View from the porch
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By Martin R. Wong, Ph.D. (5) 62-64 | By Martin R. Wong, Ph.D. (5) 62-64 | ||
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Evenings in Ebem, Ohafia, are not for thrill seekers. The | Evenings in Ebem, Ohafia, are not for thrill seekers. The | ||
somewhat weathered wooden porch that makes up the totality of | somewhat weathered wooden porch that makes up the totality of | ||
Revision as of 15:01, 2 January 2008
A View from the Porch By Martin R. Wong, Ph.D. (5) 62-64
Contents |
Page 12 Col 1
Evenings in Ebem, Ohafia, are not for thrill seekers. The somewhat weathered wooden porch that makes up the totality of Kalu’s Stylish Bar overlooks Ebem’s main street, the only paved street, on the way from Umuahia to Arochukwu. Off to the left side of the porch is the kerosene fired beer cooler. I think I can remember it actually being turned on once. On the right side was a wooden bench that would seat five in a pinch. Men in Nigeria don’t shrink from sitting hip-to-hip even when the temperature is 90 plus. A chair where Kalu usually sits completes the furniture. After two hours of tennis in the hot West African sun, Kalu’s Stylish Bar was irresistible. It was there I learned what transplanted German beer will do to your head when it comes to you at 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Sometimes when finances were tight, a little palm wine was in order. At other times I could even get a little “illicit” white lightning distilled from palm wine.
The porch was a great observation post for watching people. Ebemers mostly walked since the town was not that spread out and bicycles were for long-distance travel. Just as with Times Square, sooner or later everyone you wanted to see would walk by. Across the street was “Stay Young” photo studios run by Uduma Okala who usually spent more time on the tennis court down the street, and on the porch, than actually in his “studio” since business was not that good. He was perhaps the most sophisticated of the porch devotees since he had lived for a short while in Lagos and knew the ins and outs of diplomacy and trade. Unfortunately his several “wives” and 23 children had kept him somewhat tied down of late to Ebem.
Kalu owned the Stylish Bar. It was his house and his porch after all. He was a large affable man with a broad voice, an onye Ohafia in the old tradition - a warrior without a battle since time had taken the edge off his aggression as well as his need to prove anything to anyone other than it was nice to sit awhile over a warm beer. He frequently wore a wrapper and sometimes a striped wool stocking cap that had seen many campaigns. When tanked up a little, he was known to jump to his feet and yell, “A bu onye Ohafia”, a kind of Ohafia uber alles chant.
The other regular devotees of the porch numbered two or sometimes three but there were always drop-bys who stayed awhile to soak up atmosphere. Kalu’s was the only place in town where one could honestly come by a beer, or just conversation, if you happened to be down on your luck. Conversation - whether in Igbo or English - was an Ohafia delicacy and the art of it was not taken lightly. Everyone enjoyed a well-spoken phrase even if the content was not very relevant.
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Money doubler For several days that summer the conversation was all about the money doubler. An old Hausa man had taken to sitting on the football field with a basket in front of him. He just sat there most of the day and apparently slept there. Food magically appeared for him to eat.
It soon became known that he was a money doubler with contact to the spirits. He could double your money just by praying over it. Nobody questioned this in any real sense nor did they question why he looked so thin, malnourished, and impoverished himself if he could double money. When I finally begged the question I was told the obvious: it was spirit money that was doubled. He, as the progenitor of the money, couldn’t spend it. I had finally come across a true idealistic spreader of good will for all. On any other occasion than this Hausas were seen as good “watchnights” but generally lacking the motivation and drive seen to be inherited in the blood of Igbos.
For a few days some of the non-porch dwellers were trying out the money doubler with a ten Naira note or perhaps even a little more - nothing that couldn’t be done without. Denizens of the porch were far too sophisticated to go for anything like that. The word spread like wildfire. It was true. When someone gave the money to the old Hausa man and put it in his basket and he prayed over it all night, the money doubled. When he opened the basket in the morning, there was 20 Naira, handed over to the owners for their inspection.
