Good day guys. Join me as I take you through how a typical day at an African farm looks like.

So my friend's mum has asked me to come over and help out in their cassava farm. It is the planting season and the rains have been coming down heavily, which is really favourable. So I leave my home in the morning and head to my friend's house, from there we board a bus and take the 45 minutes drive to the farm. It is located in their hometown. They own a house there and that is where their farming implements are kept (hoes, rakes, and cutlases). The implements are brought out. The village bike is brought out with the implements too.

It is called the village bike because it is so archaic and found only in these rural village areas.

We will be using it to convey the farm tools and food to the farm.

I take a couple more photographs before we leave for the farm.

---

---

@Delaw volunteers to ride the bike (yeah, he came with me).

It is a real struggle for him to ride the bike when the time comes to leave. The thing with village bikes is that they require quite some level of skill to ride them. They are harder to balance than the regular bicycles. I tried riding it earlier and almost fell. After a few failed attempts to balance it and ride, @delaw resorts to just pushing the bike in the end.

As for me, I hop on a motorcycle with two other guys who will be coming with us. I sit behind them and we head for the farm.

We arrive the farm in about 4 minutes, the guys change up.

Me and @delaw do not because we have not brought any spare clothes with us; so we work just like that. It is very evident that by the end of the day we’ll be looking as dirty as automobile mechanics.
The farm is a very large expense of land; I take a shot of a very small part of it.

I ask my friend’s mother what the dimensions of the farm are.

She says she has no clue about that and goes on to talk about how the land was inherited from her father and how the boundaries are demarcated with palm trees on the land. I make a mental note to ascertain the dimensions of the landwhich ever way possible.

The day is bright as we commence work. The clouds are very lovely and the palm fronds sway to the rhythm of the morning breeze.

The farm is intended for the use of planting cassava. Cassava is a staple food in this part of the country and the most planted as well. This is not surprising as Nigeria is the largest producer of this commodity in the world.

We begin the work by preparing shallow and wide holes where the cassava stems will be planted. We use a hoe to dig these holes. A spade is suitable is suitable for this too, the only downside being that it is more rigorous.
It is after digging these holes I determine the approximate dimensions of the farmland. It is approximately 123 square meters in area. I get this calculation using the number of holes dug and the spacing between them.

After digging the holes, I find a type of plant resembling a sugar cane. I later learn it is a sugar cane specie, it has this sour tangy taste. I suck on a lot of them, savouring their lemon-like acidic taste.

Its dried stems (of this sugar cane specie) litter the other extreme end of the farm, we have to pack them out and stack them in a nearby bush.

Some have some kind of mold or fungi on them.

We take a break and have lunch.

We are having fufu and eba (both are made of cassava) and editan soup (a Nigerian delicacy). We gulp down balls of eba and fufu and crack jokes while eating. After eating, we take a brief rest and get back to work.

The next thing is planting the cassava.

Now the funny thing with planting cassavas is; they are actually planted with stems rather than seeds. The stems are cut/gotten from existing or recently harvested plants; they are then cut into pieces of 30cm length.

We heap the stems into bundles for the planting

Each hole is filled with three stems. I learn that it is okay to plant two stems. The extra stem is left there just in case one stem dies and does not germinate.

We delegate the jobs now; two persons cut the stem, while one person conveys them to all the holes.

The last two persons are charged with planting the stems and covering them up. We do this continuously for hours until we have covered all the dug up holes. I am really exhausted by now. I have blisters on my right palm now.

We are done for the day, we take a brief rest and head back to the village house where we are treated to a gallon of palm wine just bought.

It is a perfect way to end the day and wind off after all the rigorous activities of the day.
It gets dark soon enough, we start packing to head back to the city. As we drive, I sit at the back reminiscing and relishing the events of the day.

BONUS PHOTOGRAPHS

PINEAPPLE FRUIT

---

THE VILLAGE BIKE IN THE FARM

---

COCOYAM PLANT

---

PALM FRUITS

PS : All photographs are watermarked with my photography brand "UBJ PHOTOGRAPHY " so as to prevent theft of photographs.

From my archives