Chapter 5: Chapter 5

Thoughts of going to the farm occurred to Njoku. He would have to harvest some food items to feed his visitors. It is easy to guess the number of guests who would converge at his house. The community is coming to felicitate with him. Even though the initial message he received was to gather his kinsmen, anyone who heard will come.

The women who came early in the morning to his wife were uncountable. They are a good pointer to the number of families who would come to mark the occasion. The crowd had since dispatched in the same hour, but that was not all. Njoku knew they were coming back, without asking the outcome of their convergence. They would come to assist his wife with the kitchen task. It would be a thing of shame if they returned to find his wife’s kitchen not stocked with enough foodstuff.

His male children lined up for the harvest. The youngest took the lead, followed by the immediate, to the eldest. Their father walked behind like the guardian angel. Each of them carried their implements. They balanced the hoe across their shoulders and held the cutlass and basket in either hand. If not for the situation, every other day, the women carried the baskets. The men carry on harvesting, and the women gathered the produce and transport home. Sometimes when the harvest was large, they completed many voyages. The women hit the path as many times as the strength of the men carried.

Labor assignment followed a natural trend. On a day as this, everyone offered their service to the department that needed it most. Except one was ignorant of the said event. But who would not know what occasion was next to which?

The female jobs were in the women’s court. Teenagers supplied water and firewood, while the women did the advanced kitchen task.

The image of Ifunanya and a handful of other girls graced Njoku’s eyes. He watched as they assembled with their water pots, and storm the path leading to the stream. His gaze did not leave them until they disappeared. There was a delight in his heart seeing the enchanted group. The girls rendered their hands in the fullness of their strength. On a typical day, their mothers would have had to yell before they could venture to the stream by this hour.

The majority of the mothers, if not all, failed to understand the simple body chemistry. Sometimes the body wakes dead. Other times it woke to the fullness of energy. When the case was the former, there is nothing one can do other than let the body rest. Of what use is beating up a horse which said, ‘I will not work today? A thousand strokes of whips would never do. When the latter was the case, only the daylight reminded one of break. It would be one of those days one woke to find of all the many jobs in the house, there are not enough. Some went to their neighbor’s courtyard to seek more engagements to topple theirs.

On this occasion, everyone clamored to make the minutest impact. Ifunanya did not have to beg for the services of her friends. Every work counted, from picking up stones one could stumble upon to the advanced task. Some teenagers who were not of ifunanya’s peer brought water and firewood on their own.

Njoku and his sons trailed the path to their farmland. They stopped many times to take greetings from passersby. Everyone whom they came across registered their interest. Each said to Njoku, “we are at your courtyard come dawn.”

The evening was the only appropriate time. This was when every man had gone through his daily job and was open for relaxation. Only the Igwe had such power to call off public engagements. Apart from the affairs relating to the Igwe’s court, the modus operandi of the people fixed the timing.

There are busy people in Ezzum, hardworking in their individual capacities. The elders would always point that a man’s survival depended on the weight of his stomach. And so, a person who for no good measure tells one to stop work is of a good fit as an enemy.

“To whom does this lion take the fight?” Now called as Njoku and his sons came matching across his entranceway. He was sitting in a position where he had a good view of the outside. He had finished eating and was picking his teeth with a broomstick.

“The strength of our gods will continue to be mightier than of the devil. My in-laws want to bring me out to shame. We are going to see what we can get from the farm.”

Of course, Nwosu knew what Njoku and his sons were up to. Who invites the community to his yard, spread his palms, and declare he had nothing to feed them? Njoku was right, it was a battle between shame and one’s integrity. No one sat with his hands caged between his thighs and watch his image soiled in the mud. Even if he could do nothing, picking up himself still had an impact. At least, the world would see he has tried.

“My family and I are at your courtyard come dawn.”

“I will be glad to have you.”

“Let me lend my hands to you. I will send my sons to add up to your strength,” Nwosu said. Then started calling his sons.

Getting more hands was a good thing, but when his friend’s calls received sullen silence. He started dissuading him.

“Do not bother yourself, Nnam. There are good hands for the job.”

“Let me register my name. I have no job for them today. It is not fair they wallow about when there are gainful engagements.” Before he finished saying anything, two of his sons came running towards him. “You have all grown abagba-nti. No one answers my calls.”

