Tamale Blues by Ayesha H. Attah

Of all the places she could be right now, this was the last she’d be caught dead in. In a rickety old bus, sitting next to a hen peeking out of a basket. The State Insurance Bus rattled over a speed bump, making the hen squawk, its head darting in and out of the basket. Nana glared at her uncle who was unperturbed by the commotion, though sweat had gathered on his pink T-shirt, dyeing it red. She sat in the middle seat, which had been lifted five times already for someone to get down to pee, for someone to vomit, for someone’s child to poop...



This story has been selected for the StoryTime anthology African Roar, please go to the African Roar site for more info on the book.

Tamale Blues was written by Ayesha Harruna Attah.

Copyright Ayesha H. Attah 2009.

Ayesha Harruna Attah is a writer and journalist. She has worked as a freelance writer for the Accra Daily Mail, a Ghanaian newspaper, the AFRican Magazine and Yachting Magazine.


Born in Accra, Ghana, Ayesha lived there for 17 years before moving to Massachusetts to study biochemistry at Mount Holyoke College. She also holds an M.S. in magazine journalism from Columbia University.


At the Per Sesh Writer's Workshop, with a fellowship from TrustAfrica, she wrote her first novel, Harmattan Rain. It tells the story of three generations of a family from the independence of Ghana till the late 1990s.

Many Rivers by Christopher Mlalazi

MANY RIVERS
by Christopher Mlalazi
An excerpt from the novel to be published
by The Lion Press(UK) in May 2009.

Seven hours from the pick up point after crossing the Limpopo River, the border jumpers arrived in Johannesburg.

Qinisela was the first one to be dropped off. He felt the van stop, and, after a moment, the door of the back opened and Disaster’s face appeared in the square of weak light spilling in from the street lights behind him.

‘Qinisela Dube!’ Disaster called into the interior, after consulting a small note book in his hand.

Qinisela’s heart started. He scrambled through the press of bodies to the square of light, and jumped out of the van.

His right foot felt numb. He stamped it on the ground, sending a million stinging needles haywire in it.

Disaster pointed at an imposing grey building that stretched the whole block. ‘This is it,’ he said, his voice gruff. ‘Your destination.’

At the tone of the voice, Qinisela looked sharply at Disaster’s face. It was no longer the smiling, kind, and confidence inspiring face he knew from Bulawayo when he had gone to pay his eight hundred thousand dollars for the border jumping trip that had warmly, and confidently, assured him it would safely deliver him anywhere he wanted to go to in the city of Johannesburg.

‘That’s your door over there.’ Disaster pointed at a dark doorway up a short flight of concrete steps. Then, abruptly, he turned around, went around the van and, a moment later, it was pulling out of the parking lot - then it drove away down the street.

Qinisela stood on the pavement and watched the van, his last link with home, and his old life, turn around a corner and disappear.

He should at least have waited until I was safely inside, he was thinking as he looked up and down the street, a little disturbed by its emptiness.

He glanced at his wrist watch. 3.00 a.m.

He mounted the steps to the dark doorway. Prince must be doing quite well to be living in such a big building, he was thinking as he raised his hand and gave the imposing solid wood door that reminded him of knights and castles four hard triumphant raps. He was now right inside Johannesburg itself, and soon, he would be starting a new and exciting life!

A car swished past on the street behind him, its headlights momentarily lighting up the dark doorway.

Qinisela waited, impatiently cracking his knuckles, his eyes x-raying through the door for movement, and his ears finely attuned for any sound that might come from within.

No sound came from within, and nobody came to answer the door.

He knocked again, this time a little harder, although it made no difference on the stout door.

‘Heita!’

His heart skipped a beat, and he whirled around. A street kid, dressed in filthy rags, was standing at the bottom of the steps, looking up at him. The beginnings of a tired mischievous grin were quickly spreading over his grubby face.

The kid said something in a language that Qinisela did not understand, and the grin broke into a reedy laugh.

Qinisela, fists clenched, advanced towards the boy. The boy took off down the pavement, laughing shrilly, and stumbling with the effort. He disappeared around a corner.

Qinisela turned back to the door, expecting to find it now open and Prince’s face smiling at him in welcome. The door was still closed.

He knocked again. Three times. Louder than before, and waited.

After sometime, when the door still remained closed, he began to have doubts. Maybe Prince had slept out? Or moved to another place? At the latter thought, a twinge of anxiety plucked at his heart. But there should be other people living here, for hadn’t Prince said he lived in a block of flats? And as far as he knew, flats house multitudes – somebody had to hear his knock, even a security guard. Where the hell was the security guard?

And then the street kid was back again, and this time with what seemed to be a whole colony of other bedraggled fellows of his kind behind him, nasty looking fellows who seemed as if they had just tumbled out of a sewer pipe. And not even a single one of them could have been more than fifteen years of age – they all looked so painfully young to Qinisela, if looks not deceiving. Most of them were inhaling from small plastic sachets, or bottles, with tired or dizzy looks on their faces.

When they saw Qinisela knocking on the door, they all broke into derisive laughter, some holding their sides, and some sitting on the pavement.

A speechless Qinisela stood at the top of the stairs, gaping down at this spectacle that was unraveling before his eyes. Must be something other than plain glue that they are sniffing, he was thinking, for the street kids all looked insane to him. And they were so many of them. His mouth turning dry, he turned back to the door. It was still closed.

He knocked on it again, this time with a little desperation.

‘Prince!’ he called as he knocked. ‘Are you there Prince? Wake up and open the door! It’s me Qinisela!’ He was using the English language, so as not to give away his origins to the street kids, or any other listening ear.

At that, a fresh outburst of frenzied laughter erupted from the bottom of the steps, and its echoes filled up the doorway.

‘Jah man!’ One of the street kids called out, waving his plastic sachet over his head.

‘Jah!’ The other street kids took up the cry, also waving their plastic sachets in the air. ‘Jah Rasta!’ Some slapped their friends’ hands.

‘George Marley!’ Another one called out.

‘Shabba!’ Another one.

Qinisela stamped his foot on the ground. ‘Shut up!’ he shouted at them in English, anger in his voice.

Silence.

The crackle of a sachet inflating, and deflating. A deep cough from a chest that sounded as if the lungs were hanging on by a bloody thread.

‘What do you think you are doing there Rasta?’ One of the street kids shouted up the steps in Zulu, blinking his eyes rapidly at Qinisela.

The Zulu language and Qinisela’s Ndebele are children of the same cradle, with the Ndebele people having run away from the rule of the blood thirsty Tshaka to carve out, with their tall shields and assegai’s, their own Kingdom in the now Matabeleland of Southern Zimbabwe: if you can speak Ndebele you can speak Zulu, although accents differing.

