Village sagacity

Chuku, that’s what they call him. Probably meaning Chukwu, (God) in full. These days, many parents are resorting to names like that for reasons best known to them. Maybe, seeking good luck and fortune in everything. He is eight and in class three. How he made it that far considering where he is coming from, I have not heard that part well. 

The alcoholic father had died when he was five from drinking excess cheap local brewed gins. They found him under a guava tree clutching a bottle of the brew with what will pass as a smile on his face. He had not been dead for long when kids on errands saw him. It's to dilute hunger not even the love of the mixture as some at times believed. Such brews like that tie intestine and push hunger deeper down the day's memory lane. Mother was left with caring for three kids, two boys, and a girl and she was striving but seeing to be running against opposition far stronger than her will.

Umueke town is what you will rate as a first-class interior village in the eastern part of Nigeria despite being three hours away from a first-class college established by the colonial masters. They refused by their beliefs to see light. They held on to their limiting cultures and traditions with both hands and refused to shift base. Refusing people noticeably different from them from Living in their town to avoid contamination as they refer to their reasons. 

 The town Chuku entered this planet from. Among best among the wretched families there. The young boy could not feed twice when the father was around supplementing earnings. He looked five while eight and no one saw anything wrong with his stature. It is a normal sight in the village. Malnourished kids with ribs hanging outside like clothes on the public lining. 

 The second child of the family with an elder brother and a younger sister. The elder was sent off to live with a family better financially, two villages away from them when the father died and feeding a day shifted into the hands of their ancestors like they like to put it. Ancestors that were worse than them when there were here. Ancestors many died of excessive palm wine meant to handle hunger. They probably were into the same way of living in the land of the spirits to care looking the way of those they left behind. Those that invoke their names nonstop 24 hours each day to no avail.

You're right to thinking those ancestors need help from those here more than those here need from them. The village where eating yam or pounded cassava twice a day with soup that have been heated more than gold for a week plus you can't tell the vegetable in it from the charcoal heating them, the ancestors must be useless. That soup is a sign of wealth in Umueke town and that is the family Chuku’s elder brother was sent off to. The poor fellow jumped at the opportunity. When the mother’s childhood friend that married to a man from a neighboring town living in the city visited her parents and saw the condition her forgotten friend is in, she promised herself to look for any family in the city that needs house help and sent Chuku to them. She and her family is just getting by in the city. They occupy a room there and three of his kids were living with people. the information is not what you broadcast in the village. Those there never knew that even in the city, things have fallen apart for long.

Three months later, she made true her promise and went back to the village to talk to Chuku’s mother who was reluctant to let go of her remaining son. But well-rehearsed narration wisely presented did the convincing and Chuku the following day went back to the city with her.

The truth is that the woman he is to live with wanted a kid in year one primary school five or six years of age she would spend about six years with not someone she will be through today orienting only to dispatch tomorrow for she is living on stipends from her kids. No money to send anyone to secondary school and she doesn’t want any adult as a house help. The last one he had refused to follow instructions, was liability more than help.

On sighting Chuku, she wasn't happy with what is in front of her. His emaciated stature and his concave-like face made him look fifteen and her face dropped.

“I don't want someone that age. I told you earlier”

“He is six, never mind his stature”

Eyeing him closely with eyes peeping from glasses that looked like two discarded disks, it took her more than five minutes of intense scrutiny to make up her mind.

 “ Have you advised him? I don’t want any headache from anyone and I don't want my instructions being flaunted”

“He knows all those things but for your peace of mind, let me repeat myself”

Another round of scrutiny followed. She was turning him this way and that like one examines a goat in the market. Only heaven knows whether all that was said there remained in his malnourished head and brain for he kept smiling to himself throughout the presentation and turnings. The lady that brought him knew that age issues will arise judging from the emphasis from the lady when she approached her for the first time. She had refused to handover the school transfer report, she got from the village school intending to hand it over when the school demands it. He had explained to the headmistress why she wanted the date on it forwarded a month.

By then, she reasoned, she could be able to defend herself and the boy from the woman's reaction and lay the blame on the foot If no one but the innocent mother in the village. Surely, our ancestors will understand. They will, for they know desperation, hunger, helplessness, malnutrition, and illusion more than anyone living. She concluded.

It took Chukwuka( Supremacy of God) which is what Chuku’s full name happened to be three days of fumbling in good faith and ignorance that know no bounds but the woman was understanding and patient enough to be educating him.

But leaving the mother and his little sister behind in the village seems to be surfacing in his dreams more than he ever believed they were there in the first place. He jerks awake in the middle of the night shouting his mother’s and sister’s names. After three days of repeated occurrences, the lady concluded that he needed to register for the catechism class and schools immediately. With the bombardment of such nature by his fellow kids, he will quickly forget yesterday and focused on today she reasoned.

 Mass services is practically none existence in the village for the family. Both parents were not religious kinds. The family is catholic in the name only, they knew close to nothing about happenings there. Only on Bazaar Day and Christmas do they venture in there. It’s as If he was going to church for the first time. The father never Baptized any of the kids, and the woman that brought him never knew what his baptismal name is. Chukwuka was what she saw in his transfer report paper. No English name. The boy doesn’t know anything about English names and they concluded he wasn't baptized. 

    He needed to do that before the Holy Communion catechism exam. All the new activities in his life were pushing his mental wellness to the breaking point when other kids looked to be enjoying themselves, he was under stress. The woman decided to make friends for him by selecting a few boys she believed to be sound enough and started inviting them to teach him where things are located in the city they did good work of kicking him out of his cocoon-like life and his introverted nature turned into a parrot-like extrovert. His head cleared within two weeks.

His messing up of himself and the toilet came to a halt when the boys went on crash course-like education on him. He was a good student too and was learning things quickly with the boys as teachers.

   Two months later, he got baptized on the same day he received holy communion. By then, he has learned how to lead prayers at the block rosary center and night prayers with the woman.

With enough diet in his meals, his true age seems to be surfacing and his village sagacity never ceased to amaze the old lady.

He seems to know how to go about handling certain things his mates In the city never know where and how to start. His judgments of humans and things transcend his age. Cooking certain local foods that the lady never learned from her mother comes easy to him.

Appreciation was walking in pari-passu in that family. The lady seems to be getting younger as Chuku gets fresher.