On summer evenings in the Capay Valley, the sound of West African drumming and chanting rolls across the fields and orchards, as children dance beneath a towering oak.

Two years ago this month the Tarlesson family – an extended clan of Liberian refugees – settled near the town of Guinda on a 50-acre farm.

They cleared the brush with machetes, planted African tomatoes and eggplants, and wowed the locals at the Guinda Grange Hall with the singing and dancing of the Chedepo-Grebo people of southeastern Liberia.

"This is our homeland now," said Roosevelt Tarlesson, the family's patriarch and grandfather. "We are here to stay."

The valley's organic farmers were quick to offer friendship and assistance, he said. They helped the Tarlessons with irrigation and crops that would do well in the arid heat.

"They needed a translation between farming in Liberia," a wet, tropical nation, "and farming here," said Paul Muller, one of the owners of neighboring Full Belly Farm.

This weekend the Tarlessons are thanking their neighbors with a feast of African cuisine and traditional dances.

Roosevelt Tarlesson also wants to show off what he calls "pure organic" agriculture, Liberian style. That means hand-planting with simple tools, the work propelled by drumming and singing.

"I want the farmers to come see whether a tractor is faster than the Chedepo-Grebo people planting," he said with a smile.

Activities all day today and Sunday are free and open to the public. The main events are from 4-6 p.m. Sunday, 7090 Highway 16, Guinda.

A performance for children follows at 3 p.m. Tuesday at the Esparto library, 17065 Yolo Ave.

Earlier this week, the family practiced as a blazing sun descended in the west.

In the shade of a big oak tree, a dozen children and teenagers wearing bright wraps and beaded anklets sang and danced to the mesmerizing rhythms of the djembe and kroboto, West African drums made of wood and skin.

They performed the chikola, a hunters' dance in which a series of teenage boys approach a group of villagers and boast of their feats killing lions and elephants.

In another dance, young women mimicked the planting of seeds with wooden hand tools.

Dust covered the dancers' feet and sweat poured from the face of master drummer Benjamin Ofori, the children's musical instructor and choreographer.

They danced against a backdrop of hay bales, tomato fields and oak-studded hillsides.

Many of the children grew up in a refugee camp and didn't learn traditional dance until they moved to California.

"We haven't seen people dancing like this, so we are learning it here," said Patience Tarlesson, 16, a junior at Esparto High School.

Roosevelt Tarlesson came to the United States in 1976. In 2005, 26 family members – his mother, daughter, grandchildren, nieces and nephews – arrived on a plane in Oakland.

They had survived for years in the jungle and in a refugee camp in Ivory Coast after fleeing war-torn Liberia, a country settled by freed American slaves beginning in 1822.

After decades of relative stability, the nation on the west coast of Africa was upended by a military coup in 1980 and a prolonged civil war.

The Tarlessons were driven from their homeland, where farming was a way of life.

For two years, the family lived in Vacaville. Then a local benefactor, real-estate agent Paul McGuire, bought the Guinda property with two houses and leased it to the Tarlessons.

Roosevelt Tarlesson said the family hopes to make the farm self-sufficient and buy it.

This year is their first full crop. They are raising goats, sheep and chickens and growing African vegetable varieties, which they plan to ship to urban markets.

Muller recalled when the Tarlesson family first visited Fully Belly Farm's lush fields and orchards along Cache Creek.

Eliza Tarlesson, the family's 80-year-old great-grandmother, surprised him by singing a song of blessing and happiness, he said.

The same mix of music and agriculture continues on the Tarlesson farm, he said.

"I haven't seen many farmers dance like they do," Muller said. "It shows how you can live and be happy on a piece of beautiful farmland."

Call The Bee's Hudson Sangree, (916) 321-1191.