Chapter 10 - I Saw My Fingers' Bones!

Chapter 9

My Sojourn

At Ajegunle, Idanre (in Ondo State)

"A few metres to where a trap was set, I stopped singing to take a closer look as I noticed a pecularity about it. In fact, the trap was no longer there! I was excited and began to trace the bloodstained path of the prey. I had to creep underneath the thick bush in the process, not minding the thorns that pricked me." At last, I saw the rodent at a distance and resolved to take it home, come what may; so I crept towards it. I had had the experience of some rodents escaping on traps at my advent. How they managed it, I cannot say. Determinedly this time, I raised my cutlass to hit the struggling rabbit. Then I heard a cracking “Alee” (meaning Hello) from nowhere. I was stunned, with my upraised hand arrested in motion. I looked about in my crouching position but I saw no one. The bush was thickly enveloping. I was frightened! "

In December 1967, my maternal Uncle, Israel, came home from Idanre to spend Christmas. I was there with my mother in their parents house. Uncle Israel was a very kind, humorous and loving person.

He had heard that I was out of School and offered to take me with him to Idanre. Mother agreed. So, in January 1968, we left for Ajegunle, a village some twenty kilometers after Idanre town. Uncle Aimasiko drove us from Ado-Ekiti where we passed a night with him. When we got to Akure, we took a taxi to Odode-Idanre.

In Idanre Township there were mountains of rock everywhere! I had never seen anything like that in my life - a town, which enjoyed, as it were, the support and protection of rocks as in Idanre. I observed the sure-footedness of goats climbing the steep faces of the rocks without falling! They were, indeed, mountain goats!

From there, the journey was still some 20 kilometres to Ajegunle, our final destination. We boarded the “Agbegilodo”, the open-back timber truck that was the popular means of transportation at the time.

The vehicle was very uncomfortable during the ride on the untarred road, which was full of bumps. Any attempt by the driver to avoid potholes was severely jolting and we struggled all the time to prevent our luggage from falling off. Crossing the few wooden bridges was the most frightening experience, as they were very narrow and barely accommodated the lorry. At every passage, I imagined myself falling with the lorry over the edge into the rivers or chasms below! But soon, as with every child, the experience began to titillate me, and I enjoyed it.

The houses in Ajegunle were built in rows, with very narrow passages between them for walking. There were about eight such rows for about half a kilometer in length.

Uncle Israel had been a contract cocoa farmer. His income was determined solely by the amount of cocoa he was able to produce in a year. Any such output was divided into three equal parts, with two-thirds going to the cocoa-farm owner.

Ajegunle had only one Methodist Primary School at that time, consisting of two buildings, each of which had four classrooms. In no time, Uncle Israel kept his promise by getting me admitted there. I was glad he did.

My teacher was one Mr. Komolafe, an Ekiti man. Another personality I admired very much, was said to be the son of the Oba of Igede Ekiti. I admired him because of his love for sports, his talent as a drummer, his beautiful voice and his smart, trendy appearance.

Mr. Komolafe and this man, name I cannot recall, lived in the same compound provided for the village schoolteachers. The house was a stone's throw to our door-less house. What we used as a door then was a board of the hingeless, thick bark of an Iroko tree, about five feet high and four feet wide. We usually supported it behind with some heavy layers of tree trunks at night to prevent it from falling over or being easily opened.

Our house contained four rooms and a large parlour. We occupied one room and the large parlour, while Pa Ogedengbe, a respected herbalist from Iyin, and two other people from Gogo and Efon Alaaye, all from Ekiti-land, occupied the remaining three rooms. There was a large backyard where we grew vegetables. It also provided space for our common kitchen and separate bathrooms, as well as layers of holes and cages where we reared some pigeons and fowl.

Shortly after I resumed school, Mr. Komolafe noticed my studiousness. He soon became very friendly with my Uncle and paid us regular evening visits during which he reported to Uncle about my academic performance and pleasant character.

I completed my primary three education in the school that year and was promoted to four. But soon after, there was a sudden closure of the school, creating another disruption of my academic undertaking. In those days, the period between late August and early February each year was usually unsafe for children in Idanre. It was a period kidnappers operated in the surrounding villages. So, for safety reasons, my Uncle like others, debarred me from going to school. That was in 1969.

In the interim, I joined in farm-work, hunting and domestic chores. In the midst of it, I did not stop reading my books in the evenings when the day's work was done. Because of my dedicated service, Uncle Israel loved me the more and encouraged me to maintain the attitude. I had my own small farm just beside his that I looked after in my spare time. But I never forgot my school time and was wont to hum this popular school song:

Iwekiko, Formal education

Laisi Oko, Without the hoe

Ati Ada, And cutlass

Koipe o (2ce) Is incomplete(2ce)

Ise Agbe n'isile wa, Farming is our bonafide occupation

Eni ko sise, An idle person

A ma j'alee, Will steal

Iwe Kiko, Formal education

Laisi Oko, Without the hoe

Ati Ada, And cutlass

Koipe o, Koipe o. Is incomplete (2ce)

Face to Face with Death

My sojourn in Idanre was exciting and eventful. On one such memorable event, I was nearly shot dead by a hunter who almost mistook me for an animal in a thick, thorny bush.

