by
Obododimma Oha
As one celebrates the interesting idea that the Maker must be a farmer, for this Maker created a lovely garden containing numerous lives, called "Earth", one remembers one remarkable Igbo agriculture partnering called "ịgba ofu ọrụ" (translated roughly as "Participating in the work group or team") which could be found in many parts of today's Anambra and Imo States of Nigeria. "Igba ofu ọrụ" involves friends and neighbours partnering to work on any partner's farm without monetary charges and aiming at completing the whole task the same day. On another working day, the group would shift to another partner's farm. The partner only has to feed the group that day and that is all.
One great advantage is that the owner's farm is worked on quickly and the entire task is promptly completed, unlike where a single person would be on the task for days and be overtaken by weeds.
Add to this the gladness of having one's whole farms completed when neighbours working as individuals are only beginning. The partner is full of joy and has little to do.
The idea of having little to do makes it possible for the person to face other labours of life. In other words, "ịgba ofu ọrụ" is a system that makes life to become smoother and easier. That kind of system is a lubricant, not a type that delays or forestalls things.
The partners are also friends whose paths have crossed in this life.
One interesting thing about "Ịgba ofu ọrụ" is the idea of many acting as one or numerous people becoming one person working. This amazing transformation is expected to be clear to the owner or partner and to inform the reception and entertainment of the group.
Another good thing is that it becomes an important test of the working skills and energy of each participant. A lazy fellow is easily identified. In that case, one has to work harder to try and catch up with others. It is a healthy competition over getting better.
"Ịgba ofu ọrụ" is about cooperation and collaboration in community. It is no exaggeration if I claim that a sense of community is getting lost nowadays. So many people have started living isolated lives and are suffering tremendously for it. "Ịgba ofu ọrụ" calls us back and reminds us that we are here to work together and accomplish together. That is perhaps one reason our roads have crossed.
Elite culture and Western individualism do not make this system possible in modern life. We know that this is very suitable to communal living. But where people prefer to live in isolation (even without social or physical distance being proclaimed as a policy), it is for us to look for ways of applying the dimensions of interaction and trust in collective project execution, teaming for a task in "ịgba ofu ọrụ."
Modern life often asks for solitary grappling with tasks. Is it the habit of bending over the computer to work? Is it the mowing of a lawn that involves one person using the machine? Is it research in a library in which the researcher looks for a hidden idea? Where in modern life can one see "ịgba ofu ọrụ"? Interestingly, this modern life looks for privacy and the privacy means that the worker has to hide or hide something in order to work!
"ịgba ofu ọrụ" obviously springs from the indigenous African support system that a member of a community stands to gain by associating with others. Whenever it rains hard and a thatch roof is removed by the ferocious wind, the kinsmen gather very early in the morning to replace it. Each man coming brings a new and neat matting for the roof and it is such a great thing to hear them singing and working. Before long, they are done. Then, they come down, sit down to eat and to drink fulfilled and happy. The beneficiary has got a new roof because he has caring kinsmen! They would leave later victorious.
In the age of isolationism, does an uncle even remember to call a nephew or niece, and vice versa? Do they even know their relatives? They would WhatsApp about events far and near but not remember their relatives. They know everything, including fake news and truthful ones, but they do not know what they should know!
It is better to attack that overgrown farm as a team. Before the weeds grow again, they would think twice!
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