Nigeria: The Village
Emotions became more frayed as we approached our final destination; my father’s village, the place affectionately known by many Nigerians as the bush. We stopped a couple of times along our route.
My sisters and I would warily step out of the cab and accompany mom and dad as they went about searching for the people he’d known from his childhood. After we’d located these strangers, the three of us would tarry as mom and dad conversed with the villagers in Igbo. A great deal of pertinent information—more than twenty-years-worth—was wedged into such a small window of time, often just a few minutes in some instances. My mom was routinely doubling over and weeping after absorbing the painful stories.
As we traversed through the village, we discovered that all of the roads and walkways were made up of orange sand. Dwellings were built a considerable distance apart. I looked down and saw that the orange dust from the road was attaching itself to the cuffs of my pants. When I looked up, I was surprised by the sight of a wildly gesticulating woman. She ran to my father and then collapsed to her knees once she was before him, wrapped both arms around his legs, and began sobbing uncontrollably. Dad reached down and pulled her up by her hands, wrapped both of his arms around her back, and wept. Mom stood next to dad for all of this, rubbing her hand along the contours of his shoulders, tears leaking down the front of her face. My sisters and I stood a bit apart from all of this, nervously awaiting what was next.
The woman holding onto my father for dear life resembled him in a lot of ways. They shared the same skin tone. Equivalent length of arms. Same cheekbones. Perhaps this was the sister that he’d spoken of while we were in the car? Dad and the woman let go of each other and wiped the tears from their faces. It was difficult for me to watch my father react in the way he did, but I couldn’t look away either. As my mom would always say, Dad was tougher than tree bark. Up until then the image of him crying about anything had never entered into my thought train. And now here he was, slowly emerging from the puddle he’d created with his copious tears.
The woman walked over to where we, the children, stood, and officially introduced herself as Patricia.
“I am your aunt,” she said. Her voice was soft. “I am so happy to meet my brother’s children. You are welcome here.”
Her hair was pulled back into a bun. She wore shorts and a t-shirt. Grains of dirt were falling from her knees, and onto the dirt road. Her eyes were still wet.
“Hello,” said baby sister. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Aunt Patricia put her hand on my baby sister’s cheek and smiled. “It is nice to meet you too. You are so, so pretty my dear.” Aunt Patricia turned to face my middle sister. “How is my niece doing?”
My sister smiled at Aunt Patricia and said, “I’m doing well. Thank you for the welcome.
And then it was my turn.
“Eze, Eze,” said Aunt Patricia. “The first born, yes? “You are so big now. I have pictures of you when you were this small.”
”Oh, you do?”
”Yes, of course,” she said. “Is my nephew doing well?”
“I’m doing well,” I said.
Word quickly spread throughout the tiny town. My father, Peter Ihenetu had finally returned after more than twenty years away. The men and women of the village congregated around the five of us and hailed his arrival.
Dad was one of the lucky individuals who’d gotten out of Nigeria four years after the end of a Civil War that’d killed millions of Igbo citizens and left the country economically devastated and politically corrupt. When he’d left, he’d taken the hopes and dreams of so many people with him. My father’s return, along with his well-dressed wife and children in tow, was a victory for every one of the Igbo villagers who’d been left behind.
The gathering crowd was a mixture of simply dressed men and women. Curious children watch us intently from a distance. My sisters and I were objects of allure for the villagers, especially the women. Baby sister was their favorite, for she had been gifted with the sought-after features for African women at the time; long shiny black hair, smooth caramel colored skin, and delicate features. Middle sister and I, pimply and surly teenagers, were temporarily forgotten.
One of the women stared at baby sister for a few seconds and said, “This one is going to have a lot of men chasing after her.”
“Yes, she is very pretty,” said another. “She will find a good husband. Or the husband will find her.” She burst out laughing.
Really? I thought. Baby sister was barely ten years old and they were already ogling and fawning over her, sizing her up for her betrothal. It was kind of unnerving thing to witness, grown adults, strangers, clamoring over a small girl. This was my baby sister, whom I’d always teased for the gap between her teeth and for the fact that she was younger. But in the village, it was baby sister who was elevated.
