Africa of my Youth
"The sap would... provide additional nutrition to the mother's milk. Those trees are all gone now."
Travel
In my youth, we walked everywhere. There were a few vehicles, but the public transportation system only ran on certain days. Every fortnight, we walked to the next village – a round-trip distance of about 29 kilometres (9 miles one way) to help my parents trade their produce in the village market. Sometimes, we would stop by the farmlands on the way there and the men would stage wrestling matches as a form of entertainment – after trekking all that distance!
Health and Bio-diversity
I remember once my dad had a cough, we walked a little distance into the farmland and he looked around for a particular tree. He bruised the trunk with his machete and put his mouth to the tree to suck at the sap coming out of the tree trunk. Within a few hours, his cough was gone! There was another tree that was desired for its nutritional value for newborn babies. In the evening, the elders would cut at the trunk of the tree to release the sap, put a calabash to receive the sap and by morning, this calabash would be full having collected about 1 gallon (4 litres) of sap from the tree. The sap would be fed to newborns to cleanse their systems and provide additional nutrition to the mother’s milk. Those trees are all gone now.
The Elderly
One of the most important practices that we had is that we took care of the elderly. If a man was old enough to start a family of his own, he built his house near the homestead – usually within the family land. That way, the family was always close enough to parents and grandparents. When the elderly became too frail to care for themselves, younger members of the family – grand-children usually – would move in with them. Elderly relations who were without children were not exempted, as grand-nieces or grand-nephews would move in with them. Today, we continue with that practice although many people prefer to move their aged parents or grandparents to the city with them. Our elderly do not live or die alone.
Trading
In between the fortnightly market days, farmers put their wares on the roadside and indicated the value of the goods with twigs. If you were interested in buying the goods and could pay the indicated sum, you would put the requested sum under the leaves (cowries were the currency of exchange in those days) and take the goods. If you did not agree with the indicated sum and wanted to make a counteroffer, you would adjust/rearrange the leaves to show the preferred sum and continue on your journey. On your return trip, if the seller had taken away the extra twigs that indicated the excess sum you deducted to make your counter-offer, you would put the newly agreed sum under the leaves, take the goods and be on your way. The entire transaction was completed without any direct interface. Theft or cheating was a strange and foreign concept. If a hungry person passed by edible goods put on display for sale (usually students who had no money), they would eat the fruits and leave the skin in its place. This indicated that the goods were consumed by someone who could not afford to pay for them. It was our way of life and no one ever took more than they needed.
– Contributions by Olori R. M. Oshin (aged 75) and Mrs Tomileye Adedipe (aged 65)
If you wish to contribute to this article, please send a mail to: externalaffairs@feelnubia.org.uk
