Like a Lily Among Thorns: Colonial African Village Child Transitions to Post-Colonial Modernity, and America

By Inno Chukuma Onwueme

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Imagine yourself having one foot planted on one continent while the other foot is on another continent. A huge transformational step, isnt it? Thats precisely what Inno Onwuemes early-life story does. One foot is planted firmly in the traditional African village where age-old customs mingle with poverty, disease, ignorance, and deprivation. The other foot pivots tantalizingly in 1960s California, at the cutting edge of western civilization. Here, searing social and political upheavals of global significance were shaking the very foundations of modern America and the world. Add to the mix, a second dimension where your journey starts with a decade of colonial rule, and extends through the first decade of post-colonial independence, straddling both eras. And did we mention a civil war, and his becoming a refugee? It was a time of great fomentation personally, nationally and globally.

Read this engaging story and enjoy it as a thrilling novel, richly spiced with African proverbs. Then pinch yourself and recall that this is not fiction. It all truly happened. This was a real life being lived in exciting times. Challenge yourself to explore how the changes of the political transition intertwined with Professor Innos transformation from an African village boy to a cosmopolitan man in America. Marvel at how the history of an era was acted out in microcosm by this village boy. LIKE A LILY AMONG THORNS takes global and national metamorphosis down to the personal level. It invites you to see history in a new light.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491869086

Inno Chukuma Onwueme

Prof. Inno Chukuma Onwueme has deep roots in Enuani. Both his parents were from Enuani, and he spent all of his childhood living in various rural villages in Enuani. Yet, he was propelled to an eclectic cosmopolitan life, eventually attaining the posts of professor/provost at major American universities. Author of 14 books, he has lived in seven countries on four continents, visited some 60 countries, and repeatedly served as a consultant scientist to the United Nations on issues of Sustainability and global agriculture. He speaks six languages: two African, three European, and one Asia/Pacific. Yet, through all this global exposure, Dr. Onwueme has retained his enthusiasm for his roots in Enuani culture. This book is clear evidence that his global insights can enrich the perspectives of the Enuani people. He resides near Washington, DC, USA. Dr. Malije Onwueme also has both parents of Enuani origin. She is fluent in the Enuani language and conversant with its culture. She is a practicing dentist with specialty board certification in Pediatric Dentistry. She is passionate about promoting and preserving Enuani culture.

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2014 Inno Chukuma Onwueme. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/20/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-6909-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-6908-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014903768

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Dedication

1.   Introduction

2.   Transitioning From The Spirit World: Pre-Consciousness

3.   Welcome To The Human World: Earliest Recollections

4.   Village Boy Par Excellence: Idumuje Years

5.   Out Of The Village Cocoon: Onitsha And 1955 Transition

6.   Off To Secondary School: Afikpo Years

7.   From Afikpo To America: 1963 Transition

8.   America: California Years

9.   Homeward Bound As A Refugee: 1970 Transition Begins With A Detour

10.   Back To A Ransacked Home: What Next?

11.   Epilogue: Themes And Threads

12.   Appendix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank all those who, in their various ways, contributed to my progress through early life and up to the present day. Some are reflected and mentioned in this narration. Many others, especially those who contributed to my later life, have gone without mention; but their role in shaping my life is equally appreciated.

I thank my children, Kenolisa, Ebele, Kunume, Bundo and Malije for first spurring me on to write this book, and for reviewing the early drafts.

DEDICATION

To my brother Bazim;

To my sisters Felicia, Theresa, Christie, Caro, and Anwuli;

To Fidelis Akpapunam;

To my children, relatives, and friends, on whose shoulders I climbed to reach new heights and see the world…

1.   INTRODUCTION

E xactly two weeks before the D-Day Normandy landings in World War 2, a poor family in an African village was already celebrating their own D-Day. D in their case stood for the delivery of their third surviving son. That was me; born in the month before D-Day in the year before World War 2 ended. Scrawny, inconsequential, and little more than a blob of protoplasm; but it was me alright. Recognized, acknowledged, and celebrated by the adults, but as yet unable to reciprocate; the object of so much attention, yet unable to focus or be attentive. All the same, here was a living breathing member of the human race, crying loudly to announce his arrival at the starting line for the obstacle race through time on earth. The timing of this birth was indeed auspicious. The ending of World War 2 was to usher in tectonic changes in the world political order. One of these changes was the progression of many African countries from colonial rule to political independence; from procumbent national childhood to self-supporting adulthood. These changes unfolded at the global and national scales. But they also played out intimately in the lives of individuals, including this new-born village child. His life was to straddle the colonial and post-colonial eras. This is the captivating story of his personal transition from one era to the next, from childhood to adulthood, from an African village boy to a cosmopolitan modern man in America.

