Tag: #PacesetterFrontier

Christmas seems to come with different feelings for different people, and these feelings change at each stage of life. I hated Christmas and anything that reminded me of it.

“Felix navidad, Felix navidad 🎶🎶”, Onwudinjo sang, but kept mute and shrank at the sight of me. I had warned him about singing of Christmas rhymes in the house or attending Christmas parties. Its Fifteen years now, yet the trauma never left me. I had once beaten Onwudinjo severely for leading a troop of children around on Christmas carols.

“I wouldn’t work all day long to get you mess up on ephemeral joys of Christmas, you should be studying “ , I would rant and rant, basing my anger on the need for him to study ahead during Christmas breaks, rather than accepting that I don’t like the idea of Christmas.

At childhood, Christmas was a source of extravagant joy, but things have changed in recent times, and now Christmas became for me, the harbinger of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (that was what Dr. Ifee said I should call it). I still remember what childhood felt like those days in the little yet populated suburbs of Onitsha, in Anambra. The large long compound, highly fenced as though there were reasonable valuables buried therein, with reddish sands, referred in Igbo as “Aja upa”, which held the foundation of the old faintly painted eight rooms that housed the big eight families that migrated from different Biafran states. The circumstantial communal sharing of things was both hilarious and annoying. Hilarious, when it came to the absence of boredom, of exchanging the biggest gist of a tenant’s public secret, or of extending littlest but meaningful kindness: like the borrowing of certain cooking utensils or condiments. Annoyance only came, richly dressed, where issues of the failure of a particular tenant to clean the toilet arose, or where he or she cleaned without so much attention, or where the toilet was not properly flushed, or where a particular tenant had refused to pay light bills, or had beaten another’s child for an alleged disrespect. These and lots more became a source of joy and distraction.

Unfortunately, my sweet beautiful ideas of Christmas changed in 2007. It was a revered ritual for the male head of each of the eight families that lived in our red earthed compound to break kola two days before the eve of Christmas. This kola breaking was followed by a party which lasted through the night.

The breaking of the kola was always done at the center of the compound. Miss Olaedo, a single lady who occupied the first room was excluded from the kola activity.

During this morning ritual of breaking kola, Papa Udenya, the tall, full-haired Enugwu Ukwu man, who wore black dye to hide his aging grey hair, always arrived first. His room smelled of different things at different days: sometimes, it smelled of old dusty newspapers which had not been opened for years, or of a rusty old radio placed on top of a TV set that had not been played for years, or of snuff or his hair dye. A great comedian who would always tease Mr. Enyi of his timidity.

Mr. Enyi, a brief happy man from Ebonyi State, who stayed with his son, Anene, at the fourth room, had never sat on a chair during such gathering, for he rather preferred folding his legs and balancing his body weight on his legs, as the Muslims would do. Rumors had it that he was converted to Islam during his stay at the North but had denounced his faith during the war, when Sabon Gari massacre in Kano claimed the lives of his wife and other four children leaving only Anene.

There was Mr Igwe who stayed in the last room, who always arrived from the village to spend the last six months with his second family in Onitsha, making it a cycle for the year, having spent the other six months with the first wife in the Village.

Then, Ikeokwu, the occupier of third room had this air of impatience, even in showing his emotions. He was very huge and carried sarcasm everywhere he went, and always in search of whom to spit it on. His Ihiala dialect was very significantly different from those of other Anambrarians I know. A normal Njikoka or Dunukofia man would translate “I don’t know” as “Amaro m”, this however, is different from what Ikeokwu would say. He would always argue that “Amania m” sounds better than “Amaro m”. Everyone feared his spoken words because it came out always well garnished with sarcasm.

There was also the Imo state man, nicknamed “Super Dede”, who enjoyed playing the tracks of Osita Osadebe and Emeka Morocco Nwammaduka in the wee hours of Sunday mornings. His room was the most decorated with a lot of old and new date calendars that hung on every corner. There were also calendars of boxing men and footballers with their names and achievement written below each picture. It was where everyone went to check which day was Eke, Orie, Afo or Nkwo.

