Our Traditional Houses

A traditional house according to the people and culture of the Ibibio, the major inhabitants of AkwaIbom State in the southern part of Nigeria is a structure built with mud and roofed with thatch.
The Ibibio people were homogeneous farmers who's major crop was cassava, those who were not farmers were fishermen.

_{Photo Credit}
Things have changed greatly but we still have a few traditional thatch houses in the rural areas. In this posted, I will talk about it's construction, the materials used and what the generality of my people think about the thatch houses.
Fishermen often needed a place to rest that provides protection against the elements and offer some measure of privacy, the same applied to farmers who had farms located far from home. It was easy to build huts with available materials,

Materials for a thatch house

The materials needed for our local thatch houses are:

Material	Local name
√ Laotian teak.	Mboi
√ Bamboo.	Akpo Nyanyaha
√ Yarn.	idok
√ Laterite.	Nduan
√ Raffia palm leaves.	Nkanyan

Construction and Functions

The construction of a thatch houses was a community project, the owner will inform the village of his intention to build a house on a stipulated date, young men and yong women will be invited to assist in the project. The owner will have to cook enough food to feed the volunteers.
The house plan is marked out and a termite resistant hard wood locally called "Nya" is used for the main structure known as "Mboi", it is built with doors and windows for ventilation. For better structural integrity, a tree with characteristics of a Laotian teak is used. Those experienced in selecting trees that can't be eaten by termites are used.
The Bamboo is used to strengthen the walls and are being tight using the yarn. This creates a very porous structure for a wall.
It is at this point that the Laterite is mixed and smeared over the framework. It is then allowed to dry up and form the walls.
The raffia palm leaves are being woven into sheets for roofing the structure. The sheets are lay on Bamboo. At most it could take a whole day to build a family house.
All materials used are available locally around our community.

_{A complete thatch house with traditional roof and walls What3Words}

Appreciating Tradition

The process of owning a thatch houses has become a lost tradition, the level of cooperation among the people who were not paid but we're simply offered food and drink as a form of appreciation for the help.
It made housing affordable As long as you endeavour to feed the workforce.
Materials were readily available for the construction with nothing to be bought. Materials were all locally sourced.
The materials used for building this housed were good for our climate, this part of the world is generally warm and the red Laterite and Thatch roof is good at keeping the temperature down at all time, conserving heat.

Thatch houses today

The presence of a thatch house is today is an indication that the community is rural. We don't have thatch houses in urban areas and kids of this generation sees thatch houses as a symbol of poverty.
Most thatch houses today are built with metal roofing sheets

House hold furnitures

In a typical house, we have locally made furniture like stools, benches and beds made from the same set of materials as shown in the picture below
_{Traditionally crafted branch and stool, made from raffia bamboo}

Fencing The Structure

In some cases, the house is fenced using special boundary trees that are hard to uproot and can live for many years, this trees are made to serve as poles, holding palm leaves

_{Traditional fencing "Atang" What3Words}

Traditional Significance

These are the best places for hosting traditional marriage and other traditional events as shown in the picture below

_What3Words

_What3Words
The celebrant were fully dressed in traditional dresses with it's associated accessories,
_What3Words

#challenge #creativewriting #club100 #steemexclusive #nigeria