'The Village in Us'

By Dr Furera Bagel

“ I recently read an article by Dr. Hauwa Muhammad Sani on Kauyawa Day that made me re-examine the word kauyawa, which translates as villager but to some actually means uncivilized. But in the context used in the artice, it actually means traditional. Reading the article took me back to my village and rekindled my love for it and sympathy for those who never had the privilege of experiencing village life.

I cannot fathom how it feels to never experience sleeping on a mud/brick bed with fire blazing below during the cold harmattan season that feeling of stepping on dewy grass on the way to the farm in the early mornings and the fresh country air on the face is indescribable, and so was that of trying to drink the nestled dew right out of folded kalgo leaves.

Or that feeling of waking up in the early morning mist to feel the cold water on one’s skin while performing ablutions and later joining the old grannies by the fireside for some warming up, while having breakfast of pap and dumame or kosai, danwake, ‘yar yau, ,yar tsame, if we succeed in convincing granddad to part away with some cash.

As children of a farming family we got to participate in all phases of farming in the village, from shema (farm clearing), shuka (planting), noma (clearing out the weeds), maimayi (the second the weed clearance), and the cultivation and transportation of crops home to the shearing and storage in the barns. 

Apart from crop farming, we also had a lot of fun in the fields with our cousins while grazing the family sheep and goats though we sometimes got into some trouble while at it, like the time our herd got into a neighbour’s farm while we were busy playing house!

 That fateful day, I was assigned the role of a child to two of my older cousins, while the female cousin (my play mum) was busy cooking food (our lunch) outside the makeshift bukka (our play house), the male (my play dad) was inside the hut waiting for food with the rest us children while also pretending to be our father when all of a sudden without warning we heard a loud bang and at the same time the bukka went up in the air and an angry man carrying a big stick ran after us, while we ran home. It turned out the goats we were supposed to be minding had entered his farm and ate part of his crops. In the evening at home, the older cousins got a taste of the bulala as punishment for this misadventure. 

While in the village for the holidays we also had the experience of going to a real ruga. My father’s family weren’t Fulani but being agriculturists they purchased cows and handed them out to some Fulani to herd on their behalf. So sometimes we got to go to the ruga and get fresh milk.

Spending time in the village also gave us the opportunity of going to the bush to pluck and taste our local fruits and nuts,, eg Aduwa, Magarya, kurna, tsada, kanya, dinya, danya, taura etc. We also got to know which tree was medicinal, eg the bark of marke cures cough. During mango seasons we chose which mango trees to go to each day for my family owned many on our various farmlands. We also got to have a taste of other things like madi, which was a sweet concoction, made out of Dinya.

At the night we got to go out and play with our peers, sometimes we danced gada, while singing songs like Mamaye Iye, etc. We the kids also got to be love messengers for the samari who wanted to do hira with ‘yanmata, and we got to receive some pennies at the completion of our tasks. Sometimes we also got to be ‘yar rakiya (escort), which was the traditional way of chaperoning the couples. 

Sometimes we opted to stay at home to beg for a tatsuniya (folktale) from the grandmas or aunties. They always had an activity going on during the storytelling; sometimes they’ll bring out a very big basin full of groundnuts for us to help them in shearing. The stories always kept us hypnotized and while listening to we compete in who will shear the most groundnuts, and before we realized it we would see our granny Mama bringing out another basing to be done but no one cared since that would mean more stories!

We also enjoyed swimming in the village river. We so much love the water that every time our dad went to pick us up they had to go looking for us there. 

We had so many beautiful memories of travelling to the village and one of those was on our way back when our car hit a monkey that was trying to cross the road at full speed. When dad went out to take a look, my sister and I also went with him and stood there gawking at the poor dead monkey. Then all of a sudden dad shouted, “get back into the car!’ and we rushed back and locked the doors. It turned out my dad had sighted a troop of monkeys running towards us from across, perhaps to take revenge for their dead comrade. 

Well, we didn’t stick around to find out.

I believe spending time in the village has prepared me to overcome some difficult situations later in life. Village life makes one humble because we grew up treating our village relations with all the respect they deserved despite being more privileged, and because of that, we made sure our children followed in our footsteps of visiting the village and fraternising with their cousins and other relations.  

Because of those beautiful experiences, I will always be happy and proud to call myself a village girl, for we all have some village in us”.