On the 28 of December 2022, My family and I went for a vacation in the village, we traveled by sea, it was such an amazing journey, but I was a little terrified, because when another boat passes a little close to ours, it will generate a lot of waves that made our boat to bounce on the water. Whenever that happened, I always freaked out. The journey, though, was fun; I saw lot of fishes swimming in the water.

Our trip to the village was a short one, it was a 30 minutes trip from our take off point, Coconut Estate, to my village; the name is lbimieari (Land where good happens in my native Ibani language). Finally, we arrived at our village and some people came and assisted us carry our luggages out from the boat to the shore.

We were warmly welcomed by the villagers and some friends. They were all surprised to see me, and welcomed me specially. Probably because it has been a long while I visited the village. Our house in the village is a duplex. One crazy experience I had in the village was to light firewood; this was what we used in cooking our meals in the village. To be honest, it is one thing I will never forget because it was new to me.

I made lot of friends in the village, and we normally go to swim in the river every morning, though I was scared at my first time of entering the water, but I later picked up courage to enter the water. I won’t lie, I really enjoyed myself. After swimming, we would go to our different houses and take our bath, then later in the evening, my friends and I will have a walk to other villages to watch an interesting dance by the village masquerade.

But one bad thing was that there was no transportation except trekking. It was fun, though, because it was my first time to experience such life, and by the both sides of the road were much bushes and trees. We took lot of pictures and made so many videos on our way, my friend was telling us stories on how snakes and other animals do come out from the bush.

Another thing I can never forget was my first experience to pass through a broken bridge. Oh, my God! I couldn’t walk through because I was scared. Others were struggling to pass but I couldn’t; I was just standing in front of the bridge, I wanted to go back home, then a guy carried me at his back that was how I crossed that bridge.

The first day of January 2023 was such a remarkable one, and at the same time it was stressful because I spent all day in the kitchen with my mother. My father bought a live goat and paid some villagers to kill it. We prepared lots of food that day; we prepared rice and stew, pepper soup, and a special goat head pepper for the elders, cassava leaf soup. It was actually my first time to eat cassava soup, and it was so nice.

We had so many visitors, they all ate and drank, then one of our uncle that leaves in front of our house turned on his music, making everywhere lively and enjoyable for everyone, they all danced and had fun that day. And another interesting and equally scary part was when a masquerade came into our house in the village. I was so scared. And then, another one that I enjoyed was the fruit I leaked; udara and coconut I ate.

I really enjoyed my stay in the village, finally on the 6th of January marked the end of our stay in the village, we left the village by 3:30pm, and we arrived Bonny by 4pm. Everybody in our compound was so happy to have us back, we were welcomed and some helped us to carry our bags inside. That was how I spent my Christmas holiday.

Ann Hart, student of Mass Communication of Captain Elechi Amadi Polytechnic, Rumuola, Port Harcourt and indigene of Ibimieari Community in Bonny LGA, wrote in from Bonny Island, Rivers State.