Every person’s journey through life is unique. No other person on earth goes through the same path, has exactly the same experiences, or sees things exactly the same way. In that sense, my journey is known only to me. However, my children and younger relatives have always wanted to know more about various aspects of my life. Since my life forms part of their own historical background, this curiosity is fully understandable. I have therefore set out to narrate some aspects of my life, as a way of sharing those aspects with my loved ones and a broader audience. At the very least, the narration will serve the purpose of filling in the gaps in their knowledge about my life and their history. They can learn about decisions taken, opportunities availed or missed, and the key players in my life’s path. Beyond that, I hope that they can draw useful lessons from the way my life has panned out, so as to enable each one to better navigate their own unique path through life.

My life as a village boy was in many ways typical for the period. Therefore, beyond my relatives, most readers will find this narration to be a genuine example of what life was like in southern Nigeria in the immediate pre- and post-independence period. Using Nigerian independence in 1960 as a marker, it chronicles life in the last ten years of colonial rule and the first ten years of independence. It illustrates the challenges and opportunities of the time. With a trove of insights into the life, culture, and traditions at that particular time and place, this is a magnified mural that paints, records and preserves those aspects, as a treasure for posterity and for history. Further, this story exemplifies how the local, national, and international influences impacted the life of a village boy growing up during this period. As such, this book will have considerable academic value for persons interested in studying the period, understanding the rich culture in a poor village, and learning how the transition from colonial to post-colonial status impacted people’s lives.

With an eye on various audiences, the narration itself acquires different characters in different sections of the book. In some parts, it’s a straight historical narration; in others, it’s intimate and very personal; in yet others, it’s reflective and opinionated. However, I believe that each reader will be satisfied in finding enough of what they seek in this complex work.

A narration that covers my entire life would be the most comprehensive option for telling my story. But this would be a huge project that may take a long time. In prioritizing, I’m aware that my audience is probably least knowledgeable about the early part of my life. It’s the part that is most distant in time and most in danger of being lost. It is therefore the part most in need of being captured. It’s also a time before my children and younger relatives were born. They did not share in the experiences of that period. While they may have a sense of things that happened in later years, things that occurred in my childhood remain a total mystery to them and to the new generation. This is why I have chosen to focus my narration on the first quarter century of my life. An additional reason for this choice concerns those who read this book for its historical, cultural, or academic value. The sentient part of the first quarter century of my life is almost evenly divided between the colonial and the post-independence periods. This book presents before-and-after snapshots of the period surrounding independence. It was a period of huge personal and national transformation, and serves as a deserving framework for this chronicle. If the energy and motivation remain strong, I might in future venture into a narration of subsequent stages of my life.

In telling the story, I have tried to be as truthful and complete as possible. Recall is never perfect, but I’ve endeavored to present the much that my faculties permit. Whereas in fictional writing, the narrator is free to provide all the detail needed for the word-painting of a scene, I do not wish to take such liberties since I’m telling a true story. It is tempting to embellish the story and make it more interesting with details that I can no longer recall from memory or from notes. However, I have chosen the path of narrative purity and presented only the details that I know to be true. My recall has been helped considerably by various notes, diaries, and travelogues that I’ve kept over the years. This is especially true of the travelogue of my travels through Europe which I originally set down in a long-hand manuscript that I wrote from February 7 to June 4, 1971.

For the same reason of narrative purity, I’ve refrained from using dialogue. First, words spoken so many years ago cannot easily be remembered verbatim, even though the sense that they conveyed can easily be remembered. Secondly, much of the dialogue that occurred in my early life was in languages other than English. It would be a bit of a stretch to translate them into English, convert the literal translation into a figurative one, and then proceed to reproduce them as quoted dialogue.