We could not stay here for too long, as we were expected at my grandmother’s residence soon. It would be my first time seeing my grandmother in the flesh, the culmination of a long and arduous journey.
******
As the cab drifted deeper into the Nigerian countryside, modern civilization progressively faded into the background. This was another jolt to my system. All my life I’d been a city boy, born and raised. I’d never spent any time in the Colorado countryside, let alone the country side of a foreign country. I was very afraid as I looked out into the expanse. The people and buildings were becoming increasingly sparse and the foliage was becoming more wild, abundant, and thick.
********
Our cab happened upon a small, nondescript, one story beige dwelling in the afternoon. There was an elderly woman in an area of the yard, several feet from a door to the house. She was bent over what looked like a wheel hoe, and was doggedly pushing forward.
The heat and humidity were still oppressive and enervating, draining us all of essential fluids and vitamins through our sweat, and tears if you were my parents. And yet, the old woman had covered almost the entirety of her body with clothing—she even wore a cap on top of her head. Her brown hands and forearms were the only parts of her body that were left exposed to the elements. Perhaps the extra clothing was to protect her from the flies and mosquitos? Apart from watching my parents frequently weep, the sight of an obviously elderly woman pushing a wheel hoe through dirt without the assistance of a mule or machine is what moved me the most.
Grandma was eighty-eight years old and was still tending to her property—my grandfather had died a few years before at age ninety-five, making my grandmother a widow. Dad spoke so glowingly and reverentially of her in the years before our trip to Amaigbo Nigeria, and now I was able to bear witness as to why. If she were in America, she would have been deemed as too old to perform this arduous field work. In America, she would have been awaiting the arrival of her children while sitting in a rocking chair. But she was too busy pushing a wheel hoe forward through the dirt to notice the cab that was approaching.
I did the math in my head. If she was eighty-eight years old, then she must have been born at the turn of the twentieth century, or 1905! She was born only twenty years after the advent of the automobile, lived through Britain’s colonization of her country, raised children without the accoutrements of modern life, endured the Nigerian civil war that her son had fought in, and watched her husband die of stroke. And yet, she still had shit that she needed to finish.
My eye sight was keen at seventeen years. And so I focused, and ran my eyes up and down grandmother’s hands and forearms. Her forearms were striated with musculature, and were the size of turkey legs, lined with veins that were still pulsating with blood. When juxtaposed against the rest of her thin frame, there seemed to be a mismatch.
We exited the cab and edged forward on foot. Grandmother still didn’t seem to notice her son and his family approaching, as she put her whole curved back into pushing the hoe and wheel forward, cultivating the land. We arrived at a spot just beyond the border of the area in which she worked. Dad herded us all together until we were in one spot. My sisters and I stood at his right flank. I girded myself for grandmother’s reaction.
“Momma,” Dad said.
Grandmother kept on plowing.
“Momma”, he repeated more loudly. “We have come home to see you.”
She gradually eased up on pushing the contraption forward, let go of the handles, and turned to take in the presence of her visitors. She stared directly at us, squinted, and said nothing. I waited for her to hike up her dress and start running towards us, imbued with the adrenaline that came from seeing her son for the first time in nearly twenty years, and her grandchildren. I waited for it. But my vision never materialized. The expression on her face was impassive, like she was observing a stranger. I could see my father in her face. High cheekbones with sharp angles, somewhat thin lips, long arms, and a prominent chin. She took a breath, gathered herself, and then she slowly began to realize what was happening, and then nodded once. She must have been really tired.
The inside of Grandmother’s house was sparse, just like the village that it was situated in, and also lacking the comforts of a typical American home. There was no indoor bath or shower, so we had to clean ourselves using buckets of water. There was no television or radio, no computer or typewriter, no means for American born children to entertain themselves. I remembered dad telling me that he was never bored while growing up the village; that if he ever needed to entertain himself, he could venture out into the bush and climb trees, hunt animals, and pick fruits. I looked through the opening of the room that my sister’s and I had been given. The branches and the leaves were bursting out in all kinds of directions, and it gave the bush a foreboding look. No way was I going to venture out into that, for I wasn’t as brave as my father was. Nor would I ever be.
