Kardie's Population

I was all excited when I saw that Karadie's official population, based on new statistics offered by CWY, was 800, roughly 400 being women.  Because of previous research, and an eyeballing of the village itself, I'd claimed it to be this number.  Other people in the group told me I was wrong, that the true population was about 2000.  So, this new statistic appears to prove that I had the right number, while there's had been wrong.

But, thinking it over, seeing that there are two statistics, one for the overall population, and the other for the number of women capable of working the fields we crafted them, brings me to a numerical problem with my own theory. If there are 400 working women, that means that there are probably around 400 working men.  Makes sense, until you realize that not everyone in the village would be working the fields.

The people left unaccounted for are children.  Little girls don't work in the fields, and therefor, they would not have been counted among the number of working women.  Then, consider that there should be roughly the same amount of male children as female, and you're left with a population of youth that must not have been looked at.

So, if you revert to believing the alternate estimate, that there are truly 2000 people and only 800 workers, some sinister perspectives are brought to focus.  Why would there be more children than adults, if the majority of a human's lifespan is spent in adulthood?  North American will be tempted to preach hard truths that they've seen in advertisements: people in Africa don't live as long, and children are likely to die.

During my time in Mali, I know of only one child death, and it happened in Sirakorola, not Karadie.  The child in question had Downs Syndrome, and as often happens with intellectual disabilities, it came coupled with some physical hurdles.  The child developed Malaria, and passed away.

The family went into the traditional seven days of mourning, in which they didn't leave their household, save for family necessities such as collecting groceries.

So, while I don't see too many child deaths in Canada, I'm not inclined to believe that more than half of the children in Karadie die.  I never saw a child's death in my village, and the only only one I did see, was kind of circumstantial.

Truth is, lots of people move away from the village to find jobs in the city, or even move to other, more successful villages.  It created an age gap, so that Karadie had a number of children and elders, but few people in the "young adult" category.