In this current work, I have tried to do a straightforward chronological narration, although I’ve deliberately repeated a few items to refresh their context. At various points, it becomes necessary to pause the narration in order to bring in a related item that does not necessarily fit with the flow of the story. I have used the device of the Anecdote to make these insertions which bring perspective to the current story or enrich it. While most of my story is a narrative, I’ve taken the liberty to include the occasional opinion or analysis, a liberty that would be inappropriate had this been a work of fiction. Needless to say, these are strictly my opinions. Honest as they are, I concede that other persons may have a different take on the issues that I have opined on.

In Enuani-Igbo culture in which I grew up, proverbs and aphorisms are used extensively in story-telling and in everyday speech. I have tried to provide a window into this practice by introducing appropriate Enuani proverbs into my story. As the Enuani people say: Atutu inu ka wa ji eli ita [proverbs are the spices with which to make each story palatable for consumption]. For the non-Enuani speaker, translations are provided in all cases. But these translations can never reflect the rich cadences and poetic tone of the proverbs when rendered in the Enuani vernacular. It’s like trying to convey the sweetness of honey by saying that it’s composed mainly of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Somehow, the delicate essence gets lost in the translation.

Like a lily among thorns has been chosen as the title of this narration. It comes from the biblical Song of Solomon 2:2, which was so beautifully set to music by Jacobus Clemens (Ego flos campi . . . Sicut lilium inter spinas . . .). This title, in my opinion, best reflects the way my life has panned out so far: froth with challenges but blossoming all the same.

2.   TRANSITIONING FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD: PRE-CONSCIOUSNESS

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Innocent Chukuma Onwueme (Me) circa 2008

I n the second half of the 1940’s decade, the world paused to catch its collective breath after the rigors of World War 2. This was the period when I progressively realized, slowly but surely, that I was somebody. From an infant that was practically non-sentient, I slowly acquired self-realization. Like most people, I have no memories whatsoever of my first 2-3 years of life. I call this my pre-conscious period. However, I can narrate events from what I was told later. I was born on Tuesday May 23, 1944, when my parents were living at Onicha-Ugbo (see map next chapter). My full given names were Innocent Chukwuma Ikediaka. Chukwuma means, it’s all up to God. In later life, Ikediaka fell into disuse, and I dropped the w in Chukwuma. My father was Theophilus Eboramiwe Onwueme whom most people called Teo but whom we, the children, called Baba. Eboramiwe (Ebora for short, or Bora for modernity) literally means may the kindred desist from animosity against me. Baba was probably aged in his late thirties when I was born. His ancestry lay in the Ogbe-Ojeoba kindred in Umusizo quarters of Ukala-Okpuno. The name of our kindred literally means those who went to the Oba [and brought the staff of royalty to Ukala]. According to lore, it was our kindred that brought and established the royal Obi institution in Ukala, even though later, we allowed other kindreds to participate in a rotating Obi-ship. Within Ogbe-Ojeoba, our sub-lineage traces its ancestry to Maha (see appendix for genealogical chart). The Maha descendants are often referred to as Umu-Maha.

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Innocent Chukuma Onwueme (Me) circa 2005

Ethnically, Ukala-Okpuno and the neighboring towns identify with the Enuani sub-group within the larger Anomia group of people. Located just west of the Niger River, Anioma people speak dialects related to that of the main Igbo groups on the eastern side of the river. At the time I was born, the Anioma people were politically in the Western Region of Nigeria and were called the Western Ibo, while the main Igbo groups were in the Eastern Region.

I was told that Baba was born around 1908, with a couple of teeth already sprouted in his mouth. He lost his father very early in his life, and was obliged to go and live with Aunt Agatha (Nnem Agaati) who was married in the Peters/Chizea family at Onicha-Olona. Agatha and the Peters family were very devout Catholics, and I presume that this was where Baba’s deep rooting in Christianity started. Subsequently, Baba moved to Ogwashi-Uku to serve as a shared houseboy to two non-native washer-men living there. Baba often jokingly told us that even though the Bible says that no one can serve two masters, he did so successfully at Ogwashi. As a dutiful houseboy, he acquired the pseudonym of "nke ejeke Iyi Ada" [the one that was always going to the Iyi Ada stream to fetch water]. He attended Government Primary School, Ogwashi-Uku. He finished primary schooling in 1929. With no prospects of anything further, he settled into a life-long career as an uncertificated teacher with the Catholic mission school system.

