I used to be a cockroach...

I Used to Be a Cockroach

An old story about poverty, palm-wine tappers, a rat called Skippy, a burnt-down shack—and the day I finally walked away.

I used to be a cockroach.

Life was really hard.

I would eat, amongst other things, grass shoots, succulent leaves, unripe paw-paw—and postage stamps.

Unable to afford soap, I eventually gave up bathing altogether. I hated bathing with dirty water; it seemed pointless to rub filthy water over a body already greasy with sweat and dirt.

I had to leave that neighbourhood.

Fast.

There was nothing there for me.

Nobody liked me. Nobody cared enough to help me. And really, I wasn’t asking for much. Sometimes all a human being needs is a smile—a hand of friendship stretched in his direction.

Instead, they conspired against me.

Or at least that was how it felt.

They conspired to frustrate my soul.

They hated the sound of my second-hand transistor radio, permanently tuned to the BBC. They hated the smell of fried plantain that occasionally drifted from my section of the yard.

I must confess that I had a hand in this particular hatred.

On those rare days when I managed to get my hands on ripe plantains, I would fry myself some dodo and sing war songs at the top of my voice.

The first time I did it, I wasn’t trying to annoy anybody.

I merely wanted to let Eshu—the West African god of mischief—know that I was still holding on.

Still hangin’ in there.

And there was nothin’ he could do about it.

I was thoroughly battered, no question.

But I was still me.

I was who I was.

Still a spark of the great God in whose heart, I believed, I remained a dream.

I loved God.

And I was fearless.

They Burnt My Belongings

Where was I?

Ah, yes.

Let me tell you how it happened—how they burnt my belongings.

Don’t you remember?

They burnt my belongings just when it seemed I might actually be making my way in the world.

You remember now?

Right.

It was funny how the poor conspired against one another.

At least the rich held parties and hobnobbed together. They networked. They consolidated their wealth through marriage, friendship, favours and I-owe-you-ones.

But the poor?

We were really poor.

Poor in charity.

Poor in faith.

Poor in hope.

Poor in almost everything.

I still laugh when I remember how carefully they watched as I walked into the compound. They were expecting me, no doubt, to scream and run towards my burning abode, beating my chest, looking towards heaven and ululating:

“WOE IS ME!”

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Even now, I sometimes wonder where the hell those creeps are.

What are they doing now?

What became of their lives?

Those appalling creatures…

Yes, yes, I’m getting ahead of myself again.

But allow me.

I am still struggling, certainly, but my heart is in the right place.

Not so the doubly wretched—wretched in body and wretched in mind.

Yes, they did me in somewhat. They made my heart angry.

But then, so do mosquitoes.

And tsetse flies.

And rats.

Do I despise them?

No.

Waiting for God’s Dream to End

Listen.

I was returning from the waterside, where I had gone to hear stories.

You guessed right: I had no job.

Or, shall we say, I was between jobs—waiting for God’s dream to end.

At the waterfront, you know, we traded stories. We laughed. We helped the fishermen with their nets and sorted their catch into grades.

This and that.

That and this.

We also “fiftied” cigarettes—two men sharing one cigarette—and sometimes we simply sat and watched the river gently flow by.

We were mostly gentle souls.

All we wanted was to pacify the raging despair within our souls until our dreams were ready for us to inhabit.

I hated my life.

But I was willing to soldier on.

Waka the Great

My heart quickened when I saw smoke rising from my section of the swampy compound, where I had been allowed to put up a batcher.

Batcher?

Basha?

Bacha?

I cannot vouch for the spelling.

I was a nouveau pauper.

I had actually been whistling as I approached the compound because Waka the fisherman had spent the afternoon regaling me with stories from his former life as a palm-wine tapper.

Waka the Great!

“Now das my luck,” he once complained, “to suffer-suffer for my daily bread.”

The only occupations really open to him, he explained, were palm-wine tapping and fishing.

“Just my luck,” he said without emotion. “I either falling down from those tall-tall trees or I drowning in de bad-bad river.”

“Waka!” the entire congregation shouted.

“Speak am well-well! Scatter de grammar!”

“Bookooroo!” someone else added shrilly.

Bookooroo was derived from “book” and was our euphemism for people who tried to show off their great learning.

Waka had fallen—yes, you guessed right—from what was probably the tallest palm tree in the whole Niger Delta.

