By
Obododimma Oha
Grandfather did not allow my father to attend either school or go to church. For grandfather, school was foolishness. Church, too, was mere noise and clean/new clothes. "Ndị ụka," which, in its ambiguity, could mean " people who just talk" and "people who make trouble." Grandfather disliked both. Father, therefore, had to escape to Cameroon where he taught himself how to read and write. Grandfather, in fact, had to pretend that he was dead for his son to return after some months.
The old hunter was really not happy with school. What were they learning at school? Was it not the bad language he had heard from the mouths of children who were attending school? "Raa nsị" (Eat shit). A human being to eat shit? He would not allow his own son to go and learn something like that. In fact, "when the dog hangs its bag on the shoulder, there would be no more faeces left in the bush. And when a rat moults the skin, be sure to have a rat retarded in growth."
But if grandfather did not want his son to embrace a new religion, why did he hate school so much? First, in his thinking, it was the same church people - empty talkers - - who were also running the schools. How was he sure that they would not teach" Raa nsị" there and just talk? So, the idea of schooling was not wise to him. It was even dangerous!
For grandfather, school and church should help people to stop doing or saying bad things. And not give people the freedom to utter or do whatever they liked. That's not life that we can desire.
It was when father escaped to Cameroon and taught himself that great art of writing and reading letters that Grandfather understood that school could be better than the town-crier when it comes to delivering messages. Father wrote series of letters to grandfather, sometimes enclosing "Ego oyibo" (European money). And grandfather hardly knew that those things were money, those pieces of paper!
Grandfather did not really hate books. He only hated book people and their ways : their orientation to falsehood and emptiness. Book people speaking through their nostrils. Book people speaking as if they no longer go to toilet. Book people living false life. Book people leaving their fingernails to grow too long and not caring to cut them. Book people no longer touching the soil, when our wizened ones say that "Aka àjà àjà na-eweta ọnụ mmanụ mmanụ" (Soiled hands bring oiled mouths). Book people who no longer touched the soil. Book people who know only books and not the earth!
So, grandfather needed to protect his son from this life that was not life. But his son saw something, too, and had to escape. Later, he had to use paper to show it, that magic of sending symbols, scratches on paper, instead of sending a town-crier! In fact, in one of his letters to grandfather, he had to indicate that he was the one performing the magic with symbols on paper. Could the old man imagine that!
Ironically, "escape" became return to self and restoration. Something had to escape from him for him to return to himself. No more playing the masquerade from village to village and moonlight plays. He was able to tell a bad example from a good one. But, above all, there was that opportunity for something to germinate in him. First, he became his own teacher. Second, the magic came right out of him.
Today, when I reflect on grandfather's decision and father's escape, I realize that there were times when people saw and did things to become people. Grandfather and father had lives.
Comments