10 Amazing Photos of the Skies and Sights in Katsina

Katsina state is a beauty yet unexplored. Its vast lands that stretch far across the horizon, like an unending day, is but a little taste of what makes this place a tourist’s delight. Here are 10 amazing photos, all unfiltered nor edited, from my trip to Katsina in Nigeria.

I visited Katsina state in northwestern Nigeria recently to cover and write about the Mobile Science Laboratory project being piloted by VSO International in fifteen schools across the state.

I took some time to take in and capture a few sights and the beautiful skies of ‘the Home of Hospitality’, Katsina. I especially love this photo of a tree I found standing pretty between two classroom blocks of one of pilot schools, Government Day Secondary School, Muduru.

Nigeria has the most number of out-of-school children in the world (10.5 Million), and 60% of these children are in northern Nigeria. This photo of a school-age boy pushing a cart was taken from the entrance of the school I visited, and to think that education is completely free.

The roads in Katsina are very free, something I know the Lagos folks will do anything to have. However, the drivers in this state are quite rough and reckless, a side-effect perhaps, of the traffic-free roads.

There are not a lot of water bodies in Katsina state and I wondered where most of their drinking water came from. [P.S: The rest of the photos below were taken through a dirty window from the back of a vehicle moving at 130Km/hr from Katsina to Kano.]

It was also refreshing to see this lush green vegetation in Katsina as well.

As we drove through a town called “Charanchi” I asked what the name of the town meant and I was told of the legend of Charanchi. Apparently, the name doesn’t quite have a literal meaning in English, but was gotten from the legend about a caravan merchant long ago who visited the town and was given the town’s popular meal of baobab soup to eat. He loved it so much that he exclaimed “Chara-nchi”, and that was how the town got its name.

I hope to visit Katsina again, but until then, ‘Farewell to Katsina’.

AUTHOR: Iweka Kingsley is an award winning blogger and Founder/Editor of
Africa-OnTheRise.com