by
Obododimma Oha
On the 2nd of August, I set
out as a passenger on a friend's motorbike to go and deliver a parcel to
another friend in a religious community in our local area. It was drizzling -- and indeed, it had
rained heavily the night before, making the access roads impassable. Indeed,
the local people became locked up by the flood. The local people were like those marooned
and one can, in fact, think of the Deluge and the enormous challenges somebody like
Noah had to face. Well, I was very sad as I mounted the bike and to console
myself, referred to the drizzle in the local expression as "afụrụ di
ji" (a metaphor that meant "the sweat of the husband of yams")
for traditionally the professional farmers ("di ji") would brave
this kind of wetness and bad weather to go to their yam farms and be tending
the yam tendrils. Yes, "afụrụ ji." But that "sweat" was
also symbolic. In fact, along that symbolic path of thinking is the fact that the
bike driver set out and drove literally into the bush. I was first alarmed, but he calmed me down, saying
he understood what he was doing. He drove through what used to be a footpath, which had
obviously disappeared. Then, the symbolism dawned on me: the wide roads had
started shrinking and had become footpaths, (even communities!) such that motorbikes had to
negotiate the thin relationship between open
roads closed by by the flood water and bush exit. We drove through the bush for
some minutes and I had to ask him if he was not afraid of getting a puncture.
He said no. The bike wobbled on and finally made an exit on a road less taken
by the flood. I heaved a sigh of relief mainly because I was afraid that he had
kidnapping plans. In fact, I was secretly getting ready for any unusual incarceration,
in case! So a great relief when we emerged from the bush.
A great lesson for me: those
of us who had Western education with the mindset that things move from good to
better or from bad to worse should do a rethink. Things can move from bad to
better or from good to worst, it seems. Comparative and superlative degrees make no sense here! The point is just that linearity and
predictability belong to illusion. Why, for instance, should I be worried that
that young man has ragged jeans pants on, making fashion more difficult for the
mad fellow in our village? Should it not be possible for mad people to have an
input into the wonderful and morphing fashion industry? Even rags that mimick the mad are
saying things about a civilization in tatters, a civilization threatened by
darkness?
The roads are now shrinking.
In those days in our village, one could tell a road from a bush path made by
the naked feet of palm-wine tappers who had to do their round from tree to
tree. These days, the wide roads are shrinking, becoming footpaths of the
kingdom-gone. That motivational speaker that says that it is well when we know
that it is not is merely acting a play and joking. The reality is that it is not
well when broad roads shrink to footpaths. It is NOT well. Obviously, something
is wrong or not sitting well. The abnormal cannot be normal, even if Humpty
Dumpty imposes his own reality on Alice.
There is a difference
between iro (or ilo), meaning the road, and gịrịrị ụzọ (footpath) in Igbo. The
expression "gịrịrị" (or gịrịgirị) graphically and iconically conveys the snake-like and slimness.
When roads slim down to the point of being described as "snakes,"
either the roads are meanly starved or are not roads in the first place. I like
the metaphor of roads, because of that connotation that they lead somewhere.
Roads are always looking ahead. Roads branch out and continue. Roads lead to
roads, carrying many feet. If they can still be imagined as "snakes,"
then such snakes must be enormous and do swallow many walkers and runners.
The more I walk on roads,
the more they look dreamy and alter my dreams. When the feet have known roads,
they become frightened when they are forced to walk down footpaths, when broad
roads of yesterday have become mere footpaths of today. In that case, roads and
footpaths become synonyms, even same. Roads becoming footpaths speak about a
terrible kind of change, like darkness becoming the light and night becoming
day. These are obviously distortions, not just ironies.
If we say
"Goodbye" to the past, then we need to apologize to our dead
ancestors. Those fellows laboured hard to build community, even though they did
not have western education. Those fellows had crude technology, if they had
technology at all. Those fellows opened up roads, joining community to
community. We called them "backward people". If, in fact, if these people see us now making calls with the mobile phone, they would think that we acquired powerful charms. How can we be communicating with some people at a distance unless with powerful juju? Yet, those "ignorant people" were able to build roads that did not
become footpaths, their women even weeding and sweeping the wide roads
regularly. Today you try to establish special cleaning days or sweep your house when God is visiting! I duff my cap for people who were able to link community with
community, using roads, not footpaths.
Comments