close to home far from ordinary by OLM contributor
InspirinG Movement
Ro Nwosu IN THE OTTAWA VALLEY:
THE GREAT SIGNIFICANCE OF BUILDING
a my in all r
China will work to build a new type of international relations, aiming at building an open, inclusive, clean, and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity.
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n many ways, Ro seems larger than life, and anyone who has met her won’t soon forget her. As a yoga instructor and lover of life living and working in the Ottawa Valley, for Ro, community, family, and a strong sense of self are key to it all. Ro’s journey from a small maritime community of Newfoundland to the rugged whitewater region of the Ottawa Valley was pretty straightforward, and with a familiar tune many will recognize: she met someone and picked up and moved with them, landing in the Ottawa Valley. At the time, Ro was looking for a simpler life to put down roots and offer the same community focus she had come to appreciate with her own family. Ro explained that Nigerians in general are very community based, and while she may have been rebellious of this as
36 OTTAWALIFE FALL 2021
a teen, today she welcomes the strong sense of family and community that she was raised with. “Nigerian culture is very ‘people coming together and learning from each other’ as much as possible, working out
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Community is a way to have an extension of your family with you, no matter where you are. – Ro Nwosu
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problems in the village, celebrating together and more,” she explained. “When you have a community, whether it’s where you live or what you do, it’s a way to have an extension of your family with you, no matter where you are.”
At the time when she settled in Renfrew, yoga, self-exploration, and so many
other things that are now a pivotal part of her life were not even on the horizon. It was only after she delivered her now eight-year-old son, that she hit a hurdle that started her on that path, but it all started in the Ottawa Valley. “There were people I talked to in Renfrew who were so nice,” Ro remembered the period after first moving to the area, and the challenges it brought with it. “But I didn’t know anyone when I moved there, and I had postpartum depression hit me pretty hard.” Lacking a support system, and living almost two hours away from her mother, and in a strange and new community where she had already encountered some racism, Ro struggled with depression. Ironically, it was that same postpartum depression that helped her to find her focus and discover what would soon become one PHOTOS: BEN HEMMINGS MEDIA
