Have you ever been to a place and you decided to leave a proof that you were there?
Well, I had the opportunity to do this few years ago and I grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
In our penultimate year in medical school, we are charged with the responsibility of conducting a research project in a rural setting.
It has been the culture of each set to go to the Igboora community in Oyo State Nigeria to conduct their rural-based research and ours wasn't going to be an exception.
In November 2019, a group of 40 medical students were to visit the Igboora community and conduct research as part of our community medicine posting.
So we packed our bags and gathered at gate of our hostel witth so much excitement waiting for the 50 seater MarcoPolo bus to arrive.
One of the main reasons why we were excited was because, at least, we would get to experience Medicine outside the four walls of the teaching hospital.
Where we had a lot of things to read, clinics to attend, patients to clerk and ward rounds to attend.
The Igboora posting as we fondly called it was one time where we could at least "enjoy ourselves."
The journey took us about 2 hours 30 minutes to our destination.
We were received warmly and we started settling in to our various rooms.
We went with 2 of our community medicine teachers.
This is a picture of I and one of them.
By the next morning, we received a briefing on how our stay in Igboora was going to run.
We had 6 weeks to spend there and in that 6 weeks, we were to conduct our Research projects and also engaging in other activities like;
•Visiting the King's Palace
•Visiting the Abbatoir
•Visiting the Bakery
•Visiting the Local soap makers
•Visiting the indigenous Eruwa clinic
•Visiting the Schools
•Visiting the market
We also took turns in providing primary health care for People within the secretariat where we lived.
These definitely looks like a lot to me now as I write them. But it was so much fun then.
Lest I forget, We also had Variety night and Research to policy presentations too.
Safe to say it was an wholesome experience.
I'll be highlighting a few things about our activities there.
Firstly, I must have you know that the Igboora community is also known as "The World's Twin Capital"
There was literally no house we went to that didn't have a twin, however mostly non- identical.
Upon interacting with the indigenes of the land, we were told that the secret to their Twinning prowess was in a particular leaf called "Ilasa" (okra leaf), some others said the secret was in their Yam.
Next highlight would be our visit to the King's Palace.
I didn't have a picture of the King's palace because some of my male classmates pranked us ladies into thinking that the king could see any of us and suddenly pick interest in such a person for marriage.
So I hid myself all through our time there.
Looolll
The king was however magnanimous enough to give us a goat to make "asun" and some cash to get drinks.
We enjoyed this at our variety night.
Our next Highlight was our visit to the Indigenous Awojobi Clinic in Eruwa Village.
We saw how The Late Awojobi used the available resources and technology he had to provide health care for the people of the land.
He manufactured these medical materials locally.
Indigenous haematocrit Centrifuge- for blood level determination
Indigenous Autoclave- to sterilize instruments and materials
Indigenous Normal Saline- for Intravenous fluid therapy
We also visited the schools, where we educated the students on hand washing and its importance.
The pregnant women were not left out as we visited them to provide health education on safe birth practices and safe motherhood.
The hardworking local soap producers also gave us some insight on the local soap making process.
Its funny how I have forgotten what was even said🤗
Don't blame me.
They spoke in some deep Yoruba Language so I struggled really understand some things.
The most important thing is that I left my footprint there and this is my evidence, Lol.
Talking about footprints, I almost missed this.
We went hill-climbing!!!
How did I forget.
We sort permission from the king to go hill climbing on the Isamuni Hills of the Ibarapa Community.
We had a sherpa guide us till we got to the top of the mountain.
It was my first time doing such and it was so much fun!
Before we knew it, 6 weeks was almost gone, so we had to really pay attention to collating our research related data and analysing it.
We were split into 3 groups and my group topic was Assessment of Health Seeking Behavior amongst Civil Servants in Ibarapa Community.
We did our analysis of the data and gave a research to policy presentation to important stake holders at the end.
Being a Christian, a couple of friends and I also went out for Evangelism and we shared the goodnews of Jesus to people there.
After this, we had to say goodbye to the good people of Igboora.
It was few days to Christmas, so we didn't feel the pain so much because there was another excitement waiting for us back home.
I'm grateful for all my experiences as they have contributed to who I am today.
I can boldly say I left my footprint in the land of Igboora.
Thank you so much for reading my blog today
I hope it was enlightening and interesting at the same time.
See you soon.
All pictures not credited were taken with my Android phone
