agbala

SCHOOL IN THE VILLAGE Immunisation has to do with everyone in the village. We were ordered to queue up in front of the Headmasters office. The health workers in their whites looking smart. Those days when they use the same syringe to inject everyone in the village. I stood on the line that was moving so slowing because of the long process of sterilizing the syringe. You can't run away from the queue because you have been marked present in class and if you are absent from the immunisation you will have so much questions to answer. I mean serious cane when you reappear. I was thinking, "why did I come to school today" But they would have come to pick me up at home all the same. I can hear the screams of children who are younger and even those who are older than myself.   What will I do when it is my turn? We were getting closer by now, I hear people discussing the different levels of pain. After injecting one by the shoulder the syringe is placed in fire from so...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9years today.  God we give you thanks for your enduring love. For 9 good years you have kept us together, For 9 years you have blessed us, With gifts of all kinds With children who look and acts so much like us, We can’t count how much of your faithfulness we have enjoyed so far. 9 years of disagreements and trying to make someone like you by all means. 9 years of eating the same food and loving it more each time. 9 years of looking into the same eyes sometimes sad sometimes happy but at all times lovingly. 9 years, just like yesterday.   I am the most blessed husband in these nine years Yes, so blessed to have Rowoli say yes to me 9 years ago. She agreed to change her name and bear mine. She agreed to live with me forever no matter what. People say I am handsome, but what is my handsome face compared to her loving heart? “MY WIFE” as I fondly call her. Thank you for marrying me 9 years ago.   You are the bes...

We were given orders by my grand father to go work in the farm, not too far from the house. Two of my uncles my grandfather's sons and I left for the farm when we returned from school. The cassava farm is becoming overgrown with weeds. We looked at the weeds and... VICTOR: Let us rest before we start to work. MARCUS: You are right I am tired. Out of fear of what will happen if we did no work I said. "Let us work before rest" We started from the same spot, uprooted weeds from just one furrow. Time to play. An election took place right there and Victor became the governor and the rest of us will have to donate money to him. Money... Palm kernel. Whoever donates the biggest and more kernel becomes the deputy governor. Running from under one palm tree to another palm tree looking for kernel for our governor. Victor the governor sat under a tree, just eating and eating palm kernel. We have forgotten what we came to the farm to do. I got a very big kernel, w...

This was so many years back, when village life was sweet.   We wake up in the morning sometimes crying because we do not want to go to the farm. I remember one faithful day, I was running away from big uncles who leads us to the farm. Only to be cornered at a point and dropped in a cocoa bag. Off to the farm. The bush path looks lonely and deserted because the early risers have left for the farm. My Uncle brought me out of the bag and asked me to go back home. I looked at  the way back and, no i can't co back home. I ran in front of them singing and jumping to the farm. Too little to do any hard work in the farm I was made to sit in the farm hut, picking wood for the fire. and make sure the fire does not go out under the pot of yam. I go to the farm only to eat and play. Why will I cry when it is time to go to the farm? I still wonder till date... I laugh when I remember those days back in the village. I will be bringing another village life style ...

The cry of a little girl piercing through the forest, everything seems to come to a stand-still at that sound. The girl did not know anything about her greatness. As she stops screaming tears from her Cristal bright eyes, she noticed she was all alone. What a dangerous place to leave a baby as beautiful as the rose flower smiling at the sky. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, to the right and to the left. She looked around her. Could this be true? Am I alone, how, why, what do I know to do? Who will take me to where everyone is? To a place I will see my peers, to a place I can run around clapping and singing. That place where there will always be someone to watch over me. Could this be a dream? She looked around to be sure she was sleeping. There was no picture of sleep so dream is out of place. She pinched herself “ha I feel the pain” she looked around her as if to find a toy to play with or keep her company. Everything around her is not, not and not a toy.