The man who occupied the fifth room was an Issele-Uku man, an Igbo tribe whose geographical location had placed them with the Deltans, whose name I know not but who was referred by all as “Oga Delta”. Aloof he was from the others probably because he was disabled and couldn’t walk well, but this disability never limited his generosity to myself and Udoka. There was this certain kind of likeness he had towards us. He had always expressed his happy emotions during the Kola ceremony. He would drink and talk and laugh to the amusement of all.

So that year’s Christmas was just like every other that had come before it. The kola ceremony which initiated the end of the year’s party had started. I could remember it was Osita Osadebe’s song that was been played by Okezie, a boy whom had been invited from Delta by “Oga Delta” to give us the latest jams.

People danced and jubilated. There were numerous foods and drinks. I had gone to lay my younger brother, Udoka, who had fallen asleep near Mama who was at that time pregnant with her last child and the Doctor had given her an expectancy date of 18th December, which had passed by.

I remembered coming out and joining my age mates to dance and dance and dance. We danced and jubilated till it got darker. As soon as the elders began to move into their rooms, Okezie changed the genre of the song from those traditional classicals to hip hop. I had removed my foot wears to give my dance steps an energetic turnaround when the fierce sound came. Much people didn’t notice the sound because of the volume of the music. I touched Odira, the boy who stayed at the next compound, to confirm if he heard the sound.

“It’s just a banger”, he assured me, as we continued in our mini night party.

A faint voice was shouting from what seemed to be a distant place, it was the voice of a woman, the words were incoherent and fear gripped me. Maybe my mom had gone into labour, I thought. I ran inside and saw Udoka playing with Papa inside the room, while Mama lay on the bed enjoying their drama. Satisfied, I ran back to continue with the other children in the party.

The voice came again, it was no longer faint, but this time, it was not the voice of a woman, it was the voice of a legion, their feet matching fast like those of foot soldiers, a battalion of them. They seemed to be running away from danger, the kind of sound I heard while watching American movies of zombies taking over a city and people running as fast as possible, trying to save their lives.

“Chim ohhh” Okezie shouted, pulling the speaker to make way as he ran out of the compound. The voices shouted “Fire, fire, fire”. I could now feel the smokes. The fire was near already. Everybody was running out of the compound. I stood still, unsure of what to do. We had heard stories about fire explosions in certain other places but never in the suburbs. Papa was the first to come out carrying Udoka, then followed by my mom. The whole compound was already deserted. As we were about to leave, the fire had blocked the gate and the only option was to jump through the fence to the backyard. The fence was very high; I still can’t fathom where Papa got his strength that day. Papa helped me climb through. It was difficult to carry mum over but we tried till it worked, Udoka came last as I helped him down. I looked through the opening of the fence, the fire had taken down the first room and ours, it was heading for the third. The harmattan helped it grow faster and faster. Dad was about to jump when he heard a noise coming from the fifth room. I already knew it was Oga Delta, oh poor soul, he can’t even walk. He had crawled out of his room and was shouting my Dad’s name to help him.

Dad had ran back immediately and carried Oga Delta, placed him on the fence so I could help him down. I was about to extend my hands to him when mother shouted “The baby, the baby is here”.

Confusion and fear gripped me. Why now? I cried. I perceived something like fuel and a certain kind of heat from a burning furnace ripping off my shirt and the voice of Oga Delta in agony. Someone pulled me into the huge gutter and I hit my head on a metal. That was the last thing I remembered.

Six months after, I had woken up from a coma only to learn that Papa and Udoka were dead, Oga Delta and many others didn’t survive the explosion; God bless their souls.

Mama had some life in her and in her pain, she saved all her energy to give life to her new child but passed away after giving birth and naming her new son “Onwudinjo”, she would always be my hero.