Physically, Baba was muscular but only of average height (see pictures). He had a relatively large head and a full head of hair which he always cropped very short. Even in old age, he never showed signs of balding. He bore many artistically designed traditional marks on his face and chest. At a couple of places on his back, there were clumps of 5-10 razor marks that he had received as part of the traditional ichi ochi healing process. This was essentially a bloodletting exercise intended to drain out bad blood from the body. It was administered as a cure for a wide range of ailments, especially backache and headache. The tool for the process was a long hollow gourd that was tapered at one end, giving a funnel-like conical shape. Incisions were made on the patient with a razor. Then the wide part of the gourd was placed over the wound. The healer then administered mouth suction through the narrow part of the gourd. This created a vacuum that increased the outward flow of bad blood into the base of the gourd. When sucking stopped, the vacuum was maintained for several additional minutes by placing a supple piece of leaf over the narrow end of the gourd. At the end of the process, the clump of congealed bad blood at the wide base of the gourd was discarded, and healing concoctions were rubbed into the wound. Wound healing occurred quickly, but the razor scars persisted for decades or throughout life. Ichi ochi was a common practice in the pre-colonial and colonial periods, and I was privileged to observe it several times during my childhood. It became rare in the post-colonial period as western medicine took hold.

Baba had a permanent bump on the right side of his lower lip. Growing up, my first notion was that the bump was something a man acquired as he got older. Later, I was told by the other children in our household that Baba got the bump when one of his fellow teachers assaulted him. Later still in my adult years, I did ask Baba pointedly about the origin of the bump. He told me that it arose when, to keep his babies comfortable and quiet, he used to offer them his lip to suck on for succor. Over time, the bump developed as a sort of nipple. It did subside a little bit when the children grew and no longer needed it, but it remained throughout his life as a permanent marker of his hands-on parenting.

Baba’s mother was Obuonyeekwe. Both she and Baba’s father (Onwueme) had long died by the time I was born. Obuonyeekwe bore two other Onwueme children, both female: Obukenudi who was older than Baba, and Lucy, younger than Baba. Both of Baba’s sisters also had traditional marks on their faces. In addition, Obukenudi displayed a peculiar set of front teeth where the sides of each tooth has been deliberately sliced off so that the teeth were thinner and had gaps between them. I was told that this was a deliberate beautifying process that people got done on their teeth in earlier times. I was able to see the same fashion in a few other old-time traditionalists, both men and women. I shudder to think how tedious and painful this process must have been in an era when there were no dentists and no anesthesia. Obukenudi’s face also bore faint pockmarks of an earlier encounter with smallpox. Lucy was slight in build, and had a slow deliberate gait, as if caressing the very ground on which she walked. This mode of walking seemed to lend additional grace to her relatively fragile frame. Obukenudi had a similar gait, but not Baba.

After Baba lost his father in pre-adolescence, Obuonyeekwe re-married to Elozienjo, an uncle to Baba who then became his step-father. I understand that it was Elozienjo that gave me the name Ikediaka. It was the custom in those days that when a man died, his widow could re-marry to one of his close relatives. For Elozienjo, Obuonyeekwe bore a son, Ada. So, Baba had no full brother, but had a half-brother in Ada. His life-long relationship with Ada was always delicate, certainly not as close as his relationship with his sisters. This was not helped by the fact that Baba considered Ada to be extremely wily. Moreover, Baba and Ada differed considerably in terms of life trajectory and world view. Ada never went to school. He was a traditionalist to the core and pursued the traditional animist religion to its limit. This contrasted with Baba’s leanings, however slight, towards modernity and Christianity. While Baba was busy drinking out of the new brew that the colonialists brought, Ada was satisfied with the pre-colonial palm wine in the old keg of the ancestors. While Baba entrusted his faith and fate to the new dispensation, the other viewed the new order with suspicion, confident in the veracity of the old order. While Baba was ambivalent about many traditional customs, Ada had no such doubts, embracing the customs with relish, certain about their role and efficacy. With time, Baba and Ada came to understand, accept, and respect each other’s world view. Religious differences did not prevent them from nursing their relationship. What the white man brought and what the ancestors handed down did not necessarily have to destroy each other. They could coexist. Baba and Ada were on different religious paths, but they were headed in the same general direction.

