STORIES FROM MY VILLAGE

I am a native of the Eastern part of Nigeria and of the Igbo tribe. To be more particular, Abia State, which people claim is derived from a Biblical source, thus its motto is “God’s Own State.” Quite a number of people believe that the vast majority of Igbo girls are pretty, so they chuckle when they discover a pretty Eastern female, but my situation is different. Each time I mention my hometown and village, people familiar with that location exclaim and say if they attempt to marry me they will be killed, cooked, and eaten (literally), then they laugh it off and say they are joking (really?).

You see the name of my village is Abaye in Isialangwa North Local Government and I must say we are not known for the most palatable stories, but hey that is where I am from. I was not given any list of villages to pick from at conception or birth, so think twice before you stereotype my kinsmen and me as human eaters. In fact, I enjoy terrifying people with stories about my village and due to my plethora of village stories, one of my good friends in high school mentioned that I once told her I lived in the village for a long period of time. A conversation my razor-sharp memory cannot recollect occurring. Anyway, here is another one of my tales from the village. Enjoy!

The year was 1998 and my family and I travelled to my village in Eastern Nigeria for my great-grandmother’s funeral which coincided with the advent of home telephones in Nigerian cities. Mother had come along with a telephone for our grandparents and they were excited over having the latest thing in fashion. As expected, grandmother warned the young ones to keep away from the table where the telephone was placed like a monument. Although, she issued the command in Igbo which we did not understand, her exaggerated gestures and animated tone conveyed her message clearly, “under no circumstances should you touch the telephone”. On this fateful day, my brother, my immediate older sister and I were alone in the living room when the phone rang, at the instant that my brother picked up the phone, grandmother appeared in a flash with a five feet long stick. We all took to flight as she chased us in hot pursuit while I began to weep out of exhaustion and my innocence.

Fifty meters had gone by and grandmother was still on our heels, bearing in mind that she was seventy years of age, my brother decided to jump over a medium sized wall which I could not attempt to the same. To my utter dismay my grandmother jumped after him. Even though she did not catch up with him, she returned and gave my sister and me a thorough trashing. Everyone found it difficult to believe our story and I did not have the nerve to sit in the living room again for fear that the phone might ring. I was deeply touched by the extent to which my grandmother could go to preserve her precious possession and that phone still retains its position in my grandparents’ house, although it has ceased functioning and my grandmother is dead.