Now, I feel bad that I had stopped Onwudinjo from having a beautiful taste of Christmas. I know I shouldn’t do this, for God had kept us flourishing these years and our story need not follow the traditional ark. I would make this Christmas an amazing one.

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imaginations” – Mary Oliver.

Merry Christmas, my gorgeous audience.

In the sweet tastes of my days at Nsude, the freshman year didn’t really count, merely because the freshman year was a kind of puzzle. You really can’t tell what’s happening next until it starts happening. Information was gathered from all sources, and the brain did the work of retaining these information and producing it at the time required, and none could tell when these information would be needed of you. There were so many information to be gathered from the class, at the chapel, trash”. at the refectory, at the bathroom, at labour, at the sound of the bell, from the whispering voices of two gossips, even in your dreams, and I know the last mentioned may seem funny to you but it’s not, at some point I just had to accept that we were being trained to be very good eavesdroppers.

Speaking about information, the class had a bucket list of them. We were introduced to a certain kind of educational system that had a slight difference from the one we had before, the kind that makes it seem as if we’ve all played away our time in our former schools. There were subjects in the list that made it look quite funny to me, these were things like Latin, Vatican II Council, Liturgy and Catechism of the Catholic Church.

At first, I believed so much that these subjects would be easy with the exception of Vatican II Council, probably because I had never heard of it in my life, and the Catechism, just because I hated Mr. Titus who presided over my childhood Catechism in my hometown. Everyone believed Latin would be easier because 95 percent of the class were altar servers before the admission into Nsude. I still remember vividly the words of Ifekandu on seeing the list that day.

“I have learned how to recite the credo, Gloria, Agnus Dei and a lot more at six, I had joined the altar servers at seven after my first holy communion, learning the sacred linens and vessels and the liturgical calendars at best…these courses are mine to trash”. 

When the first Latin class came, myself and Ifekandu had had our rehearsal of the Latin responses we knew, including the chants. The bespectacled priest who took the subject had a slightly bow leg, a desert skull that had not grown hair for years, and the balance of a man who kept himself in good working out condition. He had this air of presumption that his students went to Rome with him, so he did his teachings in a manner that could be understood only by advanced students.

We waited in anticipation for the priest to tell us to recite Credo or Gloria or any other Latin chants but the class came with a disappointed surprise of two hours of intense declension of Latin words: Mensa (table), Nauta (sailor), Agricola (farmer) and long translations of English sentences to Latin. The drill was mind blowing and I remember fighting sleep all through.

Speaking about the chapel, the chapel had a certain kind of information, one that is spiritual, just like a sponge, soaking us up in goodness. There were four prayers each day: The lauds, the afternoon prayer, the vespers and the nunc dimitimis. All these came with a list of new things you are to learn. I sincerely did not like any of it.

The lauds starts by 5:00 am in the morning, when half of the world are still asleep, the other half are either awake or consumed in sin. I hated the lauds because it comes at a time when sleep seems to be sweeter than it had been.

The afternoon prayers were said immediately at the end of class work just before Lunch. It came with a litany of psalms and I really do not know if it was the traditional method to rush this prayer because it came faster than others.

The vespers is said after the 6pm Angelus. It comes with a calmness of the day, a time the world is ceasing from labour. The vespers however have a greater record of non attendance by many in one way or the other.

While the Nunc is said after the night erasing our sins and soaking us up in meals and before the start of night prep. The nunc sets in a magna silencia, a wholesome silence that ushered us into the quietness of the night and protected us while we slept.

The information at the refectory was the worst for me. There were three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. In-between meals were forbidden. So, each meal was looked up to by the students as a promised feast for such fierce hunger. We never complained about quality, all that was desired was quantity.