‘What do you think I am doing?’ Qinisela replied in Ndebele.

‘I think you smoke too much weed Rasta,’ the speaker, who was almost as tall as Qinisela, but almost thin to the bone, raised his sachet to his lips and it inflated and deflated, his gangling body swaying to and fro, bloodshot eyes on hawkish face fixed on Qinisela all the time.

The boy pointed a finger at his matted short hair, his head arrogantly tilted to the side. ‘I think you fucked up here Rasta. Too much weed mixed with pill.’

A fresh outburst of howling laughter from the other street kids, giving Qinisela a feeling of being in a bizarre live comedy show, with him as the main character, a confused main character not acting to a rehearsed script, but with things unfolding naturally before him.

‘Will you please say that again?’ There was a rising anger in Qinisela’s voice. He hitched up the sleeves of his sweater to his elbows, and, jaw and fists clenched, his chin thrust forward, he stamped down the steps towards the speaker.

And came to an abrupt standstill on the second step from the bottom as a Rambo knife sprang into the gangling youth’s right hand. Its blade flashed silver into Qinisela’s eyes.

The street kid quickly ran up the steps, twisted the collar of a helpless Qinisela’s sweater into his fist, the point of the jungle knife a blink away from the tip of Qinisela’s nose.

‘If you move I stick you,’ the street kid said. His eyes blinked rapidly. ‘And if you think you can run away, you won’t have far to run because of my friend behind me.’ He blinked rapidly again, and gestured over his shoulder with the blade of the knife, stepping to the side to give Qinisela a clear view of what was behind him.

Another one of the street kids was pointing a pistol at Qinisela, finger on the trigger. He gave Qinisela a gap toothed grin over the gun sight.

A shocked Qinisela quickly raised his hands up into the air.

The knife wielding street kid deftly, as if he did it everyday, kicked Qinisela’s feet from under him. He fell and rolled down the steps to the pavement, bouncing his head painfully.

In a flash, the other street kids were all over him, kicking, stomping. One very hard and powerful kick landed on his exposed stomach, another on his back, half paralyzing him with white hot pain. He folded up his body into a fetal position, knees drawn up to protect his face, his mind on the pistol he had seen, half expecting to hear it exploding.

A last kick thudded on his body, and the street kids retreated.

Qinisela carefully sat up, groaning in pain. The eyes of his assailants were all on him.

‘That door you are knocking on -,’ the street kid who had been wielding the Rambo knife, which was now out of sight, said, one hand on his waist, and the other scratching inside his torn trousers at his crotch. He blinked in staccato again. ‘- is the door of the Johannesburg Post Office, and from your accent, I can tell you have just landed from Zimbagwe, with a Post Office box number.’ He paused to join his friend in laughter, and then continued. ‘And you are not the first one to land this way here from Zimbagwe. We have seen many like you knocking on that door before. There is no one inside there, only letter boxes and letters inside them – unless if the person you are looking for is a letter.’

He laughed with the others again.

‘Wake up Mkwerekwere, this is Joza.’ He turned to his friends. ‘Let’s go ma-gents’
They walked away, some swaggering, some casting triumphant grins back at Qinisela, some laughing, and some sneering importantly...

Many Rivers was written by Christopher Mlalazi, and is an extract from his book Many Rivers due to be published in May 2009 by The Lion Press.


Copyright Christopher Mlalazi 2009.

Christopher Mlalazi writes prose, poetry, drama (TV and stage), and also children's fiction.



In 2004 he received the HIGHLY RECOMMENDED citation in the Sable Lit Mag/Arvon (UK) Short Story Contest. In 2007 he was shortlisted for the HSBC PEN SOUTH AFRICA SHORT STORY CONTEST, and in 2008 he was awarded the OXFAM NOVIB/PEN FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AWARD.



He has published short stories in Zimbabwe, Europe, as well as on the web, and was also published in the 2005 Cain Prize Anthology (Orbituray Tango),the 2006 Edinburgh Review, and the 2007 AFRICA PENS. In winter of 2009 he is publishing his debut short story in The Literary Review (USA).

Currently he is working on a novel he hopes to finish by mid 2009, if not earlier, and has a stage play under rehearsal.

On the 14th of Feb 2009, Christopher was awarded the NAMA in the Outstanding First Creative Published Work category for his debut book, a collection of short stories called Dancing with Life.

Pot Pourri by A. Igoni Barrett

There was only one place to find Mrs. Uju (Augustina Lilyrose Patience Odenigbo ‘Mama Uzo’) Orjinta at five o’clock on a Wednesday, and that was plumb in front of her TV set. Come rain or shine, or—as was more likely—power failure or military putsch, Uju Orjinta never missed Pot Pourri. It was her favourite programme, ever. Though unaware of it, this was no small coup for Pot Pourri—Uju Orjinta never gave her loyalties lightly.

Pot Pourri was a weekly half-hour live feature on African cuisine, and it was shot on the grounds of the hotel or restaurant whose chef was the guest for that episode. Uju Orjinta loved cooking—but she loved eating even more. She devoured everything that met one of her three criteria for toothsome food: starchy, greasy or crunchy. Her all-time favourite delicacy however was fried fish. She consumed it as a whole meal or in combination; she nibbled it as a snack, or as an appetizer; she even used it as an analgesic. As a consequence of this craving Uju Orjinta reeked like a fishmonger’s dustbin (or so her husband complained).

Five Styrofoam packs of fried fish and a thermos flask of ice-cold beer held themselves in the ready on Uju Orjinta’s lap as the seconds counted down to Pot Pourri-hour. She picked up the woven-raffia fan that lay beside her on the sofa and, adjusting herself with a dolorous sigh, she began to beat the air before her face. The sitting room was as hot as a baker’s oven, but she couldn’t turn on the air conditioner as its current load was too heavy for the generator. Neither could she open the windows: the deafening grumble and the fumes of the generator would interfere with her enjoyment of Pot Pourri. And that she couldn’t have.

Uju Orjinta stilled her working hand as soon as the TV screen beamed forth the red light of Pot Pourri’s opening credits. She tore open a pack and grasped one of the grease-crusted fishes by the tail. The screen changed colour again, and the presenter, the bubbly, delightful Joyce, trundled onto the set. Uju Orjinta, her eyes glued to the screen, dug hungrily into the parade-stiff carcass and set about opening the flask of beer.

