My stay here is not by choice but it is where I call home for the past 12 months. After being posted here for my NYSC service, I have settled and carry out all activities expected of me. In my life time I have seen lot of rural settlement but none of it is like where I'm right now. It is a rural community called Owotoro located in the midst of other communities that forms ATISBO Local government in Oyo state. It is an isolated community that feels like it fell out of grace, since governmental related activities here is almost invisible.
Apart from two government schools the government uses as a means to promoting education in the community, every other thing in this community is provided by the community members, the community is dominated by the Yoruba tribe and they are ruled by a King. Their way of life was kind of alien to me at first when I got here because I have never seen people live in the manner at which people in this community does.
Everything in this community is culturally oriented, from the way they speak, eat, converse with each other, everything is deeply rooted in customs and traditions. Which means immediately they see someone doing things that is different from the way they are used to, there is a high possibility that such a person might receive hostile treatment.
It is not as if they hate strangers or innovations, they just don't want people coming around and teaching their people a way of life that will disrupt their traditional way of doing things. I guess, in their own undefined way, they are trying their best to preserve their culture. Act such as this might seem beneficial to preserving their cultural heritage but it has also made them ignorant about their environment. Which kind of just makes the surroundings of the community a huge mess.
Almost every member of this community is a farmer, even those having other official/governmental jobs still have farms they are cultivating. Farming is their major source of income in this community. It has made it a lot easier for this community to thrive on natural resources and farm produce. As a result of their passion for farming it made them also shy away from education which kinds of makes larger percentage of the populace of this community illiterates.
As healthy as it is to consume farm produce that are directly from the farm they lack proper method of disposing their farm produce waste. The most popular crops they plant here are Cassava, Corn, Soya beans, Yam, Vegetables and pepper. Though they also raise livestocks but all these crops are not without waste after harvest. Some of the waste are still consumable by their livestocks but since their livestocks are not caged in their compound they roam around on the streets in the community.
So the community members feel a lot comfortable disposing this waste on the streets believing their livestocks will consume it and if not, it will rot there. There are times when I'm on my way to my PPA and I will witness this villagers dumping cassava waste on their major road, which is just one but at least it is painted and smooth compared to other roads in the community.
Based on this, the most noticeable pollution in this community is Land pollution. It has been a constant issue in this community and they see nothing wrong about it, moreover it is not only farm waste that cause pollution in the community, it also includes all forms of household stuff used in this community. They don't have a waste disposal system, so they prefer to dump their used cans, nylon e.t.c by the side of their house and burn it there.
As a result of improper waste disposal in this community, it has attracted lot of pest into the community which includes rat, cockroaches, housefly and most dangerous of them all are snakes and Scorpions, they come around to feast on the dirt, snakes are less rampant since those once are mostly hunted for food by the hunters in the community but you see Scorpions, those deadly creatures roam about like mosquitos.
As if that is not bad enough, The smell of rotten farm produce dumped on the streets sometimes makes it difficult for me to breath but for the villagers it is nothing, they are used to it already. It is not as if they are immune to the consequences of this, they just don't care about the implications. As corp members, we have tried reaching out to the the king and other notable people in the community to try to educate them about the dangers of their actions but it has not had much effect.
The little we can do as corp members is to engage in sanitation exercise. Most times we visit the market Square, it is located at the center of the community and it is always full of dirt. So we clean it up and dispose the dirt, based on this exercise it has also encouraged some of the market women to clean up the market Square before and after use. If I'm being sincere it will take a miracle for the residents of this community to take their refuse disposal issue seriously.
This write-up was inspired by weekly featured content titled "Cause of pollution" in hive learners community.
Cover image - 𝖣𝖾𝗌𝗂𝗀𝗇𝖾𝖽 𝗎𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖼𝖺𝗇𝗏𝖺
All image used are mine
