this evening, we sat in peace enjoying the company of friends - the stars and moon above us provided a luminous glow, and low murmurs of conversation were punctuated by comfortable laughter. There are times in my life where I don’t have words to express myself, and can simply marvel at humanities resilience.