Wes writes:
These are my impressions of what it is like being a kid in Ghana. This is not an in-depth study, but observations from what I see and how it was different from the lives of my children and my own (fuzzy) memories.
First, there are lots of kids around. They are everywhere. People have and want big families and families live close together. Kids have many brothers and sisters and many neighbours with many kids.
Proud dad with his girls at church
You don’t need to get in the car to find other kids to play with. You probably don’t need to leave your bedroom to find kids to play with.
Boys playing outside church
Second, you are on your own (without direct adult supervision) much of the time. Your parents don’t run around looking after you. You do a lot of things for yourself, with only occasional contact with your parents, but constant supervision from other adults.
Kenneth and Theophilus Adjei
On the other hand, every adult is your “parent.” Every adult in the neighbourhood is willing and able to discipline or correct you. You are expected to obey every adult and to receive correction from all of them. So just because your parents aren’t around doesn’t mean you can get away with stuff.
Being on your own also means that your parents don’t find things for you to do. No one organises activities for you, or takes you to music lessons or sports practice or play dates. Also most kids around here don’t have toys or books (and if you have books they are written in a language you don’t understand well and about kids who are very different from you). Kids here have to make their own toys and find their own things to do.
BergenBeats 
Thanks for this “window”. In many ways this reminds of how my mother was raised, although she had books and loved them.