In adulthood, Ada had two wives and half a dozen children. His first son, younger than I, was named Chukwuma (a.k.a. Abenja). He was something of an outlaw in his youth at Ukala. He smoked his hemp publicly in fat cigar-type wraps, while growing and trading some of it on the side. Nobody in the village dared to cross his path, and everyone kept a respectable distance. Abenja did what Abenja wanted to do. But his exploits were calculated, limited, and not totally reckless. He worked very hard at his food crop farming ventures, and as far as I know, he was never involved in stealing, robbery, or womanizing. (See appendix for the Onwueme Genealogy)

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Theophilus and Christiana Onwueme (Baba and Mama) circa 1960

My mother was Christiana Adanwocha Onichabo Onwueme (her maiden surname was sometimes spelt as Onitshabo). We simply called her Mama. She came from the Idumu-Ogbele kindred of Ogbe-Obi quarters in Onicha-Olona. As with my Ukala pedigree, her Ogbe-Obi quarters was associated with the original ruling family at Onicha-Olona, hence the name Ogbe-Obi which literally means the royal house. Her mother, Asiana, came from Akwukwu. Mama had many siblings all of whom I got to know: Dumbili (male), Paul, Agnes, Thecla, Chukwudi (male), and Joana. All except Joana were older than Mama. For some reason, I always felt more at ease with Mama’s relatives than I did with Baba’s. They in turn showered me with greater affection and care than I could receive from Baba’s few relatives. All of Mama’s siblings were on the tall side, with a streak of buck teeth sprinkled through the family. Mama was lucky to have the tallness without the buck teeth. Mama had a vertical oval-shaped traditional mark in the middle of her forehead; but that seemed to be the only traditional mark that she had on her body. She always had her hair plaited, tied, or covered, as was the custom. But whenever she loosened the hair at home for dressing, I noticed that she had extremely luxuriant hair that could stretch well beyond her shoulders. Unlike Baba, Mama’s parents had already embraced Christianity. Mama attended only two years of primary schooling and was effectively illiterate. However, she comported herself with considerable wisdom, pride and dignity.

At the time I was born, Baba and the family lived at Onicha-Ugbo where he was a teacher with the Catholic school system. However, Mama traveled home to Onicha-Olona to deliver the baby, assisted by Asiana who was still alive then. All my other grandparents had died by this time, so that Asiana was the only grandparent of mine to make contact with me. And even she died while I was still a baby, which meant that I did not know any of my grandparents. I understand that my family feared for my health in the days following my birth. This prompted them to get me baptized quickly. The baptism was administered at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Onicha-Olona, by Father Anselm Ojefua. That was on May 26, 1944, barely three days after I was born. My God-father was Mr. Christopher Nwachi, the eldest son of the Obi (Obi Nwachi) of Onicha-Olona. On return to Onicha-Ugbo, my first few months were extremely sickly, including a persistent cough. It is said that one night when I was gravely ill, Baba had actually readied digging implements to use for my burial. Being non-sentient at the time, I was nothing to me; but I was something to the relatives around me, enough to evoke their attention and concern. Fortunately, Baba did not have to use his digging tools. I eventually recovered. In childhood, my milk teeth were discolored, and I remember being teased as "eze okilikpa". I had a gap in the middle of my upper teeth both in the milk stage and in the adult teeth.

When I was about two years old, Baba was transferred to Umunede in the Ika-speaking part of our area. It was there that my sister Felicia was born in early 1947. I have no recollection of life at Umunede, but I know that at some point, my left foot had a fairly serious burn from a fire. The scars on the four little toes of my left foot have been with me all my life, reminding me of an injury I endured while still transitioning from the spirit world.