I hated in particular the fact that we had to follow the revered ritual of pausing at the middle of the fierce hunger to watch our meals as we listen to the person appointed to read either a passage from the Bible or a novel or a poem or a magazine, and be attentive enough as to not miss the last word of the reader, or the last sentence or the theme or the message the writer had, as that may come as a question to anyone from the moderator.

All these information kept us loaded with work that I didn’t even have the chance to notice that the bond between Ifekandu and I was gradually fading, new interests were found, new friends were made and we had soon become “Hello” friends. It was this fading of friendship that made it difficult for me not to have any idea of what was happening to my good friend.

It all happened on the 3rd of December, barely two weeks to the Christmas break. The joy of getting back home had taken the air, the first term examination had come to an end and students had nothing to do if not labour and more labour. Each student in my class had made a list of what he or she would do during the holiday. I was feeling kind of dizzy that morning, that feeling of waking up with a bad mood which you can’t even tell the cause. I had brought out my little calendar book with which I kept track of time and with my reddish ink pen, I shaded across 2nd of December as a day that had finished, a ritual I started since the beginning of November, this I believed made the day pass faster. The thought of Ifekandu flashed to memory, that strong feeling to go check up on someone.

“I will check on him tomorrow, I’m just too tired”, I mumbled as I dozed off.

Three hours later, two of my classmates dashed into my corner waking me up from sleep, they were panting audibly.

“Fr Micheal is calling you, run!”, one of them said and they started running back from the direction they came from. I stood up immediately, not knowing what to do, the information said ‘run’, I started running after them.

Fr Michael’s car, a reddish Volvo, was packed at the school roundabout. Two senior students were stuffing someone into the back of the car while more than a dozen other students stood, waiting and watching.

“You’re Arinze right?”, Said Fr Michael. “Yes Fr”

“Enter the car”

As I tried entering the front, I pepped into the back to see the person laid in by those students. The thick glasses of Ifekandu was the first thing I saw, and my heart skipped. I sat in the front, turned back again just to get a clearer view. He lay motionless at the back, streams of blood gushing from his head and mouth, his eyes fixed on me, he wore his sky blue shirt, the one he had worn on the day I did my first opera. I whispered his name gently “Ifee” but no response came. I felt cold, my brain was processing a lot of information.

“Calm down, He fell from the school’s ultra modern site. I called you because your classmates said you are closer to him….I pray your presence brings him back” The priest said while we drove to the hospital.

A sense of guilt flushed down my throat. ‘We have not spoken in months as we used to, and yet people believed we were still close.’ I fumbled in my pocket for my rosary, I started picking the beads, trying to pray, trying to be hopeful but my mouth only muttered “Godabeg, save him”.

The parents of Ifekandu were already seated at the hospital waiting when we arrived. The nurses rushed him to the emergency ward. Ifekandu’s mom came with a set of three other women whom I believed were her friends from the Legion of Mary society. They held hands at a corner saying their prayers while Ifekandu’s mom cried.

Ifekandu’s Dad was everything Ifekandu said of him. He had this look of authority, the type that wouldn’t want his children to associate with others. He was not wailing like the woman, he only tapped his leg incessantly and then touched his bald hair at intervals.

“Can we all say a little prayer together?” the priest announced. The seven of us held our hands as the priest tuned in the “Memorare” prayer. At the middle of the prayer, the doctor signaled for the priest and the boy’s father. Everybody stood and watched them disappear into an office with the doctor. Minutes later, the priest came out first, his cheeks seemed to be smiling but his eyes weren’t happy.

Ifekandu’s mother stood from her seat and moved towards the priest.

“We need to pray more, The doctor said he’s in a very critical condition, He’s in coma and there are slight chances of him making it”, He said out aloud bluntly, adding not even a bit of euphemism to his words.

Everywhere dropped dead. I remembered immediately how Mr. Okoro, my dad’s best friend, died after two weeks of being in a coma. Immediately I let out a loud shout, it was then that everyone noticed my presence at the hospital.