Life in Africa is tough. Life is very difficult in Africa especially in the villages and small towns. Most village people in Africa are subsistence farmers who grow crops and real animals just to feed themselves and their families. Most villages in Africa have no schools and the children in these villages end up subsistence farmers just like their poor parents. In Sub-Saharan Africa, most farmers have large acres of cocoa farms attached to their regular farms. Even though cocoa is a cash crop, the poor farmers get very little from their cocoa farms because most of the times the cocoa farms get infected and since the farmers have no money to spray their cocoa farms, their hard work just go in vain.
Also, since most of these farmers are subsistence farmers who depend on their farms for food and support, whenever there is a bad harvest (in times of drought and bad weather conditions), their entire families go hungry for the entire season. Most villages in Africa have no access to good drinking water. Most children wake up very early in the morning and walk miles upon miles to nearby streams to fetch drinking water and water for domestic purposes. Most of the streams in Africa are full of water-borne diseases such as river blindness, sleeping sickness, diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid, and other water based diseases like guinea worm, and Bilharzias. Malaria (water-related disease) kills people in record numbers in Sub-Saharan African countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leon, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Togo, etc. Guinea worm disease for example is a major health problem in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Due to water scarcity in certain parts of Northern and Eastern Africa, most village people in these areas suffer from water-scarce diseases like trachoma and scabies.
Since most children in African villages do not get access to primary education, they become trapped in their various villages all their lives. Those who manage to escape from the trap into big cities and towns find themselves trapped again in slums (some worse than life in the villages).
Here is a true life story of an African Child. Life in the city is not the same as life in the villages. There is electricity in the cities and big towns but just kerosene lamps in the villages. Life in the cities run 24/7 non-stop. Life in the villages run from sunrise to sunset. Darkness and insects take over once the sun goes down. This story shows the way of life and how people survive in rural Africa.
Poverty is not something new in Africa. In fact, poverty was there before man and it has become part of life, attaching itself to nature like the blood through our veins. We cannot see it clearly or feel its presence under normal circumstances but especially when the heart is beating so fast and the blood moves up and down harshly through our chests but the harm might have been done already.
The Poor is poor and the rich is rich but life still goes on in Africa, displaying all levels of poverty. There are varieties in culture and natural resources but a specific culture common to all, The culture of Poverty. The Culture of poverty appears to be the same throughout the communities in Africa especially around the sub-Saharan Africa. From Senegal to Gambia, Guinea to Guinea Bissau, sierra-Leone to Liberia, Ivory coast to Gold Coast ( Ghana), Togoland to Benin, Nigeria to Cameroun and above all, DR. Congo. Within these individual communities per se, there exist different groups of people forming tribes, clans, extended families, villages and towns who are categorize based on their individual distinctive characteristics such as different languages, staple foods, taboos and norms. However, all these groups partake or share almost equally in this unique culture (culture of poverty). Taking a small village like Fuman in Ghana, it should not be a surprise to see it display if not all, most of the aspects of poverty in Africa. Life in poverty, some causes of poverty and may be its prevention.
Life is still the same in Fuman and it is staying out on the baobab tree all these seasons. Departing from the main Sunyani-Kumasi road, notice the face of poverty along the way. It appears to be wearing a veil in Sunyani but tends to be a catapult and eventually a hunter near the green. It hides itself beyond the mountains and hills but reveals its true colors beneath the green. The birds continue to sing its favorite song even though it refuses to dance to the tune. Departing from the main street is nothing but a wonder, a different world all together. The road is bumpy and the weather is sunny. Beside this road is the evergreen. The tall trees continue to flourish, canopying the shorter ones who depend on the mercies of the creator, for a little sunlight. Nowadays, beside the sound of the birds do not be surprise to hear the roaring voices of the chain saw along this road, pulling down the mighty odum and sapele trees of ancient times just for timber.
Descending down the road leading to the village appears these numerous foot paths, branching north and forth from the main road, like a network of channels in the termitarium (Ant hill), taking people into and out of their cocoa farms. Just a few steps appear these erected structures, thatched and roofed with dry grasses sometimes with some rusty sheets on them, housing human souls from the serpents and scorpions at night. Mosquitoes do their part at night, biting even the eyeballs, digging through the bodies in search of gold and raising the temperature to a thousand degrees Celsius within a few days.
Because there is no pipe borne water in my village, you will mostly find little children with big buckets and pans heading towards the riverside to fetch water especially in the morning and in the evenings. the living conditions in Africa
This river serves as the main source of drinking water and water for domestic purposes. Even when boiling was intended to kill the germ the causes Cholera, what about the numerous black flies that cause night blindness. When the guinea worms approaches thee with heavy hearts, who are you to turn the temperature down and so goes the tradition of death. When Cholera designs the throats of men, forget about the deadly diphtheria that tears children into pieces and above all, when mighty polio captures the legs, how good is soccer to the soul. Dry season on this river is nothing but joy but the small canoes children make for their expedition in the dry season, paddle themselves in the next season.