“Him papa head good,” somebody said when he made a remarkably quick recovery two months later.

He walked thereafter with an endearing limp, the result of his injuries.

And so he became Waka—pidgin for walk.

In midlife, understandably reluctant to climb another palm tree, Waka did what working men the world over do when their industries become hazardous or obsolete:

He retooled.

He retrained.

He became a fisherman.

The Brothers of the Order of Palm-Wine Tappers

Such was the bond between Waka and his former colleagues that they would bring him a gourd or two of frothing, undiluted palm wine in the evenings after the day’s work.

He, in turn, would provide roasted fish—hotly spiced.

Waka was kind to me and shared his palm wine.

I also had the honour of serving as Fish Roaster in the evenings when the brothers of the Order of Palm-Wine Tappers returned.

And what men they were.

They were as arrogant as men anywhere—men who had full and total control of their lives and knew it for a dead certain fact.

The English milord could have learned a thing or two from them.

They were kings when they climbed the tall palm trees of the Niger Delta.

They were kings when they climbed down.

And even as they sat around eating roasted fish and drinking palm wine, they exuded a certain understated dignity.

These impoverished royals lived their lives to the hilt, and they knew it.

They set their own work schedules.

Drew up their own Gantt charts.

Decided what to do, whom to supply and who could wait.

I surpass myself…

Unfailingly, each evening they toasted Bacchus, the god of wine.

Bacchus, who had a thousand African names.

“To Mmanya-nmo!” they would say in unison.

“To you, great Mmanya-nmo—the cause of and solution to all life’s problems!”

“What do you mean? Mmanya doesn’t cause any problems,” someone would protest.

“Leave that matter for another day,” Gravelly Voice would retort. “I no get power for argue dis evening.”

“I say Mmanya-nmo doesn’t cause any problems. I don’t care whether you have power to argue or not. It doesn’t cause any problems.”

“But look at yourself! Are you not already a problem to yourself?”

“You’re a damn fool. No wonder your in-laws beat you up the other day.”

“They disgraced themselves, not me!”

And on and on they bantered.

“Who Is That Cockroach?”

Then one evening I heard Gravelly Voice ask:

“Who is that cockroach?”

I knew they were talking about me.

I kept a straight face and continued fanning the embers beneath the sooty basket of fish suspended over the fire.

“That cockroach is a doctor,” Waka explained.

“Doctors do not roast fish! Doctor of what?”

A new voice burst into laughter, sending palm wine shooting from his nostrils.

“I don’t know,” Waka replied. “He told me he is a doctor, and I believe him.”

“There are so many doctors these days,” another voice entered the fray. “I am a doctor myself.”

“Doctor of what?” asked the man with the ejaculating nostrils, doubling over with laughter and clutching his stomach as though in acute pain.

“Don’t kill me here!” he shouted as more palm wine escaped through his nose. “You will all be held responsible! You all know what a troublesome woman my wife is!”

“Answer now, Doctor,” Waka nudged the man who had declared himself one.

“Doctor of tree climbing,” he said resignedly.

His thunder had been stolen by the man with the ejaculating nose.

Then Gravelly Voice turned towards me.

“Come here,” he said. “Sit with us. My daughter has just finished Standard School. She wants to be a doctor. Are you really a doctor?”

And just like that, the cockroach had been invited to sit among kings.

The Smoke

So yes, I had been whistling when I approached the house that evening.

Then my heart quickened.

Smoke was rising from the section of the swampy compound where I had been permitted to put up my bacha.

My gait held.

It betrayed none of the emotions I felt.

I stepped smartly around what used to be my home.

Strangely, I felt gladness.

My miserable dwelling had been mercilessly incinerated by people who seemed to hate me and the very earth upon which I stood.

Yet what I felt at that moment was something close to “the peace that passeth all understanding.”

I remembered the damp floor.

I remembered the rats with whom I shared my space.

Especially Skippy.

Skippy and the Evolution of Rats

Skippy was a rat I had named because he would skip about on his hind legs whenever he sensed that I had finally had enough of his antics and was preparing to smash something hard against him.

I always spared him on account of his comic plight.

Evolution, I reasoned, meant rats like Skippy would multiply, and eventually we would have smart rats.

