Chigozirim is the 3rd of 7 children who lived with their parents in their ancestral home in a village in Imo State. Poverty spoke loud and proudly in the family. His Father was a palm wine tapper while his mother was a palm oil extractor.
Because of the agonizing level of poverty the family experienced, none of the children could go to school except the eldest child, even the free community school could not take them because they barely had cloths on. They were always seen running around the village in their underwear.
The children help their mother in the extraction of palm oil from palm kernels. The family relied heavily on the proceeds from the sale of the palm wine and palm oil for feeding. They mostly eat Akpu which was the cheapest food in the Eastern Nigeria as it was widely grown at the backyard of almost every household.
Whenever anyone fell ill in the family, their father who could not afford hospital bills would instruct their mother to cook all manner of leaves, whether it was malaria, typhoid or nmuo ojoo the person was suffering from, they were healed by extracts from the leaves.
As a result of little or no money to train them in school, their father decided to give some of the children out to relations or anyone who was willing to take them and train them in school or business. 5 of the children were taken by benevolent relations and friends of the family to cities or nearby villages. Among the 5 children taken, 3 were boys who were taken to the cities to serve their masters in business in order to be “settled” after a period of time and the remaining 2 girls were taken to serve as house helps in nearby villages.
Their father loved the idea of the boys going to the cities to learn trade because Igbos are known to have business enterprises all over the country and the world, and also known to have one of the most advanced business incubating system in the world, which gives young Igbo boy opportunity to learn trade/business, grow in the business and a chance to help themselves, their parents and siblings after anticipated success.
Chigozirim was one of the boys taken by a relation. His uncle (Chigozirim’s mother’s younger brother) took him to the northern part of Nigeria to learn spare parts trade. He was excited likewise his mother. His uncle was married with 2 children (at the time), not necessarily rich but he had a car and could pay his children’s school fees.
On his way to the North with his uncle beside him and his cloths in a nylon bag on his laps, Chigozirim dreamt of the life ahead of him. Having seen how successful other young boys were after serving their masters for an approximate period of 6 years, he counted in his head and arrived at 18. If he served his uncle for 6 years, he would be “settled” at the age of 18 as he was 12 then. Even if 2 extra years is added to his service term (as this was the case sometimes), he would be 20 years which was still not late to establish his own business, take care of his parents and siblings as expected before he got married. He planned and hoped for the best.
Upon arrival in his uncle’s house, as Nwa Boy, he expected that in the mornings he would follow his uncle to his shop to commence the learning of trade along with other Nwa Boys who were already learning trade under his uncle as he was told. He went to the shop for a week and 2 days and loved it. One day, his uncle’s wife told her husband “obim, you know our 2 children are still small, e needi kwaram house help, so why don’t you allow Chigozirim to stay at home and help me with the children and cleaning the house biko?” Her husband suggested bringing a girl from the village since he had promised his elder sister that Chigozirim will learn his trade but the woman said the house would be crowded if another person joined them. Her husband agreed and that was how Chigozirim’s designation changed from Nwa Boy to House Boy. His dreams shattered and his misery began.
I believe there are different kinds of wickedness. There are wickedness mixed with cruelty, sautéed nefariousness, wickedness mixed with sin, follow-come wickedness, wickedness garnisheed with evil, wickedness mixed with vileness, wickedness accompanied by viciousness (in fact at this point I don’t know what I’m writing sef). Chigozirim’s uncle’s wife had all the wickedness mentioned above inhabiting in her. Kai! Her wickedness was legendry. I know you have heard of wicked aunties and madams but I’m not sure you have heard of Mama Collins kind of wickedness.
Mama Collins is a full time child-bearing illiterate housewife. She had never attempted any business or secured employment of any sort since she married Papa Collins. All she did was cook, eat, and spread. As these activities do not really require brainstorming so she schemed, planned and came up with vicious ways to torment Chigozirim for no reason. This woman did unprintable things to the little boy without care.
