I was fortunate enough to visit my hometown in Imo state last week thursday. It was a rather spur of the minute trip which in my usual organized-chaos manner, i just woke up on wednesday and decided to travel the next day seeing as it was a holiday and spend the weekend with the folks.
It was a good way to surprise everyone back home and it worked out just as planned.
Got a 2 day casual leave from the office and set off on thursday. The trip was quite uneventful and my long standing record of terrible seating partners remained unbroken. This time it was a young mother with BO and a fussing son who couldn't stop farting in the air conditioned bus!.
Got to Owerri and while in a cab back home, i called my mum and started gisting with her. She, assuming i was still in Lagos, was asking about everyone over there and the look on her face when the cab pulled up at the house was absolutely priceless!!!
Ahhh...village life.
There are many impressions you get from village life. The air is different, the soil is different, the people look different (seriously),the houses are so different,
Once there, you can't miss this pleasant smell of wood-smoke which permeates the air and i don't know about you but once i catch a whiff of it, it just makes me want to get down and do primitive things...lol...
Mom's kitchen is not your usual village one, seeing as the house was modernized a couple of years but true to form, she's erected a shed nearby where firewood and soot still rule...it's not exactly environmentally friendly but its extra quick, suited to the clime, convenient and gets the job done. Plus, it gives food this lovely woody aroma which anyone that cooks with firewood can testify to.
Downside is that the prolonged exposure to the smell of smoke will make it stick. Trust me, like good perfume, its only good in small doses. You don't want to be a walking advert for eau le smoke.
Its an easy lifestyle and it feels good to wake up in the morning to chirping, croaking and strange bird calls(there's this one i like so much...it goes...tu-tu tu-tu tuuu-tuuu). Imagine a scenario where you go to the backyard brush to pee (yes pee in the open, one of life's best experiences), and you look up and spot a bunch of squirrels running nimbly through the barbed wire atop your fenced yard!
Awesome!!
It's not all rosy though. Life is hard here.
Each time i visit, i have to sharpen up my skills on the art of "posting". How do you tell a grown up man who sees you and comes to beg for 1,000 naira that you've just given the same to about three other fellows who have come before him to ask similar stuff?? Its sad.
Young guys go around doing menial jobs, children join them whenever they can and ladies...well..they do whatever it is they do to survive as well...
The sights assail you as you spend time.Thatched houses with gigantic cobwebs, hardy goats, ancient bicycles, wizened old folks, claypots, schoolkids with tattered clothing, and on the flip side, massive houses which wouldn't be out of place in Lekki, Big SUVs cruising infrequently down the bad roads and some well dressed, well fed folk who have somehow managed to escape the poverty clutch.
It's crazy, yet so beautiful. wouldn't trade it for the world.
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