And if we had enough smart rats, perhaps one day we might reach a compromise with them.

We could teach them to stop stealing and annoying us by explaining that there was enough for everybody.

I reckoned it would be easier to explain this to Skippy and the other members of the rat race than to the great stealing machine called government.

But that is another matter.

Standing there before the ashes of my home, I felt surprisingly little.

My principal concern was that Skippy would now have to find somewhere else to live.

I worried that intelligent rats like him might be exterminated mindlessly before they had a chance to reproduce.

It seemed important that humanity should assist the evolutionary process by getting a little sense into its own head and learning not to destroy everything it did not understand.

Alas, the days of a reasoned tête-à-tête with rats—whether of the governmental or Rattus rattus variety—lay far ahead.

I Walked Away

Still whistling, my hands now in my pockets, I surveyed the remains of my home.

Then I walked away.

Head high.

I was free.

Freed from my shackles, I walked away.

I had had it.

I would first go to church and renew my relationship with Him who had been patient with me and would, verily, receive me.

Then I would beg something from the pastor.

After that, I would travel to Warri.

I was no longer a cockroach.

I had been smoked out of my hiding place and forced into the open.

Ready to make a hash of it.

Cockroaches are afraid to move. They have too many natural enemies. They prefer darkness, crevices, corners—anywhere they can blend into the background and remain unseen.

But I wasn’t afraid to move.

Not anymore.

Indeed, I had to move.

I had no cover left.

But scurry?

Scurry I would not.

I held my head high, turned around and walked out of that yard.

I half expected applause.

But that would have to wait for the movie version of my life story.

First, I would go to church and renew my relationship with Him who was patient and would verily receive me.

Then I would beg something from the pastor.

And somewhere out there was Gravelly Voice, whose daughter wanted to become a doctor.

Perhaps that mattered too.

Life was tough.

But, to my credit, I was hangin’ in there.

I used to be a cockroach.

I hated my life.

But I was willing to soldier on.

Willing to wait for God.

And life?

Life is still tough.

But I’m still hangin’ in there.

#DK

How the west lost its glory...

How the west lost its glory...
Albinos were outcasts but these albinos were different! They - the albinos from the other side of the great divide were glorious to behold – the loose flying hair of all colours and shades, the unrepentant hedonist – – the swash buckling visitor who had no gods - representative all of we always wanted to be but were too cowardly .....too afraid of HIM who had our fate in his palm and dealt a treacherous hand when we stepped ever so slightly out of line.

Albinos were outcasts but these albinos were different!

We had always wanted to treat our gods with disdain because they turned our most begotten dreams to ashes and lent a helping hand only when we made burnt sacrifice of the last of our fattened livestock. We thus quite simply fell in love with him and his feckless ways... his godlessness was refreshing to behold and don't forget - he was a magician of sorts - a spell binder.....he had the stick which belched thunder, he had the great houses which floated on water....he sucked fire into his mouth and burnt his intestines but did not wince - I swear he burnt his insides and his nose was the chimney from which the smoke curled out from his bowels...

...but with the passage of time, lots of it, his magic became boring and common place and all too pervasive and quietly in our hearts we lost our enchantment. We lost our enchantment when we realised that the smiling loose haired visitor was a rogue of sorts. We had welcomed him and had given him land to practice his goodness... but so ungainly was he.... CARAMBA!!...not even one generation had passed...can you believe!... he wanted to be top dog... nay he became top dog and the smiles vanished. He turned out to be mean hearted, had a forked tongue, poor hygiene, and you realised that the great magician like a great work of art, had no soul and above all did everything for money - even the goodness he practised on us was tainted by his love for filthy lucre. He hated his craft but was frozen in his purposes - constrained to perform, and through his magic and wondrous arts sought to steal your soul.

You wonder and say to yourself: This guy cannot be my master! Perfidy! You realise you are probably the stronger in this relationship. You cannot bear to think the thought but realise that his godlessness was the bane of him - the cause of his soulessness.

You thus retrace your steps to your gods, and tell them of your great insight into the weaknesses of the magician. You truly are grateful for the constraints of your traditional ways and the restraints of your mean hearted gods. Grateful for your return, your emboldened gods whisper in your left ear close to your heart:

"He is your servant - destined to carry you through to your final confrontation with destiny. Let him invent those things, pay for them. See how dirty and unkempt he is..."