He asked the whereabouts of the other who had gone out on his own engagement. Nwosu wondered, “what engagement, more important than those assigned by me?”

The rage was too much for him to contend with, so he asked Njoku, who also did not have the answer.

“The world is not what it used to be. This is how children of these days behave. Let your anger rest.”

“Ngwa, the two of you should join Njoku to his farmland,” Nwosu ordered.

“Should we take our hoe and cutlass?”

“No, take me.”

The two boys used their heads. They went and carried the implements as they had seen with the others. When they came back to join the party, their father burst into laughter.

“How did you know what tool to go with? The person who was asking whether to carry hoe and cutlass should have come and carried me.” He turned to charge Njoku, “make sure they give in their best. I see nothing that would hold them.”

“O! you have done it all for me, Nnam. May our gods bless you double fold.”

Many playing children joined the party as they recognized their faces. They first enquired their purpose, after which they filed in, next to their friend. Njoku soon had more than enough hands for the job. One does not reject charity. Rejection of any sort meant depriving one of the blessings from his god. The blessings only came through good deeds. So, when a person cried for help, they were always many people willing to lend hands.

The journey to the farm was a long one. The path was not of any comfort. The path was full of mazes, and whips whose cut was enough to put down the heart of a whining farmer boy.

When one lets the thought about the huddles into his mind, he felt discouraged. This led to saving up a day’s job to a later date. For instance, it was pointless going to weed the farm today and go back to fetch some cassavas tomorrow. One could save up a good lump of his energy by executing the two jobs on the same date. Let us say, the basket of cassava can wait until the farmland was due for weeding.

For the health of the community people, it was a good concept. Many people welcomed the idea. But there was with it a good measure of wrath. Allowing oneself a day’s break can tantamount to giving up a good chunk of yields.

The monkeys were there looking whose crops to ruin. Whenever they discovered a prosperous farm, they made sure they left it in a very sorry state. These animals act much like humans. It was astonishing the manner they peeled the corn, but their eating habit was savage. They would pluck corn, take a bite, and throw it away. Then pluck another one, and another, repeating same until they downed the whole crops. Still, they moved to the other farmland.

Any man who saw the destruction perpetrated by these animals would swear to wipe them out. But was not so whenever he sets his eye on them. There was usual repentance of heart. It took a very strong resolution to pull the trigger.

The monkeys knelt and surrendered when a man aimed at them. Only a few men could neglect the cheap lures to open fire. Such persons had sworn because they attacked his farm, they are enemies. Destroying a man’s produce was murder, it was like asking his hands in battle. No man laid dumb and waited for the machete to slice his throat. So, they swore, “if you want to see my corpse go down beyond, I must first get you down. I and my family must make a feast with your meat today, and tomorrow will speak for itself.”

When they pulled the trigger, the surrendering monkeys fled. A good timer knocked down more than once, and began to feel sorry for his rash. Those who willed pulled the corpses across their shoulders, and carried them home. They scared their wives and children. No one could ever imagine eating such meat.

They forbade the idea of making a banquet with the monkey’s corpse. Everyone circled their head, snapped their fingers, and cursed, “tufiakwa!”

They felt as sympathetic as with the dead body of a clansman. So, they visualized eating the meat as cannibalism. That was the day the man went to the kitchen to do the women’s job and was also the day the woman broke her cooking utensils. The utensils used for the banquet would irritate the women that they will never use them again. Most women would dispose of them for good.

As the party walked through the large unattended arena of flat rocks, the boys began to throw queries. The questions never demanded answers per se. This was their way of voicing their disgust for the lengthy walk.

The first boy said, “why do we have to go so far before we could farm our crops?”

“Coming to this length can be annoying sometimes,” another boy said.

“As annoying as going there to find those monsters helping out with the harvest.”

The boys were chatting within earshot of Njoku. He had also grown bored. So, he felt compelled to join the boy’s discourse. This was the only way to keep a long journey short.

