Our Cote d’Ivoire Abidjan East and Bamako, Mali Mission

A highlight of our day was meeting these hard-working women making attieke in Affrey.  This village has a community area where women are welcome to bring their cassava (manioc) and turn it into attieke, the most popular food eaten here.  There were several groups of women here today, hard at work in the heat and warm sun, laughing and talking and visiting with each other as they worked.  Women of all ages help, including some very young girls.  It was so fun to watch and to visit with these women, who never skipped a beat as we looked on.

I will do my best to describe the process of making attieke.  The cassava plants grow here, in every field and compound.  Cassava is a tuber root that grows quite large underground.  Several tubers grow on each plant.

There were several groups of women there sitting on their low stools, surrounded by large headpans of cassava. They were peeling the bark with their knives, like they were machines.  Their hands are fast and sure.

A very friendly lady approached us and saw our nametags. “Etes vous membres de L’eglise de Jesus Christ des Saints des Derniers Jours?” We told her “yes!” and asked if she was a member too. She said no, but pointed us to one of her friends who was in the next group of women cutting cassava. “She is a member of your church!” We went to visit with that group of women. Her friend is the wife of a counselor in the branch. We had so much fun watching and trying to visit with these women who were happy to show us what they were doing.

Here are a few short clips showing how they do this.

After the cassava is cut into chunks, the pieces are washed clean.  Then they are fed in to a grinding machine or grated by hand.  Here is the community grinding machine in Affrey.  Everyone is welcome to come use this machine.  This room has a pungent smell like sourdough starter.

After the cassava is ground and bagged, it’s time for the press.   The presses below are tightened down on the bags of ground cassava to squeeze any moisture out.  This takes awhile.

The next job is to break up and push the pressed ground cassava through a wire sieve and get all the lumps out.

After it’s sifted, (it’s quite dry by now), the women and even children shake pans full to make sure there aren’t any lumps or pieces that need to be broken up.

And then it’s ready to be steamed over the fire.   A cauldron of water is brought to a boil and a pan with a hole in the bottom is placed on the cauldron.  This pan has a rubber piece punched with holes that goes over the large hole where the steam to comes through.

The dry grated cassava is added to this pot and the hot steam starts coming through the holes to cook the attieke.

Here are many of the clay ovens under the thatch roof.

This cooked attieke is then packaged in little sacks for individual servings, or in larger ones for several people.  It’s also sold in large quantities to vendors who do their own packaging.

Attieke is eaten with sauces that are made from cooked greens, tomato, onion, peppers and some spices. You eat it with your hands, dipping into the sauce.  Often meat is added to the sauce.

This was a great visit.  We made some friends and we learned some things.  My best take-away was that these women and children work hard to provide for their families.  But they do it together and they enjoy each other.  It’s hard for me to imagine eating the same food every single day, morning and night, but most Ivorians love attieke and are grateful every time it’s served.