Last week I travelled to another part of Nigeria 9 hours away south, to Egbe...It was very different climate and terrain than in the Plateau , much more tropical and ohhhhh so hot ! !
This place used to be a big SIM base years ago but at the moment there are no SIM missionaries there, but lots of work going on with the Fulani people.
The Fulani are a large nomadic tribal people whose lives revolve around cows, they are practicaly all Muslim and they move around depending upon the grazing availability for the cows. Well I got to visit a Fulani camp and was shown around
and saw the cows coming in and the wives and children and then we were invited to stay the night !!!
and saw the cows coming in and the wives and children and then we were invited to stay the night !!!Well I was a bit daunted by the prospect as I was with three guys and I was the only woman, and men and women in that culture are very seperate....so I would be on my own with the women who didnt speak English and who were surrounded by children , and from a very different religious and cultural background than my own....BUT well I did it and it was an amazing experiene...
See the pictures of where we stayed....
This is the lady I stayed with, in this hut , with her and three children...It was amazingly comfortable and dry and remarkable to see how resourceful you can be when you live off the land. This entire home was made from branches and palms and grasses, including the bamboo bed I slept on. It was suprisingly spacious and waterproof.
This is the inside, you can see the bamboo beds and here one of the children drinking out of a calabash (a seed pod )
Here the lady is using yesterday's milk to churn into butter. Once again a calabash is used and manually shaken until thick. Above see the decoration they put onto their bowls all grow from the ground.
This is the daughter, helping the mother from an early age, the boys look after the cows and the women look after the home and children, very clear divisions of labour.
What you can see here is breakfast being made, a kind of steamed porridge served with fresh milk from the cows :) all cooked inside the hut as it was raining outside....
The hospitality shown by this family was amazing, How many of you would let a stranger sleep in with your family and be so hospitable ? I was able to communicate using Hausa and sign language a bit and was totally blown away to catch a glimpse of how people can live with no electricity and running water, totally off the land and cows and sharing with their families everything they have.
I hope that I was a little ray of light into this home, one very different from my own but one in which I was made to feel very welcome.