“What does one expect when we have exhausted all fertile lands close to our settlement?” Njoku asked. The boys received his chip in as a rhetoric. Even Njoku knew none of the boys had an answer to the question he asked. He did not want them to start wondering much, so he began to explain. “Our ancestors first settled in Ezzum when they discovered this part of the world. At that time, they were very few that each man could count the entire inhabitants off the heart. Every man built his hut where he could oversee all that went on inside his farm. But as life went on, they beget sons who later took wives, and they allocated some parcels to them. The population multiplied, and soon, they gave the lands for erecting more and more huts. The scarcity of farmland led our ancestors into further exploration beyond their settlement. They went in search of vacant but fertile land for farming, and they discovered Owere. They were wise not to have carried their settlements there. Instead, they reserved the place for sowing their seedlings.”

As he dropped the lecture, the boys sighed. The sighs were of total conviction. They do not seem to have heard until now the history of how come about their distant farmland. This was about the reason it was worthwhile sitting close to the elders. Most times, if the elder was of good counsel, he began to teach the histories of their existence. When one was unlucky, it could be an elder whom the gods have cursed. A child who sat close to such an elder kept running errands until the heat of the soil worn his sole.

“Our ancestors should have erected their huts on this rock on which plants do not grow,” a boy said. All the elders had given a thought to such an idea as well, but it was something unworkable.

“The land cannot hold our huts. If one built his hut in this place, it can only survive the dry season, rainwater will soon sweep it away.” Njoku answered as they walked their last steps into the farmland reserve.

“Had our ancestors not known about those farm destroyers?” Another boy asked.

“Our ancestors were wiser in their days,” another boy added, and they all laid their ears to hear from Njoku.

The boys’ tactical questions and contributions pleased Njoku. This showed they were enjoying his company. The chat had broken his heart in prison, and many depressive thoughts flew away. He seldom remembered what he was thinking before he joined the conversation.

“Yes, of course. Our ancestors were wiser, and they knew about the monsters. This was why they cloned the human guard to scare them away. The concept served a good deal until our days. When the destroyers set their eyes on the statue, they flee, thinking it was a real person. I guess the animals have now discovered the guard was unreal and is the only reason they relaxed to eat up our crops.”

“How did they come to discover the guards were artificial?”

“How else, if not through the birds? When a bird perches on a man’s shoulders, he should react. I have not seen such bird with the guts.” Njoku took a break to laugh. The young men laughed too. They knew what would happen to any bird with such guts.

“It will end in the soup pot,” a boy said, and another string of laughter aroused.

“Our ancestors have done their best. They lived a fulfilled life and have left the world for us. The question is, what can we do to save our world? The answer is not from the people of my age. Our time is ticking fast, and we are leaving the world in your hands. What can you do to save the world?”

Once one stepped into the reserve, Njoku’s piece was at the bank. When they approached, he waved the boys for silence. He did as he had seen a bush animal. The animal had not noticed their presence and was still feasting on its spoils.

“Mgbada,” he informed them in a low tone, pointing to the direction. He gestured them to spread until they encircled it. Like an army commander, he pointed the boys and threw his arm where he wanted them to follow. The boys crept like the wise hunter talisman until they surrounded the farmland. Then, he beckoned them to close in.

They reduced the circumference and left the minutest space between. They converted to hunting arm whatever implements they had carried. Other boys who joined the party from their playground picked up sticks.

The mgbada came to the awareness of the company, and confusion seized it. It stood dead after turning full degrees in search of an escape route. What Njoku did next was absurd. He pulled a strand of hair from his head and chew, and declared the mgbada must end in his wife’s cooking pot that day. The act was not as astonishing to the boys as it was natural for any son of the soil to chew their hair. They did show off their doggedness. Little ones did it, but in ignorance. Only elders understood chewing one’s hair meant swearing by the person’s head. The repercussion was as disastrous as with the name of Ogwu deity when one fell short of that in which he had sworn.

The mgbada did not move from where it stood, neither did the boys. Everyone focused. In this game, the first to advance was very much at the risk of losing the battle, as Njoku had declared. Njoku aimed a stone, but it still would not move. He devised various means to frighten it but to no avail. So, he pointed a boy to advance into the circle, and the other boys filled the boy’s position. The boy crept towards the mgbada to set fright to it, but he only succeeded in getting it to turn face to face with him.

Njoku drummed a blow into his palm, and the boy dived and caught the mgbada. There was jubilation as Njoku advanced with his cutlass and slew the animal. They cut banana leaves and laid the mgbada on it, then proceeded to harvest.