Around my second weekend in Guinea I prepared for my trip to the village of Farenya. The village was one of the major reasons for my being in Guinea in the first place due to its connection to South Carolina through the slave trade.

Through our relationship with the Ministry of Tourism and the organization FONDIS we were able to acquire the use of a vehicle and military driver. We traveled to the village hardly ever going less than 95 MPH on roads so bad it was better to drive on the soft shoulder than the pavement.

Living in the village was exactly what I thought it would be like, very hot and humid. The people worked in the fields growing crops to be sold in Conakry.

However, I was surprised by the number of children living in the village. It seemed like every household had at least six children under the age of 10. I went to an elder of the village and asked why the village had so many young children. He told me the men work in the fields very hard all day.

World’s easiest “Where’s Waldo” The hours are very long and exhausting and when they come home at night there is nothing for them to do because the village has no television or radio… so they make children. It was the best explanation I have ever been given.

I was lucky to be in the village during mango season. The mangos could be heard dropping from the trees followed by the sound of the little children’s footsteps to get the fruit. Falling fruit is very interesting to young African children, I learned.

The third major resource the village offered was coconuts. I have had coconuts many times in my life, but I had never had one directly off the tree. I asked Moussa to show me how the villagers get the coconuts down and how to eat them. He called over a young boy no older than maybe nine.

Boy wearing common African shoes. The boy looked excited to meet the white man who had been living in the village and was very eager to shake my hand. His excitement left his face when Moussa pointed at him and then pointed at the top of the coconut tree.

He must have been 60 feet up in the air when he climbed on top of the palm fronds and began violently kicking the coconuts down to the ground. If this boy fell, he would most certainly die.

But it wasn’t the boy in the tree that I was most worr ied about. It was actually the grouping of other smaller boys standing around the base of the tree watching the coconuts fall. Like I said, falling fruit is very interesting to African children.

It struck me that this is the real reason that the villagers had so many children. It was not for working in the fields or helping their mother with chores. It was because many of these children might never get to see adulthood.

Baby helps mother wash clothes. It is my belief that a major cause of the adolescent mor tality rate in Guinea is not due to malnutrition or poor hygiene but because of coconut related injuries.
Boy climbs tree to get coconuts.