Wednesday Walk|| Walking The Same Soil As Mary Slessor||Ancient History

Hello lovely people✨

For my Wednesday today I found myself in a land where a trailblazer and Scottish presbyterian missioner, Mary Slessor, had walked.

With our presidential election fast approaching, a friend asked me to escort him to get his personal voter's card(PVC). I escorted him because I have a fair understanding of the Efik language but he is Igbo and knows nothing about Efik language.

The journey was a long one. It seems like I was taken away from civilization. After about an hour, we arrived at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office and to my surprise it was not packed with people. It seems everyone already got their PVC, I was one of the early birds too.

As we were about leaving the Locality, I realised that this was one of the lands that Mary Slessor walked. In case you don't know who she is, let me give you a brief history.

Mary Slessor was a missionary who came to Nigeria at the age of 27. She arrived Nigeria in the year 1876 and had played a great role in stopping the infanticide of twins. It was a belief back then that twins were a curse and had to be killed. Honestly, witchcraft and superstitions were the recurring agenda in that time as a result of slave trade.

Mary Slessor first touched down in Calabar, from there she moved to Okoyong and then to ITU. She didn't really come from a rich family and so living among the locals was a normal thing to her. She had suffered from malaria on a few occasions which made her very sick but she still stood strong in her work.

Mary Slessor is a role model today because without her, I know many twins that would have been dead today. She adopted many twins who would have lost their lives. She lived in a mud hut(that was like the only house type available by then) and wore shabby clothes different from the normal clothes Scottish ladies wore then. She was born in 1848 and died in 1915 at the age of 66. She never got married but had many kids.

PS: there was a popular saying that she had cursed the land on her deathbed because they had raped her during her stay there . The internet won't carry such news but many elders, including those from Calabar, keep saying this but i wont know as i wasn't born by then.

I would have really loved to take a picture of her tombstone but the road leading there is very narrow hill(allows only one vehicle) and my friend was in a hurry. The entire environment was looking very undeveloped with hills and valleys. Terrifying but very interesting.

I bet the Scottish people would be so proud of her for the good works she did here. I, on the other hand, am very grateful for her existence. I still can't imagine what would become of Nigeria if she didn't stop certain terrific practices.

I was able to make a video of the journey from a moving vehicle but I wasn't able to take pictures. I will be visiting the place again and this time around, as an official tourist.

With love, wongi ✨