JABEZ'S TALE (AFRICAN EDITION)

"Bia nebaa Obiageli (come here). I heard that you were complaining that the smoke from the fireplace disturbs your eye. If I hear you say that rubbish again eh, e ga ta ofufu (you will suffer well). Now run into the bush and pick wood that you will use to cook for us. And do not forget to beg mama Onyeka to give us a little ose (pepper).
These were the instructions, papa Ifeanyi uttered while he was sitting on his mat with a small mortar and pestle placed in front of him.
He was grinding the snuff which he planned to sell the next day, and He was angry.

How could he escape being angry?

Apparently he had given the name 'Obiageli' to his little child with the hope that her birth would bring good fortunes to his family.
Instead, things had turned out worse than before and the little girl had only come to eat the meal of suffering in the world.

Apparently his fortunes were always on the downturn as his traps only seemed to catch smaller and smaller animals until he finally gave up when an 'ntu' bird was trapped in it.

Also, his dane gun never seemed to hit the targets he aimed at.
As it always chose to hit other targets that brought more misfortunes to him.

One time, he had mistakenly shot the Papa Chimezie's thigh while the old man was happily tapping palmwine on his tree.
A misfortune that caused him to cough out three hundred cowries for treatment of the palmwine tapper.

At another time, his dane gun mistakenly buried its bullet in the shoulder blades of the daughter of the village Eze.
A misfortune that forced him to sleep in the village prison for ten moons.
A period in time when his first wife left him and ran away with his friend.

At his last hunting experience, he had mistakenly shot Nwofor the village lunatic to death.
A misfortune that caused him to sell all his father's farmlands in order to cough up money to pay the required burial fees plus sacrifices to appease the ancestors of the slain man who had demanded three goats even though they never tried to bestow sanity to the man while he was alive.

Indeed, there were numerous reasons why he was angry and he made sure that everyone around him tasted that wrath once in a fortnight.

Obiageli quickly ran away from the hut and He bent down to continue his task.

He had received an order to supply Maxi Okonkwo's household with snuff,
And He prayed that he would be able to deliver unlike previous times.

His business as a seller of snuff had experienced mixed fortunes.

At times when the order was small, he would deliver the package without any hitch encountered.
And at times when the order was large, he would experience a heavy stumbling block that would make him to fail.

Just like the heavy rains which soaked the large snuff he had prepared to supply to Eze during the new yam festival of the previous year.

Just like the little children who had mistaken the snuff, reserved for the elders meeting, for chalk and had mixed it with sand and water while playing 'nne na nna' (mummy and daddy' type of play.

Just like the goats which had walked through and passed waste on the large snuff which he spread while he momentarily ran to relieve himself near the bushes.

"Olisa, help me so that this one will work" he prayed.
For Maxi Okonkwo, his customer, was a red cap chief who visitors always flocked his compound.

While he scrapped the mortar with a small wooden spoon, he saw, Ifeanyi, his son walking towards the hut with a plastic keg of water placed on his head.

The keg was leaking again and Papa Ifeanyi's anger soared higher

"Come here Ifeanyi. Quickly empty that keg of water and take the plastic to Papa Oyinye.
Perhaps he will help us patch the leaking part this time."

For he knew that the leaking place could not be sealed again by amateur hands with fire and cut out plastic from a condemned rubber.

Like a wild male fox that chases the female fox in heat, Ifeanyi quickened his footsteps towards the empty basin in the room.
For he knew that he could not afford to withness his father's fiery anger.

That anger that was as constant as the early morning chirping of the birds.
That fiery temper that was always stoked whenever his mother came home without making any sales.

That fire of sorrow that lit his eyes ever since papa Ifeanyi's mother had given birth to him.

The poor man had been born under dark skies.
For the moon refused to come out that night, and the air was filled with the stench of death.

The village warriors had encountered defeat at the hands their neighboring village in a war which had lasted three days.
A war which was fought over the ownership of a fertile land that had been disputed over for many years.

A war which they had lost due to the treacherous act of their own clan member who had gone to the shrine and doused the sacred fire which always granted them victory while it burned.
A war that had torn the fabric of their village apart due to the merchants who had run away to settle in other villages.
A war which had claimed the lives of six vibrant youths in the village.
A war which had claimed the precious life of Dike, the strong farmer who happened to be the father of the yet-to-be- born papa Ifeanyi.

When Dike's pregnant wife heard the news, she collapsed due to shock and had to be resuscitated with Okpete leaf.

When her eyes finally saw the stiff body of her husband with empty eyes, whose blazing fire had been extinguished, she immediately collapsed once more, and went into an induced labour.

While she was still screaming with grief, she was cut short by a stinging slap from the midwife on ground.
As she could not afford to give birth to her child while her strength was channeled towards loud wails.

While the midwife ordered her to push as her cervix was fully dilated, Dike's wife clenched her fists and cursed the sun that rose up that morning.

Immediately the baby's head crowned, she uttered curses on the life he would live.

While she pushed out the placenta, she slowly muttered a curse on every seed that would be planted in the disputed land that had ushered in the destructive war.

With three curses uttered, his mother gave up the ghost and swiftly joined her beloved husband on the trip to the afterlife.

With the three curses uttered, she condemned the baby to live a life of struggle and pain.

That was the muted story of papa Ifeanyi whose birth name was Obianuju

To be continued in later posts
#BASHORUN

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