Village Life

"Community in Africa still works. The village is arguably the most stable and cohesive unit in West African society. Modern Africans may scoff at their village cousins, who produce a bumper crop of yams one year and give half of them away to relatives and friends instead of reaping the profits. But that's the beauty of Africa, that's the glue in the face of catastrophes like AIDS and ethnic unrest. In the village, noone falls through the cracks" (202).
Sarah Erdman, Nine Hills to Nambonkaha

Nine Hills to Nambonkaha is written by a Peace Corps Volunteer who served in the Ivory Coast. I felt that this description applied accurately to village life I have observed.

I lived in a small training village in the Central River Region with five other trainees and two LCFs (language and cultural facilitators). There were about 8 main compounds (120-140 people).

This is the long open area in the middle of the village with compounds located on each side. The trees (orange and mango) in the middle of this strip serve as gathering spots for villagers. In the late afternoon under the shade of the trees, men often brew attaya (chinese green tea) while women rest on the wooden benches or shell peanuts into large piles on woven mats. My compound was on the right at the end near where the woman in white is walking. In the foreground of the photo there is a small pile of coos (millet) that will eventually be pounded down by women and then prepared for dinner.

Pounding is a constant activity by the women in the village as coos is eaten usually for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In the beginning, I compared it to eating sand, but now I have come to like it more. For breakfast it is served as a porridge with sour milk (milk that sits out for 3-4 days unrefrigerated) and for lunch and dinner it is served dry with some sort of green leaf watery peanut sauce.

Everyday I would wake up and fall asleep to the sounds of pounding in the yard. This photo shows my host sister, Fatou, pounding coos in our compound. Pounding is tiring and I am very bad at it. Entertaining myself and my host sisters, I would always attempt, and this would end quickly in laughter at my lack of strength and technique.


My host family in training village was large with around 20-25 people. This picture is of three of my host sisters, Besso, Fatou, and Penda in front of my door. One of our first cultural assignments was to construct a family tree. This proved to be a very difficult task not only because of my low language level at that time but also because family terms and relations are different than in the US. For example, if you are a female, your sister's children are considered your own. It also seemed that people do not consider family terms often. If you are living in the compound, then you are family and you contribute to the compound through your work. There seems to be a constant influx and movement of family and living situations. Because families are so large, there are normally members living in Kombo or in other regions to go to school. There is the added element of polygamy as well. By the end of training village, which was about a month, I had some grasp on how everyone was related. One aspect of the Gambian culture that I truly appreciate is the constant interactions of different generations because they share the same living space. In my compound, the youngest was a one week old baby and the oldest was around 70.

This is my host brother, Alieu (13), and my host sister, Kumba (8) right outside of our compound. Alieu is in eighth grade and Kumba is in third grade. Note the donkey. The first week in village I was awakened every night by its braying outside my window. Life here is outside, people mainly use their houses to sleep. Not only are people constantly interacting with other people outside, but also with animals (chickens, goats, sheep), which are constantly roaming around.