All of my angst aside, I was becoming more acquainted with Nigeria as time passed, and so now the importance of my arrival at my dad’s childhood home was not completely lost me. It felt like we’d taken a trip back through time, and we were living through a history lesson without having to read the history books. I was learning about my father’ past, and therefore my roots and ancestry. This was valuable, I knew. I just couldn’t abide by how the lesson was being imparted onto me. I didn’t like it here.
My dad’s older brother and my uncle, would visit the next day, along with a coterie composed of his seven sons. Uncle Emmanuel’s children ranged in age; from toddler to teenager. My seven cousins all looked like their father. Dark skin, broad noses, and thick lips. My uncle and cousins looked more like grandfather, then they did grandmother, although I could see some resemblance around the eyes and the forehead. Uncle Emmanuel had chosen to stay in Nigeria all these years—I don’t think that he was ever motivated to immigrate to the United States. As is the case with all recent immigrants to America, dad regularly sent money to family members. One American dollar was worth hundreds of Naira then—Naira is the name Nigerian currency, so the money went a long way. Dad said that he always scolded Uncle Emmanuel about being wasteful with money.
When the time came for us to gather in the sitting room, dad sat next to grandma. She didn’t speak much except for when it was time to talk to my father. Grandma seemed to have energy on that day. Every now and then she would turn away from the conversation she was having with dad, stop, and then stare at my sisters and I for an elongated period. She did not offer anything in the way of a smile, but her eyes had lost the hardness from the previous day.
And then without provocation, Grandma reached out a knobby hand and beckoned my baby sister to come forward. Baby sister smiled, stood up, and walked over to where grandma sat. Grandma grabbed baby sister’s hand when she was in range, pulled her down onto the spot next to her.
Hmm, I thought. The people here seem to see something in baby sister that middle sister and I are missing.
******
When the night descended onto the village, it became pitch black outside. The village lacked infrastructure. There was no buzzing from electrical devices, no distant rumbling of a car’s engine, no street lamps posted to light the way. The only lights available to guide the intrepid person who ventured out into the village during the night were the stars in the sky.
Middle sister and I remained wide awake as baby sister tossed and turned in her sleep.
“It’s so hot,” I said. “Does it ever stop being too hot in Nigeria?”
“I know. And my stomach hurts too,” said middle sister.
“And I’m so tired. I haven’t been able to sleep through the night since we got here.”
“And the bugs,” she said. “Remember that roach that we saw a few days ago. I’m going to remember that thing for the rest of my life.”
“I know,” I said laughing. It was the first time that I’d laughed in while.
There was silence.
“Everybody seems to like her.”
“Who?”
I nodded at baby sister. “Everybody talks about how great she is. We’re being overlooked.”
“Are you jealous?”
“No, I’m not. I don’t care if they like me.”
“But you noticed. So, you do care.”
“Whatever.”
******
In the early hours of our last morning at grandmother’s house, Dad brought me on a walk through the neighborhood. It wasn’t long before he decided on an area that was appropriate for photographs. He put the Kodak camera in front of his eyes and began snapping pictures. Little children approached, forming a tight semi-circle around the two of us.
Enthralled, the children kept inching forward until mere inches separated us from them. They watched every move that my dad made with that Kodak camera. Some of them broke from the semi-circle to stand to the right and left of my father. They wanted to catch a glimpse of the things that were holding his attention.
Something within the camera would dislodge, causing the collection of photographs to cease. As Dad examined the camera’s viability by shaking and smacking the machine, the surrounding children’s eyes became wide. They were giddy and expectant. Once dad was convinced that the camera was irredeemable, he whispered “shit” before flicking the camera out into the distance like you would a frisbee. Quick as cats, the little children would converge on the camera as soon as it hit the dirt.
