Onitsha, Balconies, and Gists

(Uzoamaka Doris Aniunoh)--I lived in Onitsha with my parents and siblings in a four-story building. My father was the landlord and going downstairs was against his many rules, so I always stayed on the balcony, watching things happen. In Onitsha, the height of a building was an indication of its owner’s wealth. (For some reason, it was mostly the bungalows that had badly spelt signs in red paint that read DIS HOUSE IS NO FOR SELL.) My father owned our building, so it was only natural that we lived at the very top.

Our fourth floor living quarters had four balconies: one in our flat, two in our father’s flat and one separating the two flats.
We called the flats sidee nke ozo, depending on where we were at the time – if we were in our flat, our father’s flat became ‘the other side,’ and vice versa.

The balconies all had burglar proofing from top to bottom, like in prisons. Ours faced Saint John’s Anglican Church and the four different schools in its massive compound. The story was that the land belonged to a man, Mr. Odu, who in the 1950s lent a small piece to the church for Sunday school. A few months after, the church built a temporary shelter to avoid being beaten by rain or sun. Shortly after, they built another temporary shelter, now encroaching on the parts Mr Odu didn’t give to them, with the excuse that they now had more members at the school and would soon move to their permanent site. Some years later, the Anglican Church took Mr Odu to court and took over all his land.

From our balcony, I saw how students who came late were made to kneel down some distance from the assembly ground. They were flogged after the early birds had marched into their classrooms. I watched some smart ones escape from the latecomers’ corner into the assembly and march as though they had been there the whole time, and sometimes a teacher would accuse an innocent student of sneaking in. I saw the speed with which the students ran out of their classrooms at break time, just to struggle to buy agidi jollof and saccharine ice cream. Some of them didn’t have money, so they would wait for others to buy and then they would beg. The students who begged had more to eat than those who actually spent their money — one time I watched a boy beg up to ten people.

One of the balconies in my father’s flat also faced the Church. From there, I could see the police barracks and Iyawo’s salon. Iyawo’s husband was a policeman and they were from Gombe. She was the first person who plaited my hair, other than my mother. In the future, she would say, “Uzoamaka, I disvirgined your hair, now that you have money, you don’t want to patronize me.”

The police barracks was always busy. One day, some policemen came back with three handcuffed men in their truck. The men were pushed around and forced to sit on the floor, their bodies covered in red. People gathered to watch them, and the policemen strutted around with their guns as though they had achieved a really great feat. Later, I heard that the men went to steal in Main Market and ndi omata beat them up before the police came.

From our balcony, I saw Mama Lily’s compound. Mama Lily sold biscuits to school children, and water in huge tanks. I saw that some boys from Father Joseph Street always cheated her. They would fetch six gallons and tell her they had only fetched four. I wished I could tell her the truth. I could also see Fide’s compound. There were too many people who lived there. I watched them take turns using the bathroom while the children had their bath outside. I wished I could have my bath outside too.

I will never forget what I saw the first time I stood on our dividing balcony.

I was about five years old, and my parents were getting ready for an event. My father finished first, so he went to the garage and began to honk the car horn like there was no tomorrow. My mother hurriedly ran downstairs, her hastily tied wrapper slipping off her waist as she went. She picked it up absent-mindedly, never really coming to a complete stop. As she stood next to the car in the garage, she gestured at her wrapper a few times in explanation. She was about to open the car door when my father suddenly drove forward. She ran to catch up, her wrapper bunched in her hand, and made to open the car door again but he drove forward the second time. She tried the third time and my father drove off, with her hand almost gripping the car door handle. The dust and smoke his car left behind circled around her. The people in Okigwe and Patterson Streets watched her. She ran after the car and when she didn’t catch up, she picked up a stone and threw it in the direction my father’s car had gone.  Then she wiped her face with the edge of her shiny wrapper. Thinking about it now, I wonder which was more shameful, her being left behind like that or the stone throwing act. She came back upstairs and sat in front of the mirror. “Nne m, what do you think about my wrapper?” she asked. “I like it mummy, you’re beautiful,” I said. She undressed, hugged me tightly, and cried.

The second balcony in my father’s flat was usually locked but I found it open the day Talatu got the beating of her life. The story was that her mother had travelled to Kogi and come back pregnant with her and then didn’t help matters when she gave her a non-Igbo name. Talatu had just come out of Iyawo’s salon when I saw her. There were people standing around. It started with a shove and then several shoves and little kicks here and there. More people followed and before I could say o gini, stones flew in the air, some missed but some hit her. She held her handbag to her chest, shoulders crunched forward, head bowed as she tried unsuccessfully to get out of harm’s way. Her offence was that she had sinned against the Holy Spirit by wearing trousers. She was dragged through our dirt-filled streets towards Umuchu, while children sang shame songs.

One boy pulled her by the leg, through the stony ground. Her blouse got hooked on a stone and tore off her body. Her handbag was the only covering she had now, she held onto it, screaming and begging but the boys laughed. “Nwanyi trouser, nekwa ife trouser gi n’eme gi n’ukwu, amam m’ibu nwoke, amam m’ibu nwanyi. Woman with trousers, see what the trousers do to your waist. Male or female, I don’t know which one you are”, the children chanted as the boys dragged her till they disappeared.

