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The Nigerian Field Society |
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Ikorodu February 25th, 2007
Little did I know what adventures were in store when we met the Ikoyi contingent of this trip outside Mike Newton’s place at the rather painful hour of 7.30 on Sunday morning. Our convoy sped up to the Sheraton to meet up with Veronica and the rest of the party, making nearly 40 members in all. Unfortunately Romeo, who had been sharing the organisation of the trip was not well enough to join us. Making the most of extra capacity in our 4 wheel drive meant that we had two delightful travelling companions who added great interest and enjoyment to our journey. The, by now impressive, full convoy soon set off on the road for Ikorodu, passing through the usual variety of Nigerian roadside life, market areas with beautifully displayed vegetables, timber storage yards, and a wide range of roadside stalls. As buildings grew sparser and vegetation started to take over, we turned off into the roadside village of Gherigbe, parked and emerged from our air-conditioned havens into the growing heat. Drivers and a growing crowd of villagers looked on in some amusement as we gathered outside the house of Babalawo, the High Priestess/Medicine woman. I hesitate to call her a herbalist because although she grows many of her own medicinal herbs behind her house, she also uses snakes, frogs, bird claws, snails and other animal products to cure many ills. We were such a large party that our local guide, Ishaka, had to describe the Priestess’ art and the tools of her trade to successive groups, while she sat, quietly dignified and unassuming, beside a display of medicines and some items, such as feathers and dead mice mounted on sticks, that are used for rituals.
Once we had all marvelled at the snake in alcohol that’s used to strengthen male ‘weakness’, the pickled bark that treats piles, the yellow liquid cure for malaria, and had turned our tongues yellow with the root that can be used in pepper soup, the Priestess arranged a demonstration of Yoruba prayer. Our guide poured a glass of clear alcohol for a youth who squatted on the ground and muttered what seemed to be a well learned prayer and, after pouring some drops from the glass on the ground in front of him, he took mouthfuls which he then sprayed at the assembled audience. The Priestess herself repeated the performance, though this time the local girl standing by me, told me giggling that said she was praying for us. Two more villagers did likewise until we had all received a fine spray of liquor.
Back in our vehicles, we drove a little further to a village near where we were to board canoes. Veronica led a delegation to greet the chief and get his sanction for our journey through the village and on into the mangrove swamps, while the rest of the party attracted a crowd of curious youngsters as we waited on the edge of the village. Driving on down a sandy track through tall grass and cassava plots, it wasn’t long before we ran out of road and had to wade through the mud, many of us carrying our shoes, to the awaiting punts.
Amid much shouting the locals managed to load us all into their much-patched boats and gradually they started to pole us along past clumps of purple-flowered water hyacinth into channels cut between long rooted mangroves that still tried to reach down from above our heads and find a foot hold in the mud.
After 20 minutes or so the channel opened out and we clambered out at Agura village, a collection of huts made of bamboo canes and palm leaves. A few minutes walk through the palm trees and undergrowth brought us to a clearing where ‘schnaps’ was being distilled through dubious looking oil cans, from palm wine, the cloudy liquor that oozes from a felled palm tree at a rate of 5 litres a days over a month.
It seems a shame that palm trees have to be cut down to collect the wine but we were assured that it was the only way to obtain the strongest juice and it only takes five years for new trees to grow to maturity. Some of us sampled the brews, hoping they were safe and didn’t contain lethal methanol, while others snatched a sandwich in the shade of the clearing before we wended our way back to the canoe/punts for the precarious ride back. The boat men, and the one female skipper, now propelled us exuberantly with their poles made of stripped palm branches, trying to overtake each other along the narrow channel. Some of these boats were perilously close to the waterline and so unstable that they rapidly took on water at the slightest movement, others were patched with polythene bags and also needed constant baling, so it was with relief that we reached our starting point and climbed out into the murky water again to wade ashore. We were now ready to find our way back to our respective parts of Lagos and muddy and damp climbed back into our jeeps at the end of a very eventful day in which the Field Society gave us the opportunity to see a side of Lagos’ outskirts I would certainly not have known existed. Admiration and thanks to Veronica for her research and trial run the previous day.
Julia Roberts
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Lagos Branch
