My nickname - Udoh Ukot
From Rpcvdraft
Story 1
U da cut ? I don't speak much Annang, but I do have 12 community farms and this is my 8th meeting to hear how a village is going to weed the oil palm at that time of year. I had not heard that phrase which was being used often by the villagers. That is when I discovered my nickname.
Ikot Ekepene is noted for its raffia palm wine. A couple of months before, my Peace Corp friend Mike S came from the Western Region to visit me for a week. We attended a village ceremony celebrating a new road. This was at my favorite village, my most remote. All the women and children and most men had left and it was 8 in the evening.
Since this is a short story, I challenged the village maker of native gin (ake, white lightening, kai kai, ufop fop or #1) to a drinking contest. With the second full glass, I realized that I was going to be able to finish it without taking a gulp of air. My foggy brain understood this would not be a good idea because it would mean a 3rd tumbler of white lightening, I removed the glass from my mouth with a great flourish, finish the rest and turned the tumbler upside down on our drinking stool.
"Akpan Ukot" said the winner of the competition. My friend the teacher translated "He is saying you are the first son of wine." Well I knew enough to say "No, he is Akpan Ukot, I am Udoh Ukot". Losely translated this means "the second son of wine".
Fabian, my trusty cook who sometimes traveled with me, was translating at that community farm meeting. I quietly asked him about this word "U da cut". He started to laugh and the meeting came to a halt. He first explained to the village what I had asked and they all started laughing. Then he said, "Sir, you remember that village celebration, when you drank with that man. That is the way these people say Udoh Ukot".
This nickname went far beyond one event. I found out that word had also spread about pre-meeting with a village elders, some miles removed from either village. At some point, the Obong (chief) was asking me about which area had the best raffia palm wine in Ikot Ekpene. I dodged the question.
He then poured another glass of raffia wine out of a jug one of his wives had just brought in. He asked me where the wine came from. I would like to say that I recognized where it came from by it bouquet, color and the size of the bubbles or even the markings on the jug. In truth, I used my knowledge of local markets and where people came from to make a wild guess. The Obong laughed at my guess and told me it came from his own trees outside the house. I told him a glass from the first jug did not taste the same as the one he just gave me. I was bluffing. He called out to the kitchen to find out where the wine came from. He was told they were afraid they would not have enough for the next 3 days and had indeed bought a large jug from the market. As luck would have it (or someone in the kitchen wanted me to look good) the second jug was purchased from a seller who came from the area I had guessed. I took full credit for the counter intuitive guess.
Post Script
I was trained, well there was an attempt to train me, to speak Igbo. However I was stationed in Ikot Ekepene Division, Annang Provence, Eastern Region as the Rural Development Officer. Annang was as close to Ibo as English is to Russian. All this took place in 1966.--Rcollman 17:12, 28 October 2007 (EST)