Uncle Israel had set snares on animal paths along the route to our farms. It was part of my daily duty to inspect these traps every morning. Because of the high incidence of kidnappings, there was a public injunction that children should always endeavour to sing loudly along, whenever they found themselves in out-of-the-way places. So that morning, as I was out to inspect the traps, I sang I.K. Dairo's “Owuro Lojo” (make haste while the sun shines) and a few lyrics of Dr. Orlando Owoh's gospel song, “Masika” (do no evil). As I recall these events and remember such beautiful works of great musicians like Ishola Adepoju's “Ayege ni Nigeria”, King Sunny Ade:“Alaanu L'Oluwa” (Our God is Merciful) and “Baba Jen t'egbe” (Lift Me Up); Ebenezer Obey's “Ketekete”, “Ninu Odun timbe laye” and “Aimasiko Londamu Eda”, (Inability to Understand God's Timing Is the Dilemma of Man) Lady Fashoyin's “Odun yi A Tura”, (This Shall be a Peaceful Year) Shola Rotimi's “Bowo fun Baba Re”, (Honour Your Parents) Haruna Ishola's “B'obinrin dara bio o Niwa”, (I can spend a fortune to marry a humble girl) etc, and the positive impacts they made on me, I continue to wonder who, between musicians and writers impact more decisively positively on the society and whether writers and musicians put together do not impact more positively on the society than most other professionals? If musicians make such positive impacts, then shouldn't they be more creative and positively oriented in their works? This is a food for thought for all musicians.

I sang these songs one after the other as loudly as I could so that anyone within a range of one hundred metres could have heard me.

A few metres to where a trap was set, I stopped singing to take a closer look as I noticed a pecularity about it. In fact, the trap was no longer there! I was excited and began to trace the bloodstained path of the prey. I had to creep underneath the thick bush in the process, not minding the thorns that pricked me.

At last, I saw the rodent at a distance and resolved to take it home, come what may; so I crept towards it. I had had the experience of some rodents escaping on traps at my advent. How they managed it, I cannot say. Determinedly this time, I raised my cutlass to hit the struggling rabbit. Then I heard a cracking “Alee” (meaning Hello) from nowhere. I was stunned, with my upraised hand arrested in motion. I looked about in my crouching position but I saw no one. The bush was thickly enveloping. I was frightened! Could it be a wild animal and if so, what type? An elephant, a tiger, or lion? But, in any case, animals don't talk! My heart beat fast and hard against my ribs. Yet, I could not make a dash for it in such uncertain circumstance. It was dangerous, so to do!

After a few seconds, the eerie greeting was repeated and I fearfully responsed, “ooo Bai”. I was literally floating in my fear! Could this be a kidnaper? He would be as dangerous as a wild animal.

For the third time, he greeted me, at which point I was able to catch a glimpse of the personality. It was a hunter with his gun trained directly on my forehead, ready to shoot. Luckily for me, I recognized him. We were from the same village. He explained the situation: “I had almost released the trigger before I observed that you were not an animal. Why didn't you sing aloud to indicate you are a human being?” he queried.

Thank God that I escaped being a hunter's game that day. I went home, doubly rejoicing. But in the evening, the hunter came to our house to inform my uncle of what had nearly happened. I had been too dazed to report the incident myself. However, my negligence did not prevent Uncle Israel from conceding to me the right to the head of the big rodent as custom in such circumstance required!

I Saw My Fingers' Bones

Again, my love for trapping nearly claimed four out of my five right-hand fingers. Another day, I went to inspect a trap beside a ridge in our yam farm. But it had not been sprung and I wondered why it had failed to deliver. I looked around the edges of the trap and could not see what could have prevented the targeted animals from falling prey. Except of course the heaps of sand nearby, which I resolved to remove.

As I did so with one of my hands, I was ensnared. Indeed, of my five right-hand fingers, only the thumb was not in the hook. It was a Sunday morning and I was alone! I groaned in pain. I tried to depress the lever of the iron trap to release my fingers but had no strength to accomplish it. I had to lift the trap on my head to carry it home. Before that, in my panic to ease the excruciating pain that I felt, I tried to squeeze the liquid from bitter leaves nearby as a balm with my left hand. It brought no relief. In the end, I placed everything - my cutlass, the trap and my hands upon my head. The journey took me through a cocoa farm, then I waded a stream and went down a hilly road before I heard voices of some people coming my way. Fearing that they might veer off the main road to their farms, I stepped up my pace to herd them off.

A characteristic of mine all my life has been my inability to speak loudly, not to talk of shouting. So, naturally, loud people unnerve me. But my own tribal people, the Ekitis, are the guiltier of this disposition. We talk as if we are in a perpetual state of quarrelsomeness with much energy and vigour. So with this morbid aversion to shouting, I could not call the attention of the people I was approaching quicker.

Eventually I got a glimpse of the two men and ran quickly towards them to seek their help. This they rendered agitatedly but promptly. Alas! my trapped fingers were freed from the snare. By this time the 'teeth' of the trap had so damaged them that I saw the bones. As blood was still gushing out of the wounds, my 'liberators' helped me to wrap the damaged fingers in the available plantain leaves. I had to manage like that until I got home where Uncle Israel and his wife pitifully and caringly nursed me to a restorative healing.

Imbibed Idanre Dialect

My Idanre experience was very rich. I adapted to the environment much faster than most children would. As quickly as I mastered the Idanre dialect, so quickly I forgot my own Ekiti tongue. But for the careful intervention of Uncle Israel, I would have had to re-learn my native dialect!

I continued to assist Uncle Israel on the farm until the later part of the first term when, luckily, our school was re-opened.

(To be continued)