By
Obododimma
Oha
In a Facebook
update that I liked so much, Chinemerem Mary Anyị featured a very important
Igbo proverb, “Nkụ mmadụ kpara n’ọkọchị
ka ọ na-anya n’udummiri” (which I could roughly translate into English as
“The firewood which one collected in the dry season is what one what burns and
uses in basking to keep warm in the rainy season”). That lovely proverb, which
is the type used by elderly people in counseling people on industry and
commitment, served as a paradigm for a story I read and enjoyed in our Day-by-Day English coursebook at the
elementary school in those days. In that obviously adapted story, the main
characters were the carefree grasshopper and the industrious ant. The
grasshopper was said to be busy singing and enjoying its music and looking
good, while the ant gathered and stored and saved. The ant was thinking about
tomorrow; the grasshopper, on the other hand, was only thinking about its
music and its aesthetics (if he cared to think at all!). That was in the dry
season, but the rains soon came and everywhere was nasty. While the ant went
inside its chamber and enjoyed all it stored and kept warm, the grasshopper had
nothing and soon died as a consequence of its own lack of vision or
preparedness. You could understand why I easily fell for the proverb that Anyị
shared. She was indeed plucking strings on life-skills in my memory without
knowing it! In addition, I started writing a blog article this morning on
indigenous knowledge. Chinemerem Mary Anyị’s update was perfectly an
inspiration and one could see clearly that what looked like a coincidence was
actually a useful background and invitation to write this essay.
Chinemerem
Mary Anyị’s post also brought to my mind a very important memory of my late
father. The proverb was one of his favourites, whenever he was conselling his
family members. There were, of course, some other proverbs that he was fond of,
but this was his regular. It was as if he was speaking through the proverb, or
that he lived immortally in the proverb shared. It was as if he was speaking
again and I could hear his voice. How reasonable Facebook updates can do things
without our realising that? My late father did not live at a time of mobile
telephony; not to talk of owning a Facebook account. But, if things of life are
really connected and our immortality could also be gleaned in our attachment to
our signification hereonearth, could my late father be seen as facebooking
through my Facebook friend; in fact, not letting her have peace until she had
posted the proverb on her wall where I could see it, so that my father could
talk to me again?
You will
notice my interest in the first part of the Igbo expression, precisely in the subject-NP
of the expression, if you care for the grammar. That is like a formula and the
most important part I want the audience to focus on. Hence, that first part has
been used as my title (which, stylistically, exhibits incompleteness or gaps
that the audience could complete). It is an invitation to complete the blank
spaces, a humble test! As a formula, I am suggesting that if you can remember
it, you can remember the rest. Once you can join the busy ant in collecting
fuelwood in dry season, what follows in the season (the consequence) is
predictable. So, you see, there is logic there! Also, if the consequence
happens to change, if the nasty rainy season does not come, the gatherer of the
wood still has property to boast about. The lazy grasshopper has nothing to live
for. Its songs and beautiful look would not suddenly become food and sit on the
table.
Right away,
we could see the proverb talking to us about making personal savings. Is that
not Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter are interested in Rich
Dad, Poor Dad and George S. Clason in The Richest Man in
Babylon? He, in fact, encourages us to pay ourselves (about 10%, I think)
whenever we are paid. He insists that we should pay ourselves first whenever we
are paid! What a great idea for those of us who are big spenders but meagre
earners; for those of us who pray, “Give us this day, our daily bread,” without
making efforts the next day in baking our bread? What Kiyosaki and Lechter are talking about
also serves as the central issue that Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American thinker,
also dwells upon in The Way to Wealth.
Not only do some of us overlook opportunities out of laziness, but also waste
resources! Yet,they may be the first to complain about leans earnings when they
let opportunities slip by or they lavish resources and disturb the Maker to
miraculously fill their barns with plenty.
What is
applicable to individuals in this case is also applicable to countries. How do
they treat their resources? Do their leaders even care about the future and the
need to have reserves like the ant, instead of borrowing and borrowing? Was it
in school that we were told that whoever goes a-borrowing, goes a-sorrowing?
Would these countries that have accumulated huge debts at IMF and World BanK
tell me that they are not going a-sorrowing and are highly distressed?
Nkụ mmadụ kpara n’udummiri....Thank you, Chinemerem, for
that insightful update in a proverb. You talked to the world, not just me. I am
sure, with it, the wise would get wiser, but the simpleton would get worse. As
it is to the individual, so it is to society.
Comments