Igboora-Land of Twins

PhotoCredit: NaijaTreks.com

Igboora is known as the "land of twins". It is located in the outskirts of Old Oyo state in Nigeria.Visitors are welcomed with the statue of a woman holding twin babies.

People from far and wide have come to this ancient town to be blessed by what it is known for.History has it that twins were considered abomination by our forefathers. Thank God for colonization. This led to a new dispensation and orientation.

Education is not just going to school. It is about reasoning , thinking solutions and applying knowledge.
Talk of the person who virtually put full stop to the killing twins in Nigeria and no other person comes to mind than the late Mary Slessor.

 People of old considered having twins as a curse. Any woman who gave birth to twins would have her babies thrown in the river. How cruel?  Imagine the waste of potentials and human lives then. Imagine the waste of potentials and human lives then. God have mercy!
 But with the introduction of civilisation,there was room for renewed mindset and progress. Thankfully such heinous acts are no more. Twins, triplets, quadruplest,quintuplets, sixtuplents and so on are all blessings from the Almighty.

So I remember going on field trip to Igbora as an undergraduate. We were actually visiting three towns namely: Eruwa, Lanlate and Igbora. Of all the towns, Igbora caught my attention. The entrance to the town made me dig dip and made me thirsty for more information. It was then and only then I found out that it was the " Land of Twins". Do not tell anybody but I have always nursed the dream of having identical twins or even a boy and girl.

Being adventurous and asking a lot of questions, I discovered that there is a particular leaf that the inhabitants believe to make a woman produce twins.After carrying out the field research which was the major purpose of the visit to Igbora. I settled down with colleagues to have a good meal at canteen. I made sure that I had enough of the " Twin leaves" in my soup surrounded by the balls of amala waiting to go down my long throat.
There has always been this belief that local canteen food taste better. The dirtier and more local it looked, the tastier and sweeter the food tasted. It was even believed that the sweat of the cooks added spice to the food they prepared.

Having digested leafy soup and amala happily with my colleagues, we chilled a bit to chat before leaving to our temporary abode- a guest room in Eruwa.In mind I was like I didn't just pass through Igboora, I made sure I would have stories to tell of its impact . My only regret was that I didn't really take pictures. Camera phones were not in vogue then and organising for a local photographer was a no-no.

As geographer, you also an explorer;you discover, you invent and test prove. For more on Igboora check the link below: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igbo-Ora

Photo Credit: Nairaland.com