Conversation on the porch was heating up. Most Ohafians have a little money stashed away somewhere for a rainy day; and heck, the prospect of doubling it sounded quite good. Nobody on the porch would admit to it, but brewing inside a few minds was the possibility of getting richer.
I think it was a Wednesday night when the money doubler really made his haul. Emboldened by the early successes, many Ohafians (including a few of the porch devotees) secretly took during the night what they had to the doubler for praying over. In the morning, the old Hausa man with his basket was gone. The fact of his disappearance with a considerable amount of Ohafia money was predictable to anyone who has been around the block a few times. Nevertheless the conversation on the porch for the next few days was all about the story, the money that no one on the porch would admit to losing, and how it all had taken place. What was more interesting was that no one actually saw the Hausa man as a thief, a grifter, a con man or any of the other terms that might be applied to the typical Nigerian scammer. They didn’t even seem angry. The money was gone, but the conversation was all about spirits, and why the man had left before completing his promises. He had to do it, they suggested. It was getting to be too much, the stakes were too high, the spirits could not convert so much cash. It just wasn’t reasonable to think that it would happen the way they had hoped. He was a Hausa man after all. They shouldn’t have expected so much. Suddenly their own brand of logic was being applied to the spirit world.
(Continued on page 13)
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My hard-wired brain thought a lot about superstition and juju and the hold it has on people and I wondered about the Nigerian mind. Two years after I got home my son was telling me about how he had had money doubled on a real estate transaction. I resisted his urging to invest. His experience with the money doubler in America was a reenactment of the visit of the Hausa man. He lost his ass.
Palm wine stories Some would say that alcohol is alcohol and the vehicle one uses to get it into one’s veins - whether that be beer, wine, whiskey or whatever - doesn’t matter. It’s not true. Palm wine tastes something like a kind of juice you’ve never tasted before and because it is like food, it takes awhile to sneak up behind you and loosen the tethers of the tongue. A more descriptive name for it might be “story elixir” or perhaps “liquid Maryanne”, but certainly not “truth serum”. It has two effects on the human psyche: (1) to tell stories to an appreciative audience who love everything you have to say; and (2) to insert a drummer into your head who doesn’t begin drumming on the inside of your skull until the next morning. In this case, however, the going up is usually worth the coming down.
Ohafians are story tellers anyway, but give them a few glasses of palm wine and the technique is tweaked to perfection. Tales of the bush, tales of times past, tales of basic human foibles gone amuck, tales of the spirit world and most certainly, true tales of the power and results of juju victimization are automatic. One such victim was the coach of the Ohafia High School soccer team, an intense man with a furrowed brow. He was not a porch regular but dropped by occasionally to let off steam. His team had had very little success in its season, games were lost at the last moment by free kicks, and other sure shots had gone awry. One day after a close loss to a nearby team, he showed up while we happened to be working on a gallon jar of the grey bubbly liquid that had been sitting on the porch for a few days. The wine in his belly combined with the anger in his mind and he suddenly declared loudly,“If you want to win you have to have means!”
“Absolutely,” I agreed, thinking that he meant practice facilities, time, balls, money, and so forth. He didn’t. It seems the final free kick that was to win the game for our side had started out unerringly for the upper-right corner of the goal. Just before it got there it swerved and took a right-hand slice of the kind any golfer has experienced. The other coach had been seen visiting one of the suspected juju men in the area and this was irrefutable proof that the other coach had means. “How can we win?” he sputtered. The ball didn’t just slice, it was pushed by the notorious means. Full stop. He declared that if we wanted to win, we had better be prepared to cough up for some means of our own. Everyone on the porch nodded in assent and commiserated with the beleaguered coach. Vince Lombardi truly was a man who had means! (Continued from page 12)