It was Joyce—apart from the sheer luxuriousness of the cooking—that kept Uju Orjinta coming back for more. She felt like she knew her, like she was a friend or a sister, a soul mate. Never mind that Joyce was a loquacious, plucked-chicken-complexioned woman with a penchant for hoop earrings and bulbous neck beads. There was no denying these differences, but it was their similarities that Uju Orjinta preferred to focus on. Of these the most conspicuous was Joyce’s size, which filled the screen with rosy folds and straining bulges. Then there was her endearing, and unashamed, gourmandise. This shared passion, more than anything else, was the compost from which the attraction sprouted.

The guest chef today is Francois . . . Joyce said, and the camera cut to a tall white man in an equatorially flowered shirt. He stood behind a table laden with Pyrex bowls, steel cutlery, aluminium pots and pans, china jugs, spice bottles, a chopping board, a sherry decanter, a four-ring gas burner and caramel-hued baskets bursting with the ingredients for the day’s menu. He looked ill-at-ease. He was a Frenchman: Uju Orjinta could tell by the way he pursed his lips and clasped strings of air between forefinger and thumb as he endlessly inspected his fingernails. Then there was his name.

Our main course today is called . . . Joyce announced as she moved into the frame with the Frenchman, dwarfing him, and then held the microphone to his mouth for him to complete the sentence. It was a signature manoeuvre. The screen flickered on cue as the name of the meal and its recipe appeared in caption, which was as well as Uju Orjinta hadn’t caught the Frenchman’s babble. Joyce thought of everything, Uju Orjinta exulted, and then settled back to let herself be titillated.

Heat the palm oil—not long . . . then the chopped onions and the purée, and stir . . . and then this, the cane rat flesh goes in, and the stockfish—deboned ‘member?—you shred. And the crawfish, and the dadawa, and then—ooh, smell that, oui?—soupcon garlic . . . Joyce looked on with uncontainable glee, her throat working lubriciously, as the pot began to splutter and belch beneath the chef’s magic fingers. Uju Orjinta, guzzling beer to calm a palpitating heart, writhed on her sitting room sofa in vicarious ecstasy.

Leave to cook. We do the yam. For four persons you need . . .

To give herself some respite Uju Orjinta tore her eyes away from the cornucopian table. She turned her attention to the right end of the screen, where, in the background, the wrought-iron furniture of a garden restaurant was in view. There were few diners.

Pounding the yam is . . . Joyce said, guffawing at the camera. When Uju Orjinta turned her eyes back to the restaurant she noticed that two newcomers had taken the table closest to the screen. It was a young lady and an older man. The lady’s face was in plain view, scrubbed clean and girlie-looking, while the man’s, as his heavy form leaned forward to whisper importunities in her ear, was hidden by a vase of carnations. Old goat, Uju Orjinta thought, noting with a twinge of envy the embarrassed, head-thrown-back laugh of a woman courted. Then a waiter appeared from the wings to take the lovebirds’ order. The man leaned back in his chair, his fingers interlocking over his paunch. The lady turned away, her face a mask of boredom. When the waiter eventually bowed and withdrew, taking the vase of flowers with him, the man resumed his soft-soaping from where he had left off. Uju Orjinta thought there was something familiar about the man’s face. Then recognition struck, like a boot in the belly.

‘Oh!’ Uju Orjinta gasped, clutching at the folds of her neck. ‘You!’ She flopped back on the sofa, scattering empty Styrofoam packs.

Mr. Orjinta, though unaware of it, was in hot soup—Uju Orjinta never gave her loyalties lightly.

After long seconds of bug-eyed gawking and spluttered curses that left her chin shiny with saliva, Uju Orjinta roused herself with an effort and reached for the TV remote control. She jabbed at the off button like it was Mr. Orjinta’s eye.

‘Bola!’ she bellowed, setting the sofa trembling.

There came the sound of running feet and the housemaid burst into the room, wringing her hands.

‘My phone,’ Uju Orjinta ordered, pointing to the chair two arm lengths away on which her handbag lay.

The housemaid delivered the cell phone and, seeing the malevolent glimmer in her madam’s eye, scurried away before the thought coagulated into action.

Uju Orjinta switched the TV back on. Mr. Orjinta and his floozy, far from being figments of the TV’s imagination, were still at it. Their meal had arrived. ‘When last did the brute take me out to dinner?’ Uju Orjinta fumed as the cell phone sang the tones of her husband’s number. The call connected at first try—she could see him reaching into the folds of his babariga even before the ring tone sounded in her ear. Then, insult upon injury, he rejected the call. She immediately redialled. And again he rejected it. Again she redialled, heaving herself up in her seat. She saw him say something to his lady friend—an apology?—then . . .

‘Yes?’ that familiar voice boomed in her ear, startling her. ‘What do you want?’

‘Where you?’ she demanded.

‘What is it to you?’

‘What kind . . . question . . . that is . . . Papa Uzo?’

‘You want to fight, eh? Well I won’t, Mama Uzo, not now—I have better things to do with my time. Anyway, I’m at the office.’

She saw him flash a smile at his date, and she, the home breaker, smiled back. So that was how it was.

‘Are you . . . coming . . . home dinner?’

‘No, I’ll be in late. Any other thing?’

He reached over—in public, on national TV!—and wiped away a fugitive morsel from the hussy’s mouth. Uju Orjinta felt like a creature derided by the gods.

‘Yes . . . something,’ Uju Orjinta said, her tone colourless, like vinegar. ‘Tell girlfriend . . . fork . . . in left . . . knife . . . right hand.’ Then she cut the connection.

Till we come your way again next week with another thrilling episode of Pot Pourri, from me, Joyce, and the camera crew, its goodbye and good cooking.

And just before the Trinitron-clear picture of Joyce tucking into a heaped plate faded out, Uju Orjinta and her aghast spouse locked eyes.

Pot Pourri appears in From Caves of Rotten Teeth published by Daylight Media, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

Copyright A. Igoni Barrett 2005.

A. Igoni Barrett is the author of one book, a collection of short stories titled From Caves of Rotten Teeth. A story from this collection emerged winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition.

His short fiction has been published in Eclectica, Guernica, Mississippi Crow, Istanbul Literary Review and Stickman Review.

He lives in Lagos, Nigeria, where he works as an editor with Farafina magazine.

Khaya Tree by Ayesha H. Attah

March 1954

On the day after the first rainfall of the year, Lizzie-Achiaa stood under a neem tree in front of her father’s compound, a convinced young woman.

She was convinced that there was more to life than working on Papa Yaw’s unproductive farm, helping Mama Efua with chores and having inane conversations with Asantewa.

