Deep in that yam country in the middle of paradise itself, where the landscape opens out in different shades of green, lies Adoka village and the Ode Ogbole compound. There are miles and miles of yam mounds, as far as the eye can see, and orange groves, with a compound situated in the corner of each plot of land, some more prosperous than the others.
Here, when a ninety-year-old man dies, it is not a departure. It is indeed a transition to the great beyond. You can’t help thinking that he lives on in those acres of yam country, in those gigantic trees, in those muscular sons, strapping daughters and grandchildren who have come after him. His legacy lives on and is everywhere. He has become a presiding spirit infused in the lives of his descendants.
The dirt road stretches out interminably from the turn-off on the highway to the east of the country. There are schools and compounds and Pentecostal churches at every bend. The early missionaries appeared to have made their entry here with education first, and then with the Bible. The culture embraced Christianity and made it its own, the hymns were set to the solemn beat of Idoma music. A single drum throbbed as a large church choir, about 100 members sat on wooden benches and sang. It was continuous, it flowed like a river, it had no beginning or end, just a continual swaying, hypnotic and solemn. The listeners swayed with it. The women cooking over wood fires swayed with it. The sons bustling about making arrangements for the funeral swayed with it. The children romping in the dust swayed. It caught everyone in its enthralling grip, sinuous, fluid, and melodious. The father of the clan was being serenaded like a prince to the other world.
It was a time for reunions. Sister Ify’s brother whom we had never met before had come from Kano; Sister Eunice from Lagos, Sister Phoebe from a distant town in the north-east whose name nobody knew how to pronounce. Greetings and introductions and laughter rang out. Each son entertained his ‘in-laws’ and guests in his own house in the compound. The heat made it impossible for anyone to remain indoors for long, so most of the entertainment took place outside. There was a canopy erected outside Aaron’s house for his own guests, and plastic chairs stacked in its shade. While the men sat there and rested from their travel with local brew, the women got busy on one side of the house where the outdoor cooking had begun. The conversation was muted and animated in turns.
Chopping the okra on a wooden board balanced on her knee, Sister Eunice ‘gisted’ about life in Lagos, an exhausting round of parties she said. Today this friend is having pink ashebi as the uniform for her birthday party, tomorrow it is grey and silver aso oke for a friend’s wedding anniversary; the day after it is red damask head-tie for a niece’s wedding.
You keep buying clothes and accessories on credit so as not to be left out, and your debt increases. This is life in Lagos, she said. Sister Beatrice from Port Harcourt was in charge of the egusi soup. She washed the giant slabs of stock fish tenderly, shredded the dark green ugwu leaves with great expertise and got even the Maggi cubes removed from their wrappers ready to start the soup. You swear by the ugwu leaf in Igboland, she said. It had all sorts of medicinal properties, such that you could soak and squeeze the leaves, drink the liquid and come out fortified, and less anaemic. Two hefty women pounded the yam in a huge mortar as steam rose from it and sweat dripped off their arms and necks. More yams were brought out of the store for boiling as cars pulled up in the distance and more city guests arrived. Each yam belonged to a particular variety, it was the connoisseur who knew which was intended for pounding, which for frying, for boiling, etc., and which combination gave the right consistency of pounded yam. There was art and skill, and Sister Ify supervised. Titi served those who came with their plates and made sure no one dipped their fingers into the soup-pot, unsolicited.
I busied myself, impressed by the order and discipline which emerges on these occasions without anyone imposing it over the situation. The men were fed first.
‘Do you know something,’ sister Eunice continued, ‘Idoma men have a curious way of complimenting their wives on their cooking? When they relish the meal that has been placed before them, they say to the wife, where is “that thing” you served a moment ago? When there is no talk, you know that the meal had nothing to recommend it.’
Women ate as they cooked. Brother Daniel’s ‘in-laws’ had come from the neighbouring villages ‘to lend support’. They sat in a row on the veranda of his home, facing each other with a steaming mound of pounded yam in front, and a common bowl of soup. Into it they dipped their fingers in turn and ate till each was satisfied. A generator set hummed in the distance and kept basic lighting on for the entire Ode Ogbole compound. We had a cold-water shower, taking turns in the bathroom, and retired for the night.
The drumming and the singing went on all through the night as I swayed myself to sleep. Our guests slept on mats in the living room. The day began early but time moved slowly. The women were all at their posts again making bean-fry and millet porridge for breakfast. They ate huge bowls full of the porridge accompanied by the bean-fry and whatever else was available. The chairs were being arranged for the funeral. More canopies came in. A water tanker was parked in front of the compound.
The women from the various houses fetched water in enamel basins. Ada was the chief water-carrier. Tirelessly, she carried water on her head and filled the various water-drums in the house.
Towards 9 o’clock people had their baths one by one and got ready in their aso oke, lace and damask. This was not to be a mourning but a celebration of Papa Ogbole’s life.
