The Village of Otukojo

I can not stop thinking about this little village and the people in it. This has been definitely one of the neatest experience i have enjoyed while being here.



Last week jeff and i drove out to complete african bush to go find one of our machines that has been having some over-heating problems. We should have known better then to listen to the man who told us the roads were "good" especially after raining all night. Our little honda civic took a bit of a beating (sorry melissa....i promise we cleaned her right up after!) but luckily we made it. So here we are in the middle of the jungle. Jeff and the operator headed over to the machine and i got out of the car to look around a little. I guess we were quite a sight to see or something because soon a bunch of little village kids came running down a path waving and yelling "obruni" which means "white person."



I get called that like 50 times a day, especially in ghana for some reason, so it was nothing too out of the ordinary. I just smiled and waved back like usual but i could tell that it obviously wasn't too often they saw white people because they seemed a little scared to get any closer to me. Even one little boy started screaming the second he saw me and ran back to his mom bawling his eyes out....sad i know, i felt bad!! It didn't take too long before a crowd of older women started gathering around, pointing at me and waved me over to greet them. Thank goodness because i started feeling super awkward standing there waving a million times while every one laughed and yelled "obruni." Although i dont know whats more awakard that or the few shirtless ladies yelling and waving me over......obviously its not that big of a deal to be topless walking around the village......i dont know??? I just tried to act like everyone else, like it was normal.....but how the heck can you act normal when your talking face to face with that????.....anyways, besides that fact, they were all super nice!! They didn't speak much english but enough I could at least understand some things they were saying. They of course were super curious about me and were asking me questions, which to be honest i was just as curious about them, so i didn't mind. One of the ladies that spoke a little more english had a small baby tied on her back, a basket of something on her head and was holding another baby in her arms. I asked if it was her's and if i could hold him. She happily gave him to me and i later found out he was only a week old. We visited for a little longer then all of the sudden all the women started walking off into the bush with their baskets leaving me sitting in their village, holding this little baby wondering where the heck everyone was going? I definitely loved every minute of holding the little baby and i really had nothing else to do unless i wanted to watch jeff try and fix the machine so i just sat there waiting for them to return.



I wasn't the only one left in the village either. There was a few younger boys, 1 or 2 older men sitting around and a ton of kids playing and running around the village.




One man heard me say i lived in Nigeria so he came over and told me he lived there for a while too and therefore he spoke english...thank-goodness!! He was super nice and we talked for a good 30 minutes. I asked him where all the women went and he told me they left to go collect corn in the fields but would be back soon. He told me about his village and how everyone was a farmer. They grew corn, sugar cane, and cassava then would have people take it into the nearest town and sell it. There was no seperate jobs for one person or another everyone, men, women and children, all went and worked together every day. I seriously loved every minute of listening to him. He also soon left to go help the women pick in the fields. I sat for 2 hours, holding this little baby, watching the children play and run around, the young boys trying and keep the chickens and goats away from eating the corn that was drying in the sun, a few older women pounding fufu or something for dinner, and just people going about their normal every day business. I seriously was completely mesmerized by all that was going on. I have driven by little villages like this many times and usually think to myself how lucky i am to live where i do and to have all the modern day conveniences i do, but actually sitting inside watching people go about there day to day activities, i couldn't help but notice how happy and completely content everyone seemed to be. I couldn't help but think of how simple their lives were and how maybe they really are the lucky ones. Imagine what life would be like if we didn't have to worry about all that extra "stuff" our lives seem to be constantly filled with because of the technology/conveniences we have. What would life be like if we didn't have to stress about places we have to go or things we need to get. If we were completely content with living in a mud hut, growing and picking our own food, and spending time with family because we didn't know anything different or anything else existed. I am not saying im not grateful for all those things because i definitely am and i definitely could not hack it living in the condtions they are because i know what its like to have more, im sure if i didn't it would be different, but it just made me think a little and realize that the extra "stuff" is just stuff and really doesn't really matter that much.

Anyways.....this is much longer then intented...sorry.....but one by one the women started coming back carrying baskets full of corn on their head. Right in time too because after holding this adorable sleeping baby for 2 hours he woke up hungry and then peed all over me........(you would think i would have assume if the village doesn't even have running water their babies definitely wouldn't have dipars on....) Anyways they saw i had a camera and took some pictures for me then i snapped some of them. They loved being able to look at them after, espeically the kids. It definitely was a day i will never forget!!