Times were hard in Adukrom No. 2. Owusua, her eldest sister had died the year before. Swollen shoot disease had infected plants. Her father’s cocoa farm had been no exception, and of course, he was quick to use that in his defense of trying to marry her off. But she was convinced life would get better and she didn’t have to marry someone she didn’t love.

She stared at the neem leaves, resplendent after their wash. She was convinced that outside Adukrom No. 2, there were interesting people and she had proof—her tall enigma from the north, Bador Samed.

Before any friendship had developed with Bador, however, she’d regarded him just as everyone in the village had — with mistrust. He’d showed up early one Saturday morning and stayed on for two years as the medicine man’s assistant. She welcomed his friendship when everyone in her house was mourning Owusua and wouldn’t give her the time of day. Their conversations were the perfect escape from a house where death had left its stubborn mark. He would be sending for her any minute. She waited impatiently.

She looked back into her father’s compound. The laterite huts capped with thatch roofs seemed in need of redoing, with cracks snaking their way from foundation to roof. Her half-sisters ran around, pushing each other, lifting their dresses, laughing with the freedom only children have.

“Sister Lizzie,” a boy’s voice said. She turned around and saw Kojo dressed in a pair of torn brown shorts. “Good morning,” he said. “Please Brother Bador wants to see you.”

“Thank you,” she said, glad she didn’t have to keep waiting. She noticed that Kojo’s small shoulders had risen with self-importance, obviously because of the message he was sent to deliver. As they walked away from Papa Yaw’s, she bent over to pluck two globular pods from a shrub pushing out of their path. She handed one to Kojo and shook the other in her hand. “You don’t have to come all the way with me,” she said. To Kojo, this task was probably a big deal — having Bador Samed bid him on errands. His eyes widened, pleaded with Lizzie. “Give me the pleasure of finishing this task,” they seemed to say, but Lizzie wasn’t about to be swayed. She stared at him until he realized he wasn’t needed anymore. She strode on, passing by the Aduhene’s compound.

Lizards scuttled out of her way as she arrived at the Insu River. He wasn’t there. She stared at the river, running on young and wild, rejuvenated by the rainfall from the day before. She sat down under the tall khaya tree, which had become their spot. She hit the pod against her shin, listening to its rattling. She fussed with the black cloth she was wearing.

“Do you know what that’s for?” a voice asked, startling her.

“You scared me!” Lizzie said, turning around to see Bador Samed grinning. His head blocked off half of the sun.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Opanyin Nti caught me just as I was leaving and made me mix herbs for him.”

“I just got here myself,” she said. “What were you asking me about?”

“The pod you’re holding,” he said.

“This?” She shook it again. “It’s tutotuto. A cheap children’s toy,” Lizzie said, smiling and raising her nose toward the sky.

“True,” he said walking around her, “but did you know that the leaves of the plant are great for curing snake bites?”

“Really?” Lizzie asked. “I didn’t know that. See, what would I do without you?” She laughed and hit her forehead with the pod.

“A lot, my dear,” he said, sitting down across from her. “You’re one smart woman. I’m just here to help you believe in that fact.” His skin, the color of laterite, looked redder with the sun bouncing off it. His small eyes shone. They were gentle and ageless. Every time he looked at her, his eyes seemed to pierce her existence. He wore a black and white striped smock and white shorts.

“How do you know I’m smart?” she asked.

“Because like souls find each other. We’re two smart souls.” He looked at her and reached into his pocket, extracting a small white container and a thin piece of brown paper. He popped off the lid of the container, poured dried leaves onto the paper and rolled it.

“Can I smoke too?” she asked.

“No, you can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want my wife smoking,” he said.

“I’m not your wife,” she said, “yet.”

The river gargled on indifferently. Bador Samed closed his eyes.

“Is that what it is today?” he asked, opening his eyes. A smile spread across his face. “You’re not my wife, eh?”

“It’s not that. I just don’t understand why you can do some things and I can’t just because I’m a girl … a woman.”

“I said I don’t want ‘my wife’ smoking and nothing about women in general,” Bador Samed said, still smiling.

“Wife, woman. You meant it as the same thing,” Lizzie said. She turned round and shifted her gaze from the colossal roots of the khaya tree, up along its trunk to the point where its branches kissed the sky. When she looked back down, Bador Samed’s face was an inch away from hers. She inhaled the strangely sweet smell of tobacco. He leaned forward slowly. His eyes narrowed. She looked at him, her heart beginning to sprint. This was the first time she’d been that close to any man. She closed her eyes.

“Relax,” he said, planting his lips on hers. They tasted spicy and felt moist. All she heard was the Insu River splashing on in its infinite course. She opened her eyes. Bador Samed was back in his original position, smoking his tobacco. She thought him so beautiful. Of all the men in the village, he was the only one she’d ever been interested in. It was his foreignness, his eccentricity and that he wasn’t staying in Adukrom No. 2 all his life.

“When you make it to Accra,” she said, catching her breath, “you’ll start learning the white man’s medicine and save enough money for me to come join you.”

“You keep saying that,” Bador Samed said, stubbing out the tobacco stick on the wet grass. “You always talk about what I’ll do, but what do you want to do with your life?”

She was taken aback by his question. She was lucky her father had sent her off to school—the only girl in the village to finish secondary school. Bador was right—with all her school knowledge, who did she want to be? She wanted to find answers to why people like her sister died, to leave Adukrom No. 2, to meet more people like Bador Samed. People who weren’t afraid of limits.

“To be your wife,” she said, grinning widely, knowing her response would irk him.

“Seriously, Mrs. Samed.”

“All right,” Lizzie said, smiling. “I want to look after people—sick people.”

“That’s more like it,” Bador Samed said, getting excited, his eyes lighting up like a five-year-old who’d been offered sweets.

“I want a big family, but you can’t have any other wives. As annoying as Papa Yaw is, I don’t understand how Mama Efua shares him with two other women,” Lizzie said, drawing a circle in the damp loamy soil with the pod.

“There’ll be only one Mrs. Samed,” he said, taking Lizzie’s hands into his and holding them. His hands felt calloused and were stained a reddish-brown hue. I’ve never been so happy, Lizzie thought. I shouldn’t be, especially not with Owusua gone. She stared at a seedling that was pushing out of the soil.

“Are you all right?” Bador Samed asked. She remained quiet. “You’re thinking of your sister, right?” he asked. She nodded. “We all go to the ancestors eventually, Lizzie. Some people leave faster than others.”

“She was so young. She didn’t ask to be sick.”

“Lizzie, some of us will die violently, some through epilepsy, some in sleep. But we’ll both come up with remedies to make people live longer.”

