Ndenga

Part 1: The Shrine

She is the goddess of time. Thousands of moons ago Ndenga froze a single day of harvest for what many believe lasted the equivalent of four market days, from Obo to Edet¹. This was as reward for the outstanding labor and cooperation among the people of Nto Ansa, that farming season. Merriment was awash among the youths and elders of the village. The children enjoyed the longest period before they had to make that irksome routine trip to wash themselves at the chilling village stream the next dusk. Till this day the village of Nto Ansa still wait for when the deity will be that generous again. Till this day the village only refers to such a time in fables and adages.

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It was two weeks since the wagon dropped me and the other travellers at the village square in one of its biweekly trips from the city. My parents had decided to send me to the village, to my grandma, in an effort to quell my many mischieves at the city. The latest was heating a metal spring and picking it up with a tong to roll on my brother's inner thigh while he slept. Well, he bridged our agreement by taking a meat from the soup before I did, and I only punished him for doing that. But my parents, especially my mum, thought I was driven by an evil spirit.

Mum sent a message to grandma and they agreed I needed to be cleansed. I overheard her try to convince my dad while I was hid in the wardrobe of their room. This isn't part of the story, but I originally went there to steal milk when they came into the room unannounced. Although my dad had some doubt about I being possessed by any spirit, he gave in because he thought the change in environment could do me some good. It was holidays after all. So they agreed I will make the trip to stay with grandma for a week. Old, boring grandma. Next was to look for someone they could entrust me to during the trip.

Grandma couldn't come to pick me because it was late when our bus arrived. But my older cousin, Nsikak was sent to wait for me. He tied my belongings to the back of his bicycle that was unnecessarily beautified with hanging ribbons and Christmas lights. Yes, this was April. The next day I also realized Nsikak had perm on his hair and his nickname was “Nelly” around the village. I learnt two girls were already pregnant for him.

I sat on top of the boxes tied to the bike seat, and my cousin kept reminding me to spread my legs so I don't put them in the spokes of his “power bike.” He boasted they will crush my limbs to the hips because his bike was “imported.” All these between endless annoying chatters about life in the city. It was hard to tell who was coming from the city and who was in the village. The path we rode was dark, but somehow he managed to navigate fine despite the uselessness of the tiny dynamo-powered lamp on his bicycle.

That night I ate the most pepperish porridge of my entire life. Obviously grandma was expecting me, and she knew I was sent to be punished. Or so it seemed. The pepper made me drink too much water and I think I peed on the bed that night. This was the beginning of my discomfort with village life. Until I met Vincent.

Vincent’s father was head of the missionary school in my village. Recently transferred, the family had lived among my kinsmen for just a few months. Like me, Vincent was only trying to adapt to the steep from city life to village life. We learnt soon that adventures best fill in the boredom. He and his family had been around a bit longer, so it was normal for “V”, as I came to call him, to lead the adventures we will share in my short stay at the village.

We covered our faces with black semi transparent polythene bags, as we stole star fruits and mangoes from the backyard of old man Mayor. We read letters from Mama Uche’s son who stayed in Ibadan and gave the wrong translation to his illiterate mother who sought our help as interpreters. Her son just finished NYSC and wrote to tell the mum to pray for him to find a job. Instead, we told her that Uche bought two cars and is thinking of getting married already. Mama Uche had jumped up for a dance before pausing to think loud, nwam bu obere nwa, o bughi nwunye bu nkpa ya ugbua. Aged just 19 a wife was the least thing Uche needed, she thought.

I was beginning to enjoy the village, thanks to Vincent, and the occasional visit to the palm wine tapper’s hut when Nsikak was trying to bribe me to either tell him the plot of the latest American movie or names of streets and places in the city. Because of this busy schedule I already skipped two appointments to the priest with grandma.

When I heard a whistle from the other side of the thatched fence that surrounded grandma’s backyard, I knew it was Vincent. My grandma didn’t like him much, and V knew. It was time to get loose around the village. Like me, Vincent was in clean clothes and our legs were both clean and shiny like the late morning sun above Nto Ansa. We just cleaned up for the day and it will be a few hours before our feet blended with the dust of the earth. It was time to go explore a path we discovered the previous day, one that was too dark and ominous to attempt tracing then.

We walked and ran as we started into the adjoining snaky road. I heard grandma scream my name, but before she could step out of her room, she only met with the dust raised by I and Vincent's race into the narrow road parted by foot than machines. Another appointment with the priest gone in the air, roasted by our mischief.

For every bend we took as we made our way into the thick bush, we tied a piece of bright orange rag to a tree. This is so we can find our way out of the bush, however deep we went in. This was Vincent’s idea. His father was also a marshal with a voluntary vigilante and this was one of the many things he taught Vincent. I had this orange tee and shorts I used for my school’s inter-house sports a few weeks before school closed. We ripped it into shreds as we explored. Our shadows were gradually getting underneath us when we got to where it was leading. It was a shrine.

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¹ Among the Annang peple of southern Nigeria, a week is a eight day cycle (Obo, Uruabom, Afiong, Edet, Editaha, Atim, Afionetor, Edet Obo) named after the major markets.

Image from Pixabay, released under Creative Commons CC0