Ikorodu

This past weekend I signed up for a trip with the Nigerian Field Society to travel out to a local village. I really do not get to travel out of Lagos very often here, and I do not go many places alone, so it was a very good opportunity. The day started with a very long car ride down extremely bumpy roads. We arrived in a small village and visited the house of the High Priestess/Herbalist. Her house had flags out front to show that is where she lived. It also had a garden with plants that she uses for her practices. One of the plants is even said to make you bullet proof.


It was amazing to watch the community gather for our arrival. You can see in one of the pictures that they were taking as many pictures of us as we were of them. Interesting with the modern technology of cell phones. Everyone was very welcoming and the High Priestess was admired and respected by her people. I was most interested in the rats on sticks used to bless people. I also enjoyed tasting a root that turns your mouth bright orange, seeing dried snakes, and getting palm wine spit on me for a blessing. I learned a little bit about the practice of voodoo. More then anything I learned that I still have much more to learn.


From there we traveled on to the next village. We had to stop in town to pay a visit to the chief before continuing on to our canoes. I almost backed out when I realized that I would have to walk through the water to get the canoe, but I am very glad I stuck with it. We traveled through peaceful mangroves and I felt like I was thousands of miles away from Lagos. Every time someone in my boat breathed it tipped just enough to get me wet, but we made is safely to a small village.


When we got out of our boats we were greeted by the villagers and we hiked about 10 minutes to an area where they make palm wine. You can see the pictures of how they actually chop down the tree and hook a bottle onto it. They get 1 gallon of liquid out of the tree each day for 30 days and then put it through the processing which you can see the barrels are used for. It was very strong tasting and most sips came with either a fly or a bee.


The trip had a lot of people on it, so at times it was hard to hear. As with most things, I was again left with more questions then answers. It is so easy here to want to be lazy because of exhaustion from work, but as always, I am happy that I went. It really gave me a more possitive view about Nigeria.