Our values, i.e. the things we do to gain the approval of each other, has a huge effect on how we live. Much larger than I had expected.
Some people (not limited to Africa -- common also in e.g. rural India) value lifecycle rituals, like coming-of-age parties, marriages, and funerals. Those are the reasons they make money. They don't make money for something else and then blow it on a funeral. They made money specifically for the funeral.
I make money to be able to eventually unchain myself from the daily grind and spend my later years doing armchair research. Some people near me make money to buy a fancy home and pay eyewatering amounts of mortgage interest to their bank. And some people further from me make money to spend on lavish funerals.
It's easy to feel superior about any of these, but I struggle to see how one is better than the other. They're all restricting the way we live and imposed on us from society, they're just different from each other.