3.   WELCOME TO THE HUMAN WORLD:

EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS

I f self-realization is one key quality that makes us human, then you can be forgiven for considering me sub-human up till about 1948. This was about the time that I had any consciousness of myself. I came to the realization that I was me. Before then, I did not even know that I existed; I could well have been a piece of stone, a doornail, a rag, or just thin air. At about this time, Baba and the family moved to Otolokpo, deeper into the Ika-speaking part of our area. On the world scene, major political realignments were afoot. The process of massive decolonization was starting, a process that would see dozens of countries in Africa and Asia attain political independence within the next two decades. India, one of the earliest in the series, was being granted independence in 1947 as the two separate countries of India and Pakistan. On another global plane, the temperature was dropping steadily towards the cold war between the east and the west. But all that was of little immediate consequence to me in our little village of Otolokpo.

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Baba circa 1972

I have memories of life at Otolokpo, but most of it is disjointed and in snippets. I’ll set them out just as they occur in my memory, with indistinct interconnections. I recall playing with my siblings in the school/church building on Sundays; getting to know that I was called Inno, with accent on the second syllable; observing the 1947/48 solar eclipse; playing in the sand in the school compound; realizing the anatomical difference between boys and girls; . . . . Baba and our family were at loggerheads with the new school headmaster, Mr. Ikenye who hailed from Ebu, a town notorious for witchcraft… . Baba once carried me on his bicycle to get medication at Agbor. The distance was only about 10 miles, but the trip registered in my memory as my first visit to a town of any meaningful size… One time, schoolchildren doing bamboo fencing knocked down a hawk, which was then roasted and eaten… . Our residence adjoined the school compound on one side and was next to a local kindred on the other side. I witnessed cassava being cooked and pounded by the locals of this kindred… . The stream from which Otolokpo residents fetched water was far away in another town and I never went… . I recall the following persons as being members of our household: Baba, Mama, my brother Bazim Alphonsus aged about nine years (we called him Phonso then, but later in life, simply Broda or Broda Toppers), brother Sylvester aged seven years, me 3-4 years old, sister Felicia still a baby, cousin Mgbonkwo (Obukenudi’s daughter and only child), and houseboy Okonkwo Benyogo (a native of Onicha-Ugbo). My sister Theresa, born in 1949, was probably a baby during the latter part of our stay at Otolokpo, but she did not register in my consciousness… . One time, there was a visit to the town by one Dr. Onubogu from Onitsha, selling medicines; he gave us some sweet-tasting cough drops… . Another time, I was playing near a pit (onunu) with Phonso and Sylvester. They dragged me roughly down a slope and I sustained a wound on my hip… . I recall that there was an Nkwere (eastern Igbo) market woman for whom I always brought vegetable oha on market days. She would often say "enyim nwoke ikpatakwalum oha-e?" [my friend, did you bring me the oha vegetables] . . . . A separate incident was one Sunday afternoon when we had a visit from Umunede by Mr. Anya-a Emechete of Ezi. He brought along something like a block of ice which we all marveled at. We had never seen such a thing before in our entirely tropical setting… . These were my hazy recollections of the time when I gradually emerged from the spirit world into the truly human realm. I’m unable to determine what made some of these things (many of them trivial) stick in my memory, while many others did not. Perhaps child psychologists may have an answer for this.

In those days, primary schooling lasted eight years: Infant 1-2, followed by Standard 1-6. I started primary school at Infant 1 in 1949 at Otolokpo. This was my first time to wear pant underwear, stitched together by Mama. At 4 years old, I was starting school much earlier than was the norm at the time. But Baba gave me lessons at home and encouraged me.

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Mama circa 1970

The seminal event of our stay at Otolokpo was the time when my brother Sylvester fell sick with malaria. While staying warm by the fire, he convulsed, fell into the fire, and was badly burned round the legs. The burn itself was not life-threatening, but in the ensuing days, the wound got infected with tetanus. As the lock-jaw disease took hold, Sylvester could no longer open his mouth. He was fed only liquids, especially akamu (corn pap). I often hung around in the shadows while the adults struggled to get some food into him. Eventually, he was, taken on bicycle to Agbor general hospital some ten miles away, accompanied by Baba, Mama, and Mgbonkwo. There he died within a few days. He was buried there, probably in an unmarked grave. I recall the night that the family party that had taken the boy to Agbor returned to Otolokpo. Mama’s disconsolate wailing rent the still night air, as the party made its way through the streets to our house. There was sadness in the household, but my consciousness was still insufficiently developed for me to appreciate the full import of what had happened.