On several occasions, Chigozirim cried to sleep because of hunger. He slept in the kitchen and ate leftover food. Imagine how leftover eba of a 3-year old child would look, that was what Chigozirim ate at night by 11pm when everyone must have gone to bed. Some mornings, Mama Collins also made him to drink the leftover tea of her children, u know the kind with bread stock inside and gwolo-ed together, the kind you wouldn’t want to give your dog if you love it, that was what he took as breakfast.
Chigozirim was usually the first to wake in the house. He would fetch water, boil water for the entire family to bath, warm food and do other chores assigned to him the night before by Mama Collins. Of course Papa Collins gave her money to enroll him into school since he was now a house boy but Mama Collins downed the money unknown to Papa Collins who left the house in the mornings and returned at nights. She said over her dead body would he go to school.
Once upon a time, Mama Collins sent Chigozirim on an errand to buy spinach for making porridge yam, upon handing the spinach to his madam, some fell on the ground from the nylon, and without warning she slapped him so hard he fell on the ground, stood up immediately and started walking in circles, zombie style. When he regained himself, she asked him to wash the spinach that fell on the ground and with fear, Chigozirim used detergent and bar soap to do the washing and Imo hell broke loose. She used a wooden spatula to beat the living hell out of him. The way she beat him ee, you would think she was wondering why the living hell was inside him in the first place. While beating him, Chigozirim fell on the ground and she stomped on his stomach bringing out unprepared excreta from his anus. Chigozirim shit for body. The size of the scars on his body is the same size as the weapons used in inflicting the wound that resulted in the scars.
There were various unspeakable things Mama Collins did to Chigozirim but one stood out as unforgettable. One morning, as usual, he packed out the dishes used by the family the night before to wash. While washing, he notice a little leftover eba in Papa Collins’ plate and he disposed it along with other trash he gathered from the house. The evening of that day, before she made dinner, Mama Collins asked him about the eba Papa Collins remained the night before, he told her he had disposed it. Disposed kwa! She tied his hands and legs together because she didn’t want any resistance while beating him, she flogged his buttock so badly he could barely sit. Before Papa Collins returned from his shop that day, she untied him and asked him to go to the dust bin and retrieve the eba he disposed. On inspection of Mama Collins, he limped outside and dug into the massive dirty dust bin meant for the whole compound with his legs hanging in the air. Due to several trash in the dust bin, it took a while before he saw what looked like the stale eba beside a used baby diaper. The eba had lots of dirt sticking to it including dust, broken razor blade, rotten fish bones, tiny brooms and match sticks, used tissue paper and other dirt, in fact the eba was no longer yellow, it was blackish brown. She asked him to remove the dirt on the eba and she stored it at the back of a cupboard in the kitchen away from the sight of Papa Collins. When it was time for Chigozirim to eat, she gathered the leftover okro soup from Papa Collins, hers and the children’s plates into the cover of a small dish and added a little more from the pot, brought out the eba from the back of the cupboard and gave to Chigozirim to eat. She sat in the kitchen and watched him eat the “food” while saying to him “na ndugi, you will never never throw away my food again”.
At 20, Chigozirim finally started learning trade in his uncles shop and was settled at age 28. He started his own spare parts business and was doing well. He lived on his own. After some years, his uncle became ill and his business collapsed. Chigozirim took up the responsibility of taking care of the Papa Collins, Mama Collins and their 4 children (they were 3 boys and a girl).
At age 35, Chigozirim bought a car, built a house for his mother in their village (his father died when his was 19) and paid the tuition fees for Mama Collins’ first 2 boys at the University. The third boy lived with him and learnt trade in his shop. Chigozirim also paid the school fees of the only girl child of Mama Collins who was in Secondary School.
Papa Collins died of heart failure when Chigozirim was 32.
Chigozirim is 44 now, married with 2 children.
Ogechukwu Ikwueme
(Nwanne unu Nwanyi)
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