RURAL TOURISM

Travel is said to be a great part of learning. Basically, travel is either for business or pleasure and rarely both. This time I travelled for the latter (tourism). Born and brought up in the city of Makurdi, capital of one of the North Central states of Nigeria. I often got mystified when conditions of rural dwellers were narrated. Most times I nod in the gist to the comfort of the teller while convincing myself that those tales were merely exaggerated to gain audience.

Come the fall of 2012, I decided to see for myself. As widely known, ‘charity begins at home’, I took a trip to Echori, a village in Obi local of same state, notorious for its savage lands. The trip was not in short of enthusiasm as can be expected of any tourist expedition.

We got to a junction from which a dirt road branched off. The driver turned to us and said, “This is the farthest I can go”.

Our heart skipped as we got down and pondered on what next. I almost forgot to say I went with a friend, just in case. Two motorcyclists came and stopped.

“Where una dey go?” One of them asked in broken English.

“We want to get to Echori,” I said, “How much?”

“Oga, two of you seven hundred but one person na five hundred,” the motorcyclist explained.

We hired the two in the end. As we went deeper into what seemed like a forest, we met other cyclist plying the road. I was convinced my thoughts had demeaned the exaggerated gory tales of rural dwellers. A village with such huge number of motorcycles must be more civilized than speculated. Isn’t it?

Further in, we were greeted with houses made of mud bricks – not plastered – and rusty zincs or thatches. That moment, the reality of how wrong I might have been hit me. On arrival, at the place the cyclists advised us to go because we could easily get accommodation, children rounded us – most of them cladded only on dirty pants.

We intended spending a week but realism cut the tour to two days: the only borehole – manual by the way – released only one bucket of water every three hours, there was nothing like electricity because they were cut off from national grid, the houses where apologetic. There was no way I could endure longer.

Besides the odd stories, good stories also abound: as little as two hundred naira could prepare you a sumptuous full pot of nutritious soup because of the low cost of living.

What captivated me the most was how little children would poo-poo and rub their butt on sand afterward. We took photographs of the kids, albeit they were shy at first. When we prepared to leave, we left behind cutlery, toiletries, clothes and so on. At least am sure they’ve had the experience of wiping their butt with tissue paper till I return – that is, IF I would ever return.