Emboldened by the voices of your gods, you turn your searchlight on the matter and to your chagrin realise that the half-eyed has somehow talked you into abandoning your purposeful march up destiny's ladder.

Like Etsu, the west-African god of mischief, the magician has tricked you. You have supplanted your destiny for one of consumerism. A destiny where your sense of worth is ultimately determined by sheer volume - your consumption index. You find yourself in a world in which you are condemned to be nothing. Not just in the eyes of all others but in your very own eyes because even you know it. You have little. Little to consume, little to show off with...and Etsu-like, the erstwhile foreigner ensures that you never will – he controls the fabrication of goods... don't you know?? It suits him to have you robbed of your profundity and emotional edge.....ensuring that the master remains a servant - in his very own garden..

Juxtapose the magician against those who have sustained civilisations for many thousands of years whose proud bards still sing and speak with awe of their heritage - of "ancient glamour keeping their youth", I speak of the land of Mencius...speaking of which we cannot but notice that the 'Mencians' have risen out of a fate prescribed for them by the magicians and also how the magicians (envious behind their masks) had only recently wished to draw them into war (over a spy plane) - in order no doubt to have a reason to destroy that which has been built by superior purposes and nobler endeavours..... The magicians like their ancestors seek to convince the rest of the world that the discredited, the puerile, the meaningless chaff which surround us are our gift from heaven - that to hanker for God, for things spiritual is to cop out.

The West has lost its glory. It lost it when it offered everything for the senses but nothing for the soul. It lost its glory when
the sad, the sullen eyed, the befuddled, the struggling are still today being stolen from and insulted with donated aid.
They no longer steal at musket point from the wretched of the earth - this they do by economic sleight of hand
which ensured perpetual servitude for those who groan twice - under the yoke of circumstance and under the yoke of the dispossessor. The West must rid itself of its filth - buy its glory back - and literally repay the hundreds of billions of dollars for all the wealth – human and natural stolen from all God's children (From the valleys of Montezuma to the 'verdant valleys' of Shaka the Zulu).

The brave new world promised by the technological marvels of the age has simply not materialised and our collectively stupidity as a race is underlined by the emptiness of the world we have tried to create. I hate the situation I find myself in: cursed to write and forever postulate here in the hidden rooms of my hidden heart.

I hate writing!

'On whose side is God on?' I once heard the BBC ask a Sage. 'On the side of suffering humanity', he had answered.

I hope he is damn right!!

Of Hubble and the death of religion

The Hubble telescope has given mankind great insight into how stars and galaxies are formed and how they die. And if celestial bodies be born and then die, why cannot gods the same be?

Today, we are witnesses - to the demise of global belief systems. It is doubtful if ever in recorded history, mankind has had a front row seat to watch or observe a religion locked in mortal combat – not with external forces as the unwary might be led mistakenly into believing, but with the great and mighty spirit called 'Truth' - that merciless examiner of all that we hold to be true and that most patient of collectors who allows us the freedom to believe all that we wish to, but not to escape its consequences.

Which is why when a religion tolerates no examination from within or without, which labels all forms of dissent as heresy, which imbues its clergy with powers both spiritual and temporal, it shall in the end, have nothing unique to offer. It becomes an irrelevancy and its tenets open to interpretation and abuse by the clergy class.

Why?

Because truth or the determination of the truth will not be rigorous and very soon, its skid-mounted, movable beacons and precepts, meant to delineate justice from injustice, truth from untruth, will lead to listlessness amongst its adherents. They are given the task of holding dear a religion which has become irrelevant in the modern world. Violence erupts.

These adherents will lash out at even those who tolerate its idiosyncrasies because it views all such tolerance as condescension. It will seek no force of argument – because it has none. Its new converts will be found amongst the most ignorant on earth - those it will rather not have!

It will be aware of its ungainliness amongst those it so desperately wishes to convert but are ensconced in deep romance with their gods. This will rile them to no end. They thus shall lash out and seek to hurt those who do so marvelously well without the sterling advice offered by their great book.....

Like Red Giant's in the throes of death however, it will first be seen to expand and consume a large part of the celestial skies causing much destruction on earth….but the laws of the universe are steadfast. In the end, it will shrink and become a dwarf - a blackbody - a net recipient of light (truth).