Lizzie smiled and said, “Let’s go to Accra.” Her chest rose. It was a rash decision, but one she’d convinced herself about on the spur of the moment. There was no turning back.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes,” she said. “I have nothing to do here.”

“What about your family? Will Papa Yaw let you go?”

“I’m not telling them. We’ll elope!”

“I like your energy,” Bador Samed said. “But we have to plan this properly. I need money. We need a place to stay in Accra. We need to work on all those details.”

“I thought you were spontaneous,” Lizzie said, stretching out her lower lip.

“I am, but with you coming along, I want things to fall in place perfectly.”

“Let’s leave in a week.”

“Fine, a week it is, my dear. But first … come back here tonight.”

Lizzie knew why Bador Samed told her to come back. This would be their pact, their nonverbal way of sealing their deal. For her, it would also be an act of defying her father. Her way of making sure he couldn’t marry her off to anyone else.


Three days passed and Lizzie hadn’t seen or heard from Bador Samed. She thought it strange and began to cook up excuses for him. Maybe because he was planning their escape, he didn’t want to be seen with her. He was smart, that Bador Samed! But, she wanted him to touch her again and make her feel like the only woman in the world and she wanted to plan their future, even if it was just in talk. She sat in front of the rectangular room she shared with three of her sisters. I have to find out if he’s well, she thought. Springing up from the stool she’d been sitting on, she marched out of Papa Yaw’s compound.

Kojo’s older brother was sitting under the mango tree in front of his house, scrubbing his teeth. She quickened her steps so she wouldn’t have to talk to him.

“Lizzie, darling,” he whined. He was so sickly, even his voice carried no timbre.

“Kofi, I’m coming,” she said, trying not to look into his eyes.

She wasn’t going to come back. She walked past the Aduhene’s compound, past a string of similar huts and stopped in front of Opanyin Nti’s hut, where she saw the medicine man stirring an earthenware pot of neem leaves.

“Good afternoon, Opanyin,” she said.

“Lizzie, how are you?” he asked, looking up.

“Opanyin, I’m fine. Is Bador Samed in?”

The medicine man’s eyes watered. He shook his head.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Lizzie,” the medicine man said, looking her in the eye. “The last time I saw him was three nights ago.”

How strange, she thought. That was the day they’d made plans to run away, the night they’d sealed their deal. Had he left her all alone? She didn’t think that was possible. He couldn’t have just used her, could he?

“Has he gone to find some ingredient for you?” she asked, hoping that the old man was getting senile and had forgotten.

“No. You remember how he just appeared?”

“Yes.”

“I think he just vanished from our lives in the same way. There are some things you should just let be, Lizzie,” he said, bending over his pot, adding more neem leaves. He was obviously being mysterious. Maybe Bador Samed would come back for her. Maybe he’d gone in search of money. He must be preparing for their elopement.

“Thank you, Opanyin.”

“You’re welcome, my daughter,” he said, stirring his brew.

She walked to the Insu River.

As she sat under the khaya tree, she battled with opposing thoughts. One part of her was swelling with the surety that Bador Samed was simply getting things ready for their flight. The other was confused. He would have given her some clue that he was leaving to prepare things, but he’d said nothing.

As the Insu River ran its indifferent course, her eyes traveled along the trunk of the khaya tree. Where are you? she wondered. She would be so miserable if he never came back.



Lizzie stood in the entrance to her room, watching Agya Kwaku walk out of Papa Yaw’s compound in a huff. She saw her father shuffle behind him, chewing stick in mouth, his head bent obsequiously low.

“Oh, Agya!” Papa Yaw said. “The girl didn’t know what she was saying. Agya, wait small …”

She wanted to hear what her father was saying to her suitor, but his voice became smaller the farther away he walked from the compound. She patted her plaited hair, hoping she hadn’t been rude to Agya Kwaku. The truth was that she was still reeling from Bador Samed’s disappearance. No one had seen him. He hadn’t written to her. Nothing! He was the only man she wanted to be with and now that he’d disappeared, she wasn’t in the mood to be married to just anybody. Besides, now that she’d been tainted, would anyone want her?

She turned around, ready to pull back the tattered red and green curtain that covered the entrance to her room, when her shirt was tugged on from behind. “What’s your problem-” she started. Papa Yaw whirled her around. She saw a thick neem branch in his hand.

“You useless, good for nothing,” he spat out, hitting her shins with the branch. He reeked of stale palm wine.

“Papa Yaw, why?” Lizzie asked, a frown creasing her forehead. Papa Yaw was always abusive. She’d found it strange when he hadn’t reacted to her refusal of two of the men he’d brought over. Both times, he’d served her a dish of silent treatment and hadn’t resorted to violence. Now he was behaving just like she’d expected him to.

“Come here!” He walked to the middle of the compound.

“No,” Lizzie said, lifting her right leg up the ledge into her room. Her father clutched her shirt, dragging her away from the door. Her foot landed on the rough ledge. “Agyee!” she screamed out in pain.

He hit her shin in rapid strokes with the branch. Its leaves and yellow fruits were still intact. She tried to run into her room, but his grasp was too strong. He spun her around.

“You think of no one but yourself,” Papa Yaw yelled, spitting out bits of chewed stick. “You think I enjoy begging in front of all these men? Eh? First you rejected Mr. Sam. I didn’t say anything. Then you did the same to Wofa Atta. Still I remained quiet.” With his left hand, Papa Yaw adjusted his heavy, black and white kente cloth, which was nestled around his shoulders. He spat out his chewing stick.

“Today, after being rude to Agya Kwaku, you think I’ll let you go scot-free?”

Lizzie tried to break into a run, this time aiming for the compound’s exit. As she lifted her legs off the ground, Papa Yaw yanked her shirt. She lost control of her legs and landed on the ground, grazing her buttocks. Her father struck her head with the branch. He swiped at her neck, slapped her back. Lizzie tried to get up, but her father kept hitting her. The lashes kept coming. She tried to block them, tried to second-guess where the branch would fall, but each time he moved on to another part of her body. She saw Papa Yaw look up and followed his gaze. Her brothers, sisters, mother and stepmothers were trickling out of their rooms. She crawled toward the exit.

“Papa Yaw is beating someone!” a shrill voice shouted, inviting all in the village to come over and witness the spectacle. This was one of the things Lizzie hated the most about the village. Everyone was in everyone’s business. She picked herself up close to the exit, noticing that people lined the periphery of the compound and had completely enclosed her and Papa Yaw.

Papa Yaw came after her. As she tried to escape, the crowd wouldn’t part. Obviously they wanted a good show at her expense. Her father pulled her plaits, dragging her back toward the center. He lashed her arms rapidly. She flailed her arms, trying to stop the contact of the rough branch on her flesh.

