When the clarion call came for me to travel to my village, my mum was 98% sure i would not be interested because when it came to excuses, i was KING! I sat on my bed and thought hard about my reason for accepting this invite. The next day i told momma i was in and she was so happy. My older sister joined the league as well as my dad and off we went. Orlu here we come!!! The journey was such a fantastic one that i realized it wasn’t so bad after all. We drove through the Niger bridge and i left my mouth open till we got to the other side. It was such a beautiful sight even though the water didn’t look calm to me. It looked still and dark but thank God i left that thought behind else i would have entertained fear. We got into Anambra and the air smelled different. It smelled like okazi leaves with a mix of palm-kernel, more than a day old poop and burnt coconut (too much?)… The bottom line is, the air smelled different and it was because of the vegetation. I got to my father’s compound in Imo state and i was in awe. Wondered how it was that we had a massive “ulo-elu“(a house that has ‘upstairs’) like this in the village and never visited. As we settled in, i was looking forward to doing everything “village-like“. I brought out my wrapper to tie and a weak-necked t-shirt just so i could blend in. I walked outside to the express and saw as pretty girls with village swag looked at me, murmuring and giggling probably at the fact that i wasn’t from around these parts and i was attempting to be. How could they have known, it wasn’t written on my head. They zoomed of in their cheap sequined clothes and bleached feet. The second thing i noticed was that every compound had a motorcycle. It wasn’t a case of status or anything like it. I spent 3 days and i saw only 3 cars(dead looking ones) in total. I didn’t know what it meant to have one until i casually told momma that i was going to buy her a motorcycle and watched as she danced the village-square kinda dance. The day ended with forcing my mum to roast yam and oil. “Why yam and red oil” she asked, i told her i wanted to understand what Okonkwo felt while eating such in his “obi”. Only thing was, my dad didn’t have one(oh well). Boy!!! Did i annoy her much each time i said “Serve me food” just like my dad says(LoL). The night came so quick as i got a bucket and a towel to go take a “village bath” not so far from the palm tree. It was exhilarating, refreshing , cold….
Thus was the case of the first day and night. By the morning of the second day i woke up craving palm-wine after all i was in the village. Went cruising with my cousin on his motorbike that looked like a relative of a “Harley davidson”. As we road along, i took notice of so many uncompleted structures along the road and wondered if the reason why they weren’t completed was spiritual or a case of insufficient funds(oh well)…I got to a road and saw this palm-wine tapper whom i begged shamelessly for fresh palm-wine. He gave me only cos he was told i was from Lagos. Boy!!!! the palm wine was *wait for it* o-r-g-a-s-m-i-c!!!(no apologies). A few minutes later we were at the market and i watched as hardworking women displayed very fresh food items on weak wooden tables and on the dirty ground. I got all i needed and headed home. The next thing i saw shocked me right down to the few strands of hair on my legs. I saw an old dirty looking store stacked with crates of olden days FANTA and GINGER-ALE (the one with a very slim bottle neck and ancient NBC writings on it)….. i screamed “SHUT UP!!!!!!! WHERE DID THIS SHOP-OWNER GET THESE FROM?” UNBELIEVABLE!!!
Got back home and carried my bucket and towel again to bath outside once again but my mum screamed and held me back ” don’t you know palm wine tappers are still up there?” Truth is, i didn’t care but i imagined the look on my boyfriend’s face if he heard i did this(we don’t wanna let the new BF know how crazy his GF is)…oh well…LoL. Momma won! I went back in and used the bath-tub. Dad sat in his chair noisily accessing how good his green kola nut tasted. Night came and all my momma’s “Wu-tang-clan” came over and they gisted into the night and i marveled as they went back to their houses in the early hours of the morning with nothing but dim-lit lamps. PHCN haven’t done my village well as they have only said the famous “UP NEPA” once in 3years. It was time to go back to the real city and i hugged my village cousin goodbye. He has a good heart which i have come to know and appreciate his amazing talent and character especially.
I sat in the horrible bus and wondered who the bad people Lagos peeps refer to in the village. I met good people- Aunties, uncles and cousins. They were all good to me and my family. People lived a lowly life in the village but some like drama and so they heat things up with nollywood voodoo. I guess the wicked and evil ones sat in their houses probably thinking of how to go and bury something in the compound of someone they have snapped their fingers and said “you will see” to. Are there people who would bury something in the ground just so someone from Lagos would tread on and die? Are there people who would stick a photograph of a young child on a mango tree and navigate curses all the way to “the abroad”?
Are there people who would wish his neighbor dead just because he stole chickens?
Who are these people? Are they our relatives? How do we get rid of them? Do we pray they die or repent?
I have seen for myself the extent a wicked man went and i wonder why some Christians don’t believe there’s evil in their village. What if the evil done is ancestral or inherited in nature?(oh well…)
The ignorant ones say “As long as i didn’t do any harm to anyone, why should anyone try to hurt me?”
As long as there is good, there is evil….(Remember this)
Pray without ceasing and keep speaking the word of God.
Yes, not every bad thing is from the village, agreed, but what about the ones that are?
I came back to civilization and asked myself would i go on this journey again regardless and i said to my reflection
“Heck yea!!!”….
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