What Village People Did To Me

(By Immanuel James Ibe-Anyanwu) I arrived Umueze Umuhu 30th December, 2018, after a three-day stay at a hotel in Owerri. Off Aba-Owerri highway lies Umueze, home of my ancestors, 15 minutes to the Imo airport sited in Ngor-Okpala, our local council area. The road is untarred, the colour of a rising sun, parting rich vegetations left to thrive around rural homesteads. There is notable treenocide from housing developments, but much of the greenery is intact. I love trees, love watching the harmattan push their branches to a side like women’s hair.

          Our earth is flat, literally. No gullies, no flooding. No drainage, yet rainwater knows its way to the farm. The road runs a long stretch before bending, so that, standing at your entrance, you can see a kinsman several meters away; you can call his name, raising your hand in greeting. Our road reflects a sense of ancestral geometry, a sense of kinship.

          Because my arrival is being expected, a hot oha soup is asked to wait for me at the table. My stepmother. Oha, your leaves are green and true, I think to myself, eating without any waste of time. Dry fish, the one they call nwa-urubiri, with its colleagues is lounging in the soup. The fufu is pure white, pampered into a round edibility. I am officially welcome to the place I grew up, reminded of Grandmother’s culinary offerings.

The day takes its time in my village, moving one step at a time, so evening arrives several days later when my uncle’s wife is ready with her okazi soup. Okazi with egusi, our ceremonial dish. First proof of a well-made okazi is leaves in very tiny shreds, not the large blades floating in Lagos canteens. Then the aroma, which arrives early enough to allow you make up your mind. Fufu again. The plate returns minutes later, bearing mere fishbones and the sanitary prints of greedy fingers.

The next morning, we all meet, all of us who returned from “abroad” — local tag for all those who came from the city. Pleasantries. We move around the village, around homesteads, greeting and recalling past events. Old nicknames, long dead elders, past fights. Palm wine — for those that drink. Bush meat pepper soup. We practise kola-nut blessing in the native way. Discuss developmental initiatives, form a group. Disperse to go get ready for the football match scheduled for the day.

The abrodians are expected to have a general meeting with the villagers to further discuss development. Igbo village gatherings are often summoned on behalf of proverbs and witticisms. Earlier at the gathering, a fellow, seeing me, exclaimed that it had been years. “Seeing you feels like a widow finally in grasp of a mature, erect cock”, he says. Proverbs animate village proceedings which, although marked by tension and verbal wars, end in peace.

Evening, 31st December. A native marriage ritual is ongoing in a family. I arrive late but the matriarch had kept ugba for me. Before I set upon it, some kinsmen arrive and assist to demolish it. There is no suspicion of diabolism. The in-laws had left before my arrival. I examine the marriage list and it remains the same: to marry a girl in my village, with gifts and money in total, costs N130,000. Yet no one has paid that much ever, except a few “rich” in-laws who, by themselves, elected to do everything on the list. So much about Imo wives costing a fortune. It depends on the place.

The new year begins with familiar merriment all around, while manifesting our unique sense of community. The women break into a song that morning, going from home to home to wish returnees “Happy New Year!”. They are genuinely happy, receiving also any gifts that attend their gesture. I am amazed by the spontaneity of their action and the honesty of their joy amid little. There is no government presence in my village. From electrification to water projects, we did it all by ourselves.

On the 4th of January, my stay comes to an end. The women in my kindred know my usual village parcel: vegetable. They bring gifts of oha, ugu, okazi, nturukpa, nkanka. None wants hers to be returned. Someone offers to drive me to the airport, and other returnees join. It becomes a lively but wistful company, as we recall when, as kids, we came on excursion to the then new airport, waiting for hours to observe the landing and takeoff of planes. Recalling how we told that story with insane exaggerations to those who missed the moment.

As the plane gives me an aerial view of my community, I begin to wonder how the narrative of mindless village diabolism came to be. “Village people have remembered him”, we often joke. Perhaps I’m naive, but I grew up partly with Grandmother long enough to realize that village people are the rest of us: good and bad. But from Nollywood, a morbid strain of Pentecostal Christianity, to social media, we have absorbed a poisoned sense of home. We have become willful strangers to our own communities, sometimes ashamed of who we truly are. We have cultivated a weird urban arrogance that prefers the smell of septic tanks and blocked drainages to the natural scent of home.

But for those who know how to strike the right balance — who invest themselves in genuine efforts to build their communities — village people have a lesson in love. May our story not be one-sided.