“Useless, selfish girl,” Papa Yaw shouted. He let go of Lizzie’s hair, and again, she tried to dash for the exit. He caught her shirt and unleashed a string of lashes on her arms.

“God, show your might!” Lizzie heard her mother cry out.

“You little witch,” Papa Yaw went on. “Do you want us to all die from hunger? Eh?” He pointed in the direction of his cocoa farm. “If you married Agya Kwaku, he would give me seeds for free, I would plant them, then after the rains, I would yield a healthy harvest to feed all your greedy mouths. But you … you think only of yourself!”

Lizzie was quiet as tears flowed from her eyes. She wanted to stop them but she couldn’t. She looked at her feet, blurred by her tears. The neem leaves were falling and landing on the ground.

Lizzie heard her mother still crying out.

“‘I am not interested, I am not interested!’ You think it is for you to decide?” Papa Yaw asked her, rapidly striking her legs. She tried to dart toward her second stepmother’s hut, where the thatch wall had fallen over. Her father was faster. He caught the cloth she wore around her waist, spun her around and struck the branch against her left shoulder. “Agya Kwaku is an honest man. He would have taken good care of you. But you …” She covered her shoulders with her hands. He hit her shins. “But you selfish-” She tried to buckle her knees. “-think of only-” Before his last stroke hit her, Lizzie grabbed and held on to the branch with her right hand.

She felt the flesh on her arms blistering. She stared at Papa Yaw, his yellow eyes bulging, capillaries dancing about on them.

“Leave it!” he spat out. Lizzie clutched the branch firmly.

The Aduhene came in through the crowd and touched Papa Yaw on the arm. “I beg you,” he said.

“Let the girl go.”

Papa Yaw shook the chief off. Lizzie felt her tears drying on her face. She wasn’t letting go of the branch. She saw Papa Yaw’s eyes redden as he tried to extricate the branch from her grasp. His muscles were taut. His cloth slipped off his shoulders. As Papa Yaw tried to save the falling cloth, Lizzie heaved the branch with all the energy she could muster, pulling it out of his fingers.

“Go back to your houses. I beg you,” the Aduhene pleaded with the gathered crowd. His voice was too soft. Nobody seemed to hear him.

“No more nonsense,” Papa Yaw shouted. He cleared his throat loudly, spat on the ground and stomped off, red-eyed, to his room.

Mama Efua ran to Lizzie, who was still standing in the middle of the compound, branch in hand. The leaves had gathered at her feet and she was now sobbing uncontrollably.

Khaya Tree was written by Ayesha H. Attah and is an excerpt from Harmattan Rain, her debut novel published by Per Ankh Books.

Copyright Ayesha H. Attah 2009.

Ayesha Harruna Attah is a writer and journalist. She has worked as a freelance writer for the Accra Daily Mail, a Ghanaian newspaper, the AFRican Magazine and Yachting Magazine.


Born in Accra, Ghana, Ayesha lived there for 17 years before moving to Massachusetts to study biochemistry at Mount Holyoke College. She also holds an M.S. in magazine journalism from Columbia University.


At the Per Sesh Writer's Workshop, with a fellowship from TrustAfrica, she wrote her first novel, Harmattan Rain. It tells the story of three generations of a family from the independence of Ghana till the late 1990s.

Our Daily Bread by Ayodele Morocco-Clarke

My first perceptible memory is of a starry night when we bedded down to sleep in what was our home under the Isolo Bridge. During the day, we’d trudged the streets under the blazing sun, as we always did, in search of food and other collectible bric-a-brac and had retired exhausted to our little corner under the bridge. The space under the Isolo Bridge was home to a good number of people. Most of the inhabitants of that space were people who had fallen on hard times or people who were rejected by society as a result of one malady or the other.

On the night in question, Mama, Bisi and I had curled up on our cardboard mattresses. The usual daily crepuscular noises had eased to a more comfortable night hum which helped lull us to sleep as we lay our weary heads on the tattered rags that served as our pillows. Bisi was positioned next to a chunky wall, which was really one of the pillars of the bridge. I lay next to her, with Mama on the outside lying next to me. We used Mama’s large old tattered wrapper as a blanket to shield ourselves from the chills of the night.

I do not recall exactly what it was that woke me from my slumber. It might have been the desperate tugging on the wrapper, or maybe it was the fervid whispers which invaded my dreams and beleaguered my sub-conscious, or maybe even the frantic tussle going on between Mama and someone unknown. It was probably a combination of all three, but I woke up with a start, calling out to Mama in a panic-stricken shrill voice.

All frenetic movements and sounds in our immediate vicinity ceased as Mama gathered me up in her arms, stroking my hair and trying to coax me back to sleep, telling me I had had a nightmare and she would not let anything harm me. I could hear the occasional car speed past on the road, but Mama’s sweet susurrations were like a lullaby, and before long, I had achieved the hebetudinous state in which I straddled the fence that divides slumber and consciousness.

Thinking I had gone back to sleep, Mama withdrew her arms, causing me to stir. No sooner had she moved away than I saw a form move beside her. It took a while for my brain to decipher that the image being transmitted by eyes was not a dream. Once it did, my droopy eyes shot wide open. Nobody slept in our little corner under the bridge. There was an unwritten rule regarding territorial boundaries and all inhabitants of the space under the bridge strictly adhered to this rule.

I heard some more urgent whispers between Mama and the unknown person. From the person’s silhouette, I made him out to be a man because of his bare chest and short hair. I opened my mouth to cry out once again, but something stopped me. I could see the man struggling with Mama and when he realised that she was not going to give in, he tried to inveigle her into accepting his unwanted advances. When that also failed, he finally resorted to trying to cajole her in a desperate voice.

“Mama Mukaila, why are you being so wicked? If not for my present condition do you think I will be here begging you? Just five minutes. Give me five minutes. I swear I will finish quickly. It has been a long time I have been with a woman, Mama Mukaila. Please.

At the height of his plea, his voice had risen from a whisper.

“Shhhhh. Do you want to wake everyone up?” Mama whispered furiously, casting an anxious glance in my direction. I quickly shut my eyes feigning sleep.

“Haba, Mama Mukaila. Why are you behaving as if you are a virgin? After all, you have two children and no one knows their fathers. Is it because I am not one of those rich men who come to frequent you for sex? Is it because I am poor? I may be poor, but I am not ugly like that toad that everyone knows slept with you last month.”

“Go away and leave me alone,” Mama whispered angrily.