The men could have come to her rescue, but they simply walked past silently because their shops were calling –  mwoni bu de men tin! (Money is the main thing). They looked at her and looked away, as if saying- well you deserve it.

I didn’t sit in any of our balconies for a long time after that until I had chicken pox. They said it was compulsory for everyone to have chicken pox at least once in their lifetime. They said it was better to have it as a child because it was worse for adults, worse than measles. So when I had my chicken pox, my mother was happy, never mind that I was sick. She soaked me in calamine lotion that made me look like ojuju calabar from the popular children’s TV series.

“Nne, sit at the balcony so air can touch your skin,” my mother would say repeatedly.

“But Mummy I’m in the balcony,” I would respond.

I had stopped going to school because my mother overdid the calamine lotion and I scared some nursery school children. Also, the teachers were worried that I might infect the other children. This, I didn’t understand. If everyone wanted chicken pox at a young age and it only happened once in a lifetime, why were they worried?

My first day at home, I sat at the dividing balcony and watched children go to school. Some cried, some were eager and some were literally dragged through the mud. Mama Junior flogged her son every morning and I looked forward to watching the drama because he mooed like a cow, but just before that began, another actress took centre stage: a lady dressed in white t-shirt tucked into a black skirt halted abruptly on the street and began to laugh. She laughed like the wicked witches we only saw in movies and then she flung her bag to the side of the road.

“O di egwu! O dikwa egwu!!! What are they looking at? What is it?” she burst out.

My mother came to the balcony and peeped at the on-going drama. “Shift for me” she said.

The lady was screaming now. “Won’t you all go to school? I am a teacher! Unu ama ejebe akwukwo? Eh?  All of you, go this way! This way!” she pointed towards Patterson Street.

“Okwa ala! It is madness o!” my mother exclaimed. “Where are her people now?”

“Mummy will she now be like UC?” I asked.

“Nne I hope not, I pray she gets healed because no one deserves madness.”

“Does UC deserve it?” I asked.

“Nne, UC started it. If you cannot handle diabolism, why go to the native doctor’s in the first place? She went there because she wanted to be able to control her husband. Was she the only angry wife in Onitsha? O jelu igwo nke o ya abu o gbosia, o bunye CY stool, o noduzia, o wee nyubia ikpakwu. She wanted it in such a way that when she was done, CY would sit on a stool, loyal, while she starts dealing with him. But the thing backfired and now look at UC.”

UC was a very popular mad woman at Oduwani market. She was very tall, slim, and dark skinned but she was so dirty that parts of her skin were turning a light shade of grey. She spoke to herself all the time, and was known for being over-protective towards her daughter. They said she bit some skin off her husband’s arm when he tried to take the child away from her. I wondered if the teacher in the white t-shirt had a child she would be protective of, now that she had run mad. Did she also try to buy a stool for her husband from a native doctor? I wondered if my mother had ever thought about this stool.

I remembered my Aunty Okwy talking about a woman at the school where she taught who succeeded in getting the stool from a native doctor. She said it had cost the woman a lot of money, so running mad was not an option.

“Go to Nzube’s house and see what she’s doing with her husband!” Aunty Okwy had said to my mother.

“Ekwuzikwana! You don’t say!” my mother responded.

“O di nno egwu. Di ya sisie nni, o suo akwa. Pant sokwa na akwa o na-asu o, I ma chee na akwa m na-ekwu bu skirt and blouse. O susia, o fichaba nke bu uno, Nzube esetia okpa na-ata chingum, na-enene TV. It is amazing. Her husband cooks, washes clothes, including underwear, so don’t think it’s just skirt and blouse. After washing, he cleans the house, while Nzube stretches her legs, chewing gum and watching TV,” Aunty Okwy said.

“Beautiful! Onye o kwelu mee o! Whoever can do it should it! That’s how God will keep disgracing these men!” my mother said.

“Please stop calling God, native doctors don’t serve God. How about the women who are running mad?” Aunty Okwy said.

The shrill sound of the bell from Saint Johns had children screaming and running out of their classrooms. It was break time and no one had come for the lady in the street, she was now sitting and entertaining her viewers, most of whom were barrow pushers and househelps going to fetch water.

“M mesia ya eh. When I’m through dealing with him, he’ll realize I’m not a common servant he hired, I am a teacher!” she screamed on.

My mother stood up and went into the kitchen. I watched as she stirred the pot, put some of the soup on her left palm and tasted it for salt, then hit the spoon on the edge of the pot a few times. I knew she must have thought about this stool at some point, she must have considered it a little. But she would be scared of running mad like UC.

“Nne, remove that rubber band from your wrist, It sucks your blood,” she said to me from the kitchen.

“Yes mummy” I responded.

Uzoamaka Doris Aniunoh is an Igbo writer and reality blogger who was was born and raised in Onitsha. She is mostly inspired by real life experiences, her childhood and personal experiences in general. Her goal as a writer is to tell relatable stories that mirror ignored society. She fears not being able to influence another human being, not being able to touch lives, not mattering. She blogs at dorisaniunoh.blogspot.com