The friction between Baba and headmaster Ikenye remained strong through 1949. Indeed Ikenye, hailing from a witchcraft-infested town, was not totally absolved from insidious complicity in Sylvester’s death. All this was too much for Baba, and he probably asked for a transfer. My family left Otolokpo at the end of 1949. We loaded the family and belongings into a lorry (truck) and headed for Ubulu-Okiti. This was my first trip in a motor vehicle. It seemed to last a lifetime, even though we were only traversing about 25 miles.

The school at Ubulu-Okiti was headed by Mr. Xavier Ofunne, a native of Issele-Uku. He lived with his child brother (Okwuokei), and two more distantly-related sibling children: Naomi and Paul Eboegbunem. Other co-teachers to Baba at Ubulu-Okiti were Mr. Abadom from Onitsha and Mr. Udugba, both of whom were bachelors living the full drunken bachelor life. I recall their occasional midnight wailing song as they came home drunk: "Udugba nnamu meyelum uzo, oyeeee . . . Etem lo na idum eje . . . oyee… aahoyeeeo!"

During the transition from Otolokpo to Okiti, Baba had arranged for Phonso to go and live with Mathias Ebuehi, an Ishan tailor/trader living across the road from the market at Issele-Uku. I do not know the reason why this arrangement was made, but it was not uncommon in those days for children to be sent to live with family friends as a goodwill gesture. Our household at Ubulu-Okiti was therefore made up of Baba, Mama, Felicia, Theresa, me, and two houseboys. The houseboys were Okonkwo Benyogo from Onicha-Ugbo, and Leo Iyama from Umunede (Leo later ran away back to his family at Umunede). As usual, we used to play in the school/church building on Sundays. An older houseboy to one of the other teachers was persistent in teaching us lecherous language and gestures during these play sessions. We innocently repeated some of these gestures back home in front of our parents and we were duly punished.

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Mama circa 1990

My recall of life at Okiti is certainly better than that of Otolokpo life; but it is still fragmentary. Our house at Okiti was a thatched house, with the usual akwukwo igbodo for the roof. I recall many times on stormy nights, Baba and the older houseboys would be up under the roof reinforcing it and holding it down. It was at Okiti that I made my first trip accompanying the older children to fetch water from the stream. We went to Otulu’s Anwai stream, some three miles away. My water vessel was a bottle. I was unnerved by the steep slope to and from the stream, something the older children negotiated with ease. Just before we got to our house on our return, I met Baba in the school compound. As a sign of congratulating me, he took a drink from my bottle of water, an act that gave me a huge sense of accomplishment. Broda, still living at Issele-Uku, used to pop in occasionally on his way to fetch water at the Otulu stream, some six miles from Issele-Uku. He often went on bicycle, but sometimes on foot.

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Baba and his siblings circa 1972

(from left)—Ada, Obukenudi, Baba, Lucy

At Okiti, I enjoyed ringing the stand-alone high bell for church and school. Tugging at the rope and sometimes being lifted off the ground by its rebound, proved to be great fun. My first ever taste of coffee occurred about this time, from a brew that Baba made a couple of times a year. One of my Okiti recollections was the occasional worm medicine (castor oil) that was given to us children, leading to the excretion of large visible wriggling roundworms. Unlike our thatched dwelling, the school building had a corrugated metal roof. Water running off that roof was cleaner; so we often left our containers there to collect overnight rain water for domestic use. On one occasion, thieves stole our metal basin left overnight to collect rain roof water at the school building.

Ubulu-Okiti was part of the Issele-Uku Catholic parish, serviced by Rev. Fr. Burr, a white man. I recall Fr. Burr’s occasional pastoral visits to Ubulu-Okiti. He spoke bits of the Enuani-Igbo vernacular, but he had difficulty rendering the tonality of the language. This often resulted in some awkward moments for him and for his native listeners. For example, "Ka anyi yoa ayiyo, could mean different things depending on the tonality. With one tonal emphasis, it meant, Let us pray, a phrase that Burr and other priests would use frequently. But in a different tonality, it meant, Let’s engage in lascivious conduct or more succinctly, Let’s fornicate". Unfortunately, Fr. Burr could not tell the tonal difference, and often used the latter intonation even in the most sacred moments of the mass. The adults in the congregation got used to the discrepancy, but we children would continue to giggle until a watchful church warden intervened to terminate our bliss.