“I am not going anywhere. Today is today and my body is not a piece of wood. If you don’t agree by my pleading with you, you will agree by force. I am sure that is what you like and I will give it to you in abundance,” he said, grappling with Mama and almost overpowering her.

“What is the matter with you? You are going to wake my children up.”

“Let them wake up.”

“I will shout out if you don’t leave me alone,” Mama warned.

“If you shout out, I swear that I will kill your children.”

Fear paralysed me and I started to cry noiselessly. I could not understand what exactly was happening, but I knew that it could not be good if the man was threatening to kill Bisi and me.

Mama and the man were still locked in battle. In the struggle, she had been moved away from her cardboard mattress which adjoined mine. I saw him straddle her and with one hand loosen the cord which held his flannel trousers tied to his waist. He yanked his trousers down and Mama struggled fiercely. Blood and fear pounded in my ears blocking their subsequent words out, but their movements must have created some noise because I heard a voice ask loudly in Pidgin English, “Na who be that?”

Once again, all movements under the bridge ceased.

“I say, na who be that?” the voice repeated and almost from nowhere I saw someone appear right beside Mama. He lit a match and for some seconds I saw clearly who Mama’s aggressor was. It was Mr. Friday, the teacher who had taken up residence under the bridge two months before.

Mr. Friday had fallen on bad times due to his incessant drinking and compulsive gambling. He was sacked from the teaching job he had held on to for seventeen years. His wife had left him a few years before, remarrying his best friend within three months of leaving him. Without a job, he had been unable to keep up with paying his rent and his long-suffering landlord, tired of his lame excuses had evicted him from his flat.

The light from the match illuminated Mr. Friday’s face. He looked like a child who had been caught with his fingers in the soup pot. He was on top of Mama’s recumbent body, half-supported by his arms, with his trousers bunched at his knees.

It was a man called Rasaki who held the match. He was also an inhabitant of the space under the bridge and occupied the spot adjacent to our allocated spot.

“Haba, Oga Teacher!” he stage whispered in Pidgin English. “So you know how to sleep with woman ehn? When it is daytime, you go dey act like say you dey better than everybody. Na on top of Mama Mukaila I come catch you. Na God want me to catch you today.”

“Please don’t shout. It is the devil that pushed me. I have not slept with a woman in a very long time. Please,” Mr. Friday begged. He was now on his knees. His trousers were still gathered around his knees. Mama lay immobile, her face averted from the match’s effulgence which soon dimmed as the match flickered and died.

“Why I no go shout? You wey like to act as if you be big man and you always behave like you dey better than all of us. I go shout make everybody come see how useless you are.” By this time, Rasaki held a small candle which he had produced from nowhere and lit.

“Please,” beseeched Mr. Friday. “I will give you money.”

Greed flickered in Rasaki’s eyes. “How much?” he asked.

“I will give you Twenty Naira.”

“You dey craze. Na who you wan give that chicken change?”

“Please, I don’t have a lot of money,” Mr. Friday whined.

“No problem, I go just start to shout now,” Rasaki whispered fiercely.

“No! No, please. I only have Fifty Naira and it is the money I have to stretch till I can get my redundancy pay packet.”

“All these big grammar, bring the Fifty Naira. I go manage am.”

“I cannot give you all the money. I will not have anything left if I give it to you.”

“You still dey talk nonsense abi? Give me the money now before I change my mind.”

“Okay, okay,” Mr. Friday whispered hastily. “At least if I give you all my money, can I finish what I was doing?” he said digging around in the pocket of his bunched trousers.

“No problem,” Rasaki said, collecting the money from him. “But, make you hurry up. I want to do my own when you don finish.”

“Thank you. I will try to hurry up,” Mr. Friday whispered and he again mounted on top of Mama who out of shame had obstructed her face with her tattered diaphanous scarf. I don’t know what happened next because I fell asleep.

In the morning, when I asked Mama about the incident, she looked at me shocked and admonished me, saying that I must have been dreaming. I never mentioned it again, but I could see that she was shaken by what I said. I forgot about that night until several years later.

The day after the incident, Mama made us move away from our home under the Isolo Bridge. We slept rough for a few days, meandering from one place to another. After about four days, we discovered a partially completed building which looked like it had been abandoned. It had overgrown bushes and was located towards the end of a beaten dirt track.

Mama, Bisi and I set to work clearing the back room, which was the only room that had a complete roof. It looked as though the workmen had left in a hurry. There were discarded building and carpentry implements strewn haphazardly throughout the building, most of which were either broken or brown with rust. The whole place was overrun with weeds and numerous reptiles which scurried away as we cleared the room. They appeared startled by our intrusion of what had hitherto been their exclusive territory. I saw a large snake-like reptile - which somewhat also bore a resemblance to a lizard - and screamed. Mama killed it, saying as she did that it was not a snake. After getting rid of the weeds we had uprooted, Bisi and I swept the room with some palm fronds we had retrieved from underneath the palm tree that was growing outside the yard, while Mama set about making us a meal. After our meal, we arranged our meagre possessions in our new home.

We remained in the house without any disturbance from anyone and I often asked Mama if it had no owner. Her favourite response was that God had prepared a place for us.

Everyday, we set out from our home in search of food and other collectibles. Our favourite destination was the huge refuse dump that stood almost at the intersection leading to Ikotun Egbe and Idimu. Many destitute people scavenged the dump in search of discarded valuables and food. Often, there were many perfectly working items to be found amongst the garbage. In addition to the homeless people who rummaged through the dump, there were numerous ‘professional recyclers’ who scoured through the refuse for various items ranging from plastic articles, to aluminium or metal items, to clothes and shoes. The refuse dump also played host to several wild pigs, dogs, goats and vultures. All living creatures who frequented the dump did so for one reason only; survival.

There was a non-stop overpowering stench which emanated from the dump. It was nauseous, totally disgusting and had the power of making a person involuntarily bring up whatever meal he might have eaten. The dump could be smelled over a mile before you reached it and was a way of the dump warning people of its presence from afar. It was a gigantic dump and attempts by people to hold their breath whilst passing by were futile since it spanned a vast expanse of space.
Daily, we saw people holding their noses or covering them with handkerchiefs. It was hilarious watching the mannerisms of people who sat in passing cars. Often they wound up the windows of their cars and still held their noses. For people who did not have any air-conditioning in their cars, it was a funny sight to see the sweat pour off their faces in the sweltering heat whilst they were stuck in the ever present traffic jam which was in part caused by the dump.