‘Brother Inusa’s getting old O! He wants hot water for a bath!’ said Sister Ify laughing, putting finishing touches to the bougainvillea wreath being assembled.
Aunty Becky sat on the bed while Sister Eunice started winding and knotting a piece of damask around her head. ‘Do it Miriam Babangida style—a bit tighter,’ she said as she peered into a hand-held mirror.
The local guests started arriving and took their places under the canopies. Each canopy was for a particular group of people—the church had its canopy with all the clergy fitted out in their collars; the visitors from Abuja (government dignitaries) had their canopy; in-laws and villagers had their canopy each.
The Idoma service was brief, neat, without fanfare, and solemn. Papa’s biography was read. It was a history not only of a hard-working and God-fearing individual but a history of the clan, the early church, and the arrival of the missionaries; a near-century of accomplishments, which included insurmountable barriers that had been breached to arrive at Papa’s destination. The man who bridged two worlds, colonial and post-colonial, had crossed the great divide and joined his ancestors. Papa’s descendants were introduced family by family, and asked to step out to the centre of the arena.
Brother Daniel’s younger wife had waited for this moment. She and her husband were in white—her white lace was the type with lots of peep holes over one half and gem stones embedded over the rest. Perched on sleek, white high-heeled shoes, she walked to the middle stylishly and stood beside her husband. You’d think she had won the Miss Universe contest. She was quite stunning. Her children wore jeans and T-shirts and stood apart from the village children with their dusty feet and ill-fitting clothes. The senior wife also answered the call but was somehow eclipsed by the presence of the city wife. Sister Maria had appeared from somewhere; she had left the village in a huff years ago when her husband had abandoned her and gone off to Lagos to try his luck in the oil industry. She came back plump and fair, well bleached and prosperous. City life had indeed been good for her. Her husband who had also come in for the funeral stood apart, entirely unconnected from her.
Papa’s wife was called out at the very end. In his eighties, as a widower of ten years, Papa’s sons had married him a wife—a homely woman to keep his hearth warm, cook his meals, and be there to answer his needs. Mamma Ogbole was fifty-five years old. She had assumed the role of mother, and now the mantle of widowhood had fallen upon her.
The palm oil sizzled in the aluminium saucepan. Put in the stockfish, Sister Beatrice said. The choir sang ‘Trust and Obey’ in Idoma to a very unusual beat. We fanned ourselves with the funeral programme. Now add the onion and pepper and crayfish, Beatrice instructed. I threw in a dash of dawa dawa and a couple of Maggi cubes. The pall-bearers carried the coffin slowly to the grave site.
There was a stillness in the air, and the leaves on the trees stopped moving. Sister Eunice who had lost two children to malaria was no newcomer to death. She watched without blinking as bitter memories flooded her mind. The bougainvillea wreath was carried by the grandchildren to the grave site. The soup was bubbling furiously. Now add the ogbonno and keep stirring, said Beatrice. The ugwu leaves went in last so that they retained their colour and flavour.
The guests were seated now as Ada and Phoebe carried trays of rice and pounded yam and delivered them to the various tables. Someone stuck his head into the kitchen and said ‘The pastors need mineral water—is there any pure water?’
‘The chicken is for the visitors from Abuja,’ Sister Ify reminded them as the girls hurried out with the trays.
Mineral drinks were opened and cartons of imported fruit juice.
‘Sister Maria is crying—someone please go in and talk to her,’ said Ify, as she rushed out to attend to the guests.
In the dark shadows of the bedroom, among piles of clothing, Maria sat on the edge of the bed weeping. The reality of her father’s departure was just beginning to dawn on her. Mamma had been gone for some years now. Desolate and orphaned, the youngest of twelve children, she wept for Papa. When her husband left her it was Papa who had taken care of her children and her own needs as she wandered about looking for a place to settle. Papa had been an invisible strength and presence.
The masquerades arrived to distract the mourners. With the rustling of their straw skirts, whip in hand, they wove in and out of the crowds. The drumming continued as children ran after them provoking them to turn around and whip them. From time to time they would stop in front of the Abuja visitors and beg for money.
I watched one of the ‘in-laws’ from afar as he sat on a stool, bent down to the pounded yam, took each ball and moulded it at leisure between his fingers and palm, then holding it adroitly dipped it in the soup and swallowed it. The fingers went back to the bowl of pounded yam. It was a tableau, like the swaying of the Idoma choir, like the rhythmic pounding of the yam in wooden mortars enveloped in steam. Sister Ify brought out the souvenirs, calendars for everyone, special plastic trays for the Abuja guests, and plastic cups for the ‘in-laws’. Papa in his early years smiled from the cups and trays and calendars. The four neighbouring villages had been given a cow each and several cartons of beer. This was a funeral they would talk about in years to come.