Understanding Pâquinou in 3 minutes

Here we go:

In 1969, work began on the Kossou hydraulic dam. 210 villages had to be evacuated because they would be submerged by the water. Some of the reconstructed villages are called AVB villages; they include Kossou, Bocabo, Angossé, Attrénou, Kongouanou and Suibonou. Three thousand six hundred former peasants, mostly Bauli, but often forgotten, also Gouro, have become fishermen. Another part of the villagers is settled in the West. These are the ARSO villages.

It is important to note that their brothers in the west gave them a warm welcome and did not hesitate to offer them fertile land, thus facilitating the perfect integration of these migrants from the interior. They specialized in the cultivation of coffee and cocoa. In total, nearly 100,000 Baule were displaced by the dam. Côte d'Ivoire then imported the famous Renault Saviem (Badjan) buses in parts to organize this great migration. They will be assembled at the Treichville factory, the commercial branch being based in Adjamé Renault, hence the name today attributed to this area...

Every year since 1980, at the end of the great cocoa trade which ends in April, the descendants of these Baoulé return to their lands, or at least what remains of them, to celebrate this great migration of 1968/69. Celebrating what was at the time a great trauma, because several cemeteries were flooded, and abandoning one's dead is a trauma in Baule country. Houphouët-Boigny had to negotiate at length. It so happens that Easter coincides with the end of the great cocoa trade and it is the period of the year during which the Baule peasants, scattered all over the Ivorian territory, have the most means of returning to their original lands with their hands full of gifts.

Subsequently, and by mimicry, the Baoule city dwellers and the Baoule people in general have also played the migration game, in particular in order to participate in rural development projects. Thus, in lexicology, the word "paquinou" is the Baoule onomastics* of the Christian Easter, in relation to their annual migration.

* Onomastics is a branch of linguistics that deals with the study of proper nouns: their etymology, formation, origin, and use over time.