Although the overflow from the dump was initially responsible for the traffic jams, the main cause for the inordinately prolonged periods vehicles were stuck in the traffic bottleneck was impatience. In a bid to escape the unbearable stench from the dump, many drivers attempted to jump the slow moving crawl by overtaking the vehicles in front of them using the opposite lane, only to be stopped by the oncoming traffic headed in the opposite direction. Other drivers, having observed that the first rebellious driver had advanced successfully for several yards, ultimately emulated him, resulting in traffic chaos.

Cars were stuck in the bottleneck for hours on end and many motorists who had no functioning air-conditioning in their vehicles finally gave in and resorted to winding down their windows and indeed sometimes even opening their doors in a bid to aid air circulation. The stench from the dump was usually long forgotten as anger and frustration became the new emotions that were uniformly felt by all motorists. The truth is that after several minutes of inhaling the putrid air around the dump, people became used to it and stopped noticing it. The stench from the dump was at its most potent in the afternoon when the hot scorching sun blazed down mercilessly on the earth. Indeed, on most hot afternoons, a person could visibly see the fumes rising upward from the dump like steam would rise out from a boiling pot.

I was used to the smell from the refuse heap. The only time I noticed the smell was when we first approached the dump in the mornings. After a few minutes, the smell was imperceptible. We survived from what we got at the dump and retrieved many useful possessions from the dump. The kerosene stove we used whenever we could lay our hands on kerosene had come from the dump. Most of the clothes and footwear we wore came from the dump. The pots, plates, cups and crockery we used, all came from the dump. When we were lucky, we managed to gather things we thought were useful and if we did not need them, we cleaned them as best as we could and either sold them or bartered them for the things we needed. Our existence, though not rich was happy. Bisi and I spent many laughter filled hours playing with and chasing our friends up and down the refuse dump.

One morning, years after we had moved into the abandoned house, I set off from home in search of something for the three of us to eat. Mama was ill and we had not had any food to eat in over twenty-four hours. Desperately hungry, I decided to try my luck out on the streets, leaving Bisi behind to look after Mama. At seven, Bisi was two years younger than I was, and like me, she was a precocious child, leading me to conclude that she would be able to cope alone with Mama while I was gone.

Getting something to eat was harder than I had thought it would be and I spent the whole day moving from one place to another trying to get food or money. Along the road, I joined a band of beggars who were gathered at a busy junction begging road users for alms. I was not allowed to hang about for long as the other beggars thought that I was invading and trespassing on their patch. I cried, pleaded, grovelled and begged, pressing my hands together in supplication, all to no avail. In my distress, I called upon God to help me, however it seemed that my cries were destined to go unanswered; succour was not forthcoming from any quarters.

By evening, I was half crazed with hunger. Dizzy and weak, I struggled on, spurred by the thought that my mother and sister needed sustenance. A mental picture of their emaciated bodies was firmly plastered in my mind. I could not fail them. I rummaged through refuse bins in a bid to find something edible, but came up with nothing.

Dejected, I started to make my way back home. My return journey was more tortuous than the journey from the house. All day, I contended with the hunger which was burning like molten lava in my belly, gnawing away at my intestines. As if that was not enough, the blistering sun had sapped away what little energy I possessed when I left Mama and Bisi in the morning. There was a constant ringing my ears. I had intermittent moments in which I suffered blackouts and there were times when it seemed that I was somnambulating.

Along the way, I saw several obstreperous children trying to outdo one another while chasing a football. It was clear from their tumultuous behaviour that none of them had hunger problems, and I spent several minutes looking enviously at them playing their carefree game.

As I continued down the Oshodi Bridge, my eyes took in various people displaying their wares. Many of these people were selling foodstuff of some sort or the other and I approached a few of them to plead for a scrap of food to appease my riotous, rampaging stomach – just a tiny morsel. Their responses were the same; vicious disdain and even anger. I was shooed away like a flea ridden stray dog. I guess I must have been no more than another canine to them.

It was in a state of inanition that I spied a tray on which was stacked several loaves of freshly baked bread. I saw an opportunity when I observed that the bread tray was not being closely watched by the owner. With the last bit of energy I could muster, I pounced like a predator and within the twinkling of an eye, my dexterous fingers had snatched up a loaf of bread. I was already making a getaway with my loot when the bread seller saw me and raised an alarm, but by this time I was several yards away and could taste victory.

Victory was short-lived. As I dashed around people and between cars to the shouts of “Ole! Ole!! Ole!!!” and “Thief! Barawo!!” being flung around me, I came up against a huge barrel of a man blocking my path. When I made to dart around him, he put out one of his legs which looked like the trunk of an Iroko tree. I saw his leg at the last minute and nimbly leapt over it, impelling my body to put a distance between me and him. I apparently was not agile enough as my toes nipped the leg, causing me to stumble and go sprawling onto the dirt floor. My heart sank with dismay when I saw my treasured loot go flying out of my arms to land a few metres away in the dirt. Tears of frustration stung my eyes and I struggled to rise up as swiftly as I could. Hunger must have dulled the reflex of my limbs, because I struggled to my feet the precise moment the mammoth man clamped one of his enormous hands on me. Yanking me up, he shook me like a grizzly bear would shake its prey. My legs dangled helplessly, oscillating with each violent shake he gave me.

“Come here you filthy thief,” he thundered.

With his other had, he gave me a mighty slap. For a few seconds, I thought I had suffered another blackout because everything went totally black and I could not hear anything. It felt as though I was confined in a tomb. I however could feel the sharp sting of the slap, so it occurred to me that it was no blackout and I might have instead gone blind and deaf. Tears burst forth unchecked from my eyes and as the sepulchral darkness of the moment overwhelmed me, I started to scream hysterically.

“I cannot see o. You have blinded me.”

I don’t know how long my blindness lasted, but as suddenly as my sight and hearing disappeared, they made a re-appearance. It was like an eclipse, one moment, darkness, the next moment, light.

I saw that a truculent rambunctious crowd of onlookers was pressing its way to the spot my ruthless assailer held me captive. Suggestions were being bandied about as to what was to be my fate. When I heard someone mention that to serve as a deterrent to other thieves, I should be roasted alive using a tyre doused in petrol as a necklace, I struggled in the man’s grasp and managed to break free. Because I had taken my captor by surprise, my hopes of escape were revivified, and before anyone could stop me, I dashed across the Oshodi-Isolo Expressway to shouts from the crowd and the screeching tyres of oncoming vehicles. Being chased by an angry mob, I was desperate to get away and successfully darted past a speeding car, only to look up to see a huge trailer bearing down on me with the screams of numerous people resonating in my ears.

Our Daily Bread was written by Ayodele Morocco-Clarke

Copyright Ayodele Morocco-Clarke 2009.

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