Fr. Burr usually came to Okiti on Saturday evening, heard confessions at sundown, and said mass on Sunday morning after spending the night in the church building. He was heavily bearded, and was credited with saying that because of his beard, he did not like to eat agbono soup which is always slimy. So, food prepared for him during his overnight stays never included agbono, okra, or other slimy soups. We also knew that white colonialists/missionaries were less tolerant of spicy or peppery food; so, the food served to Fr. Burr was kept deliberately bland by our standards. Fr. Burr did not have a car. He always came on his visits on a motorcycle. Unfortunately, it was on that same motorcycle that he was killed in an accident while we were still at Okiti. Burr Primary School at Issele-Uku was named in his memory and still bears that name.

At Okiti, I started the second year of primary school (called Infant 2). My performance must have impressed the teachers, to the extent that at the end of the year, I got a double promotion. This meant that I skipped the next class (Standard 1) and proceeded straight to Standard 2. My performance there did not fall below those who had come through Standard 1. The double promotion was deemed to have been fully justified.

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Enuani map with my childhood places

Sometime in 1951, Mama delivered a son, Anthony. In December 1951, our family made ready to spend the Christmas vacation at Ukala, our home town. Among other things, cousins Okafor Gabriel Ndinwa and Augustine Elozienjo were delegated to come from Ukala and carry some of our luggage on foot from Okiti to Ukala. This was a distance of about 12 miles through bush paths, though much longer by road. I do not recall how Baba and the rest of the family traveled to Ukala, but I was asked to accompany Okafor and Augustine on their foot journey through the bush paths. Both carried heavy loads on their heads, including some palm fruits that Mama would process later at Ukala. Our bush path would take us from Okiti to Issele-Mkpitime, then on to Onicha-Olona, and finally to Ukala. Long before we got to Issele-Mkpitime, Augustine was groaning under his load and protesting vociferously. At one point, he threatened to capsize his palm fruit load onto the ground and rubbish it. Okafor, probably also straining under his load, confined himself to taunting and teasing Augustine. By the time we got to Onicha-Olona, Augustine insisted that we must stop for a long rest. We did so in front of a village house. The woman of the house, seeing our plight, offered up a drink of water to each of us, with Augustine requesting and getting a second helping of the refreshing drink. We reached Ukala just as the village chickens were terminating their roaming and heading for their nocturnal perches.

Even though Ukala is my hometown, this was my first visit there that I could recall. My visiting family settled into Baba’s small house which he had maintained over the years for his widowed sister Lucy and her children. My father’s step-father, Elozienjo, was still alive then, albeit old and sickly. He lived in a house next door and spent long hours in his ogwa (unwalled pavilion in the fore-yard) warming himself beside an open fire. He needed every bit of the warmth, since this was the dry season when the cold dusty harmattan wind blew relentlessly from the Sahara desert, hundreds of miles away. Sitting by the fire, Elozienjo usually wore no clothes except for an mpe olu, a thick yard-long piece of hand-woven cloth that village men wore for work. The ends of the cloth were tied together at the hip, so that it covered the genitals from the front, but left them exposed to view from the side. We children learned to look away whenever the genitals happened accidentally to be on display. Mpe olu was never washed; instead it was hung over the fireplace each night so that over time, it acquired a dark smoky texture. I spent long hours hanging out around Elozienjo, listening to his stories or running little errands for him.

Ringing our Ukala compound at the front and sides were about a dozen grown coconut trees that Baba had established. By tradition, as each of his children was born wherever he lived, he preserved the umbilicus in palm kernel oil. On his earliest visit home to Ukala, he buried the umbilicus at the base of a tree that would be dedicated to that particular child. This was the way our culture acted out the indelible connection of each child to our home town. So, the coconuts around the house were referred to by the name of the child to whom each was dedicated. I noted and took pride in my own coconut tree. [Anecdote: I would continue this tradition when my son Kenolisa was born while I was on sabbatical in the USA. We preserved his umbilicus, returned to Nigeria with it, and took it to Ukala at