Last week, I traveled to my village.
In the village.
No traffic.
No horn.
No Facebook arguments.
Just fresh air, fresh palmwine, red sand, and people living as one.
I have been living in the city of Abakaliki and Enugu for long and the noise, the rush, everybody pursuing money that I forgot what peace looks like.
In my village, I saw peace again.
Morning in the village is different.
In the city, morning starts with alarm, hurry, keke, and oga shift.
In the village, morning starts with cock crowing, sweepings of compound, and greeting.
Mama good morning.
Everybody greets everybody.
Even if you don't know the child, you greet. Nobody passes you like you don't exist.
I woke up by 5:30am. My uncle was already outside. My aunt was sweeping and te kids sweeping and fetching water.
I felt the real nature.
I met my people doing things together with love. This is what touched me most.
In the city, we live in flats but we don't know our next flat neighbor. We lock gates. We mind our business.
In my village, they live as one.
I saw women going to stream together, with buckets on their head, gisting and laughing. They fetch water for one old mama who cannot go herself.
No one pays them.
I saw men building a thatch roof for a widow. No contract. No money. They just said today is her own. Tomorrow it will be another person's own. That is communal labor.
I saw youths clearing the village square for a meeting. No one forced them. They just took cutlass and went.
I saw children, my own cousins, nephews playing under the trees. No phone. No tablet. Just sand, stones, and pure joy. They share one biscuit among four and still laugh.
Where is this kind of love in the city?
Peace and harmony is still possible.
I sat with the elders in the evening, under the big palm tree. They were settling a small land issue between two brothers. No shouting. No police. No court case that will last for years.
One elder said, make una forgive them.
And they forgave. They shook hands. They drank palm wine from the same cup.
I almost cried. In the city where I came from, brothers are fighting because of Facebook comment 馃槀
In my village, there is no big education. Many of them did not finish school. But I remembered my own post about Maturity Matters More Than Education. Yes! My village people may not have degrees, but they have maturity.
They have civility.
They live in peace and harmony.
No one is cancelling anyone online.
No one is judging someone as judge, jury and executioner like I wrote before.
If you do wrong, they correct you face to face, with love.
What I learned from my village people.
We need each other.
You cannot survive alone. That community life helping each other farm, cook, build is why they have peace. In the city, we try to do everything alone, and we have anxiety.Enough is enough.
They don't have enough money like city people. But they have enough food, enough sleep, enough laughter. I wrote about reasons to have enough money, but my village showed me the other side, sometimes peace is the real wealth.Life is simple if we keep it simple.
Wake, farm, eat, greet, play, sleep. No pretense. No forming. No pressure to show off new car.
When it was time to come back to the city, I didn't want to leave. My mother packed fresh vegetables, palm oil, and smoked fish for me. My uncle prayed for me. Children followed my bike till the junction shouting Bye bye.
I returned to the city of Enugu with my body, but my heart is still in the village.
If you have not visited your village this year, please try.
Go and see how people can still live as one in peace and harmony.
Go and charge your soul.
The city gives you hustle.
The village gives you healing.
I will visit again.
Very soon.
Yes, during my parents burial this October.