We left the village a few hours after witnessing that scene.
I don’t remember saying goodbye to my grandmother.
******
Not too long after we’d arrived in Aba, we would hop on a bus for our return trip to Lagos. We couldn’t pull out of the station right away, as some dude was trying frantically to stuff his too large suitcase into the storage compartment. Standing next to him was another irate passenger, who screamed at the troublemaker.
“What are you doing?” asked the angry passenger. “Why are you causing so much trouble?”
The other man kept on pushing and stuffing his bag. He was sweating profusely from the effort, but he was slowly making progress.
“I said, why are you causing so much trouble man?!”
The other man continued to ignore the irate man, and pushed until he was finally able to wedge his suitcase into the compartment.
Great, I thought. What is going to happen when we all have to unload the luggage.
The bus was crowded, but there was enough room to stretch my legs and relax. The vents filled the bus’s interior with cool air and I sat back into my cushiony seat. The bus was huge, which invited a sense of stability. The last time I’d felt this at ease was when I was on the airplane traveling to New Jersey a few weeks ago.
There were plenty of traffic jams as we approached Lagos. Amateur solicitors saw these traffic jams as opportunities to peddle their wares. They flooded the highways on foot, cut in between the vehicles, and started pitching to the commuters. They were aggressive, intense, fearless, and just as persistent as the mosquitos. They were hard to ignore. I inhaled a deep breath, relieved that I was looking down at these people from my spot on the bus.
The vendors knew that they only had so much time before the vehicles moved forward or customers rolled up the windows. Their pitches were typically comprised of one word—the product that the salesperson was peddling—repeated over and over again. The person who sold bread would yell, “Bread! Bread! Bread!” while carrying a half loaf of bread in a bag. The person who sold water would say, “Ice water! Ice water! Ice water!” while carrying water in a bottle or in a freezer bag.
There were children, many of whom were prepubescent, among those who stuck their heads into the windows spaces of multi-thousand-pound vehicles. A little boy—he could not have been no more than eight years old—who was dressed in a white shirt and beige shorts grabbed my attention. I watched him hustle and fight with men for customers, and my internal temperature rose. It was an unfair situation for the boy and for the men. It’s certainly not right for a boy of that age to spend his days hustling with adults underneath the blazing sun. And it wasn’t fair that adults had to compete against the kids either. I wanted to scream, but I chose to remain silent, hoping that the traffic would begin to move forward soon. Let’s get out of this place was a rolling banner on the inside of my mind.
Denver, Colorado
A few weeks after returning home from Nigeria I was roused from sleep by a guttural wail. I flipped off the covers, sat up, and listened for a while. Yes. It was my father who was crying. I stood up and began walking toward that miserable sound. My parent’s room was just across the way. I didn’t think to turn on the lights.
It was nearing the middle of March, still winter in Denver, Colorado. And it was freezing inside of the house because our heater had short circuited a few days ago. I carried my blanket over my shoulders and tucked my hands into my pockets, but the cold still penetrated. Of course, this would be temporary. Dad would call the heating and plumbing guys, recover from what he was going through, and then everything would be as it should.
The closer I came to my parent’s bedroom the louder the weeping became.
I gingerly stepped across the threshold of my parents’ room, and was abruptly halted by the sight of my father sitting at the foot of the bed, hunched over. My mother was sitting right beside him, and rubbing his back and his shoulders.
“Momma? Momma what’s wrong?” I said
She ignored me and kept rubbing.
“Why is he crying?”
Momma turned to me. “His mother died.”
Momma would later tell me that grandma was putting off her death so that she could see her son one last time. That’s when an arduous and taxing trip through Nigeria became worth it.
Friends. Support my writing on medium.com and give me as many claps as you can(look for the hands on the left side of the story and click, click, click. It’s completely free. The more applause and followers I get, the more money I make. Here is the link:medium.com/...
You can also read the first and second chapters of the story. The links are below:
medium.com/...
medium.com/...