The little girl did not make it any easy on the old man too. Sensing his discomfort, she had, on many occasions, annoyingly made the man the main character of her folk stories.She loved to tell stories, that one. One of little Uma’s favorite was the story of Naman from the bible, the leper that got healed by Jesus after a bath in River Jordan. A story often characterized by a defecating man in Akobiri, A compound in Eniwari , their village.
The Eniwari River is a sub break from the river Niger. On the Northern part of Eniwari is a small creek flowing inside BOLOU KUNU. Situated by the side of the Silver River, it flows from Funibiri, breaking into many tributaries and into the Atlantic Ocean.
Because the only trusted drinking water in the whole village was the water flowing from inside the Silver creek, the town’s chiefs made laws criminalizing defecation in the watersides. This was law until the compound heads in Akobiri saw a seer about the fate of their compound and was told the reason the Akobiri women where usually barren was because people were not allowed to defecate in their water fronts. The wise seer drew a correlation between feces and children. From the point of their revoking the bam on defecation, the Compound became a spot for cleansing activities. Amidst the frequent visitors to the Akobiri haven was Kala-oga and Uma witnessed an accident. She wasn’t going to let the Namam story rest now. Off course, there would have to be made some minor adjustments to her story too...
‘There was a bad man living in Israel a long time ago. He was a leper too. Bad men are always leprous’ she began, sitting amidst her playmates. The story was usually told within earshot so Kala-oga could hear her as well.
‘One day Jesus saw him and told him to go and bath in Akobiri in Isreal. You know? People that bath there were cured of sicknesses and bad minds ? But this man refused. Instead he wanted to defecate, so he went there in the evening’.
Kala-oga was shifting restlessly now. This story had been told over and over again and the grownups knew the main character of Uma’s story. It was just a matter of time until ‘bad-man’ changed identity to 'Uncle Kala-oga'. This wasn’t good.
‘Early in the evening, bad-man climbed atop Fou’s big canoe and started defecating. Only, this time the canoe upturned and he fell in the water and on his own shit! When he came up, his body was covered in feces so Jesus told him to go and wash himself clean and give Uma roasted fish so he will not fall inside feces again. From that day Uncle and Uma became very good friends!'
she ended her story.
’
Whenever her stories ended this way, everybody knew Uma was hungry. Her hunger motivated stories always ended with a character giving her something to eat. This was such a time. Uncle Kala-oga was relieved too.It could have been a lot worse…
Inset Picture; Eniwari, Nigeria.
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