The Upcountry, African Village life

The upcountry, village life of Africa was much different than I expected. People associate African villages with poverty, and I guess for some reason I pictured really hard working people with very hard lives. What I found was a lot of people sitting around with a lot of free time on their hands. I didn't see hard work. It was explained to me that it was a slow time of year, and that that was why I didn't see hard work. That in certain seasons they may be planting or working their farms and that you would see hard work. But for whatever it's worth, I didn't see it when I was there. I saw a lot of sitting around, and found a great deal of boredom in the upcountry.



I started the trip by arriving at my friends family home. They were older people, very friendly, they had a nice home, it had a television inside which may surprise people. In fact, their home was much larger and better furnished then my best friends family home back in the city. His uncles, grandparents, extended family there didn't seem any different from his family back in the cities. In fact most people who live in the upcountry travel back and forth between the country and the city. On our way back we brought his step-father with us.

The young man who took us around in the upcountry, basically grows Kola nuts in the upcountry for a time, then loads them up into a truck and takes them into the city at another time and sells them. So the life is back and forth for these people, from the village to the city.





Sure, there were some really authentic things in the villages that really let you know you were in an "African village". Such symbols of village African life as the straw huts, and people riding on donkeys were certainly still a part of daily life there.






One of Idrissa's cousins had his own small farm/garden that we spent some time in. He complained about the irrigation and spent hours hustling me about his problem of needing a water pump or something like that but I was only half paying attention. Because I am not a wealthy person or even middle class really. So I'm not really in position to help many more people then just my friend Idrissa and very very few others. But he hustled me without end. They have a bad habit especially in the villages of drinking palm wine. They will even try to claim that it is healthy and that it doesn't contain the harmful affects of alcohol, as alcohol is generally disliked amongst Muslims. Yet this cousin of Idrissa's the more he would drink that palm wine the more aggressive he was in hustling me about getting some kind of water pump or something of the like so that he could water his farm when the rain failed to come. I was half-asleep the whole time I was in the upcountry, and not really fully conscious of what he was saying. The village life had made me extremely lazy. I ate and ate and ate some more. And sat, and sat, and sat some more. Trying to understand the mostly Wolof language conversations that surrounded me.






Finally we left after 4 days in the village, upcountry, but I did not leave without food poisoning and couldn't eat for almost two days after that. All the idle time sitting and eating had slowed my digestive system and the food refused to "go down".

I was sick for two days after that trip and only earbs and boubab juice got me by during those two days. Alhamdulillah for the Boubab tree and Jah bless for the earbs.


I almost forget in my half-conscious state I was actually thrown a party on my last night in the upcountry. It's kind of a tradition when the guests come. I did have to pay a little money for the drummers, but once the drummers started playing many of the people from the village came out to the location and there were probably nearly 100 people there. I felt very overwhelmed and even a little uncomfortable. All that for me, and I couldn't even decide if I was truly enjoying myself there. The lead drummer was trying everything to get me excited and dancing and having a good time, and God bless him for that.

But I just couldn't get into it, feeling so tired and lazy during my days in the upcountry.