“Please, take me home, let me deliver this child in the arms of my mother”…

The urgency in my voice troubled him, but then, hadn’t I always troubled him? He didn’t understand me, couldn’t understand me, I spoke of places he hadn’t heard of, places he was sure didn’t exist. He spoke to me words from the books he read, and cajouled me with his sweet tongue. He once told me I was only a naive eighteen year old and a village girl for that matter…he didn’t believe me and didn’t understand why each time he tried to touch me, I begged him not to, but he wouldn’t listen…”a child is the pride of his father” he would always say. He brought his learned collegues to see me, they laughed at my folly, but I didn’t care, they could not hear the voices and they could not smell the rich scent of the boiling elephant soup.

It had been a year and some months and I finally got to see my room again, I stared at the window and saw the beautiful sights all over agian, the voices grew stronger as the baby kicked within me. Aremu had brought his doctor friend with him, but I wouldn’t let him deliver me, I wanted it done the way of our fathers. That night, as I lay on my hard-wood bed, I turned and saw my husband, asleep with a book on his chest, I gently stood up and made my way to the front door, I sat on the red earth and drew on it with my fingers. I sat, expecting it, and then it came, the drum rolls, the voices, and the songs

Awero, the time is set

Daughter of the great hunter, we salute you

Hurry, for you must serve your fathers

You must feed your sons

With the unquenchable savour of the elephant soup

I stood and danced awhile to the tunes, until my feet got weary and I couldn’t move any longer. That night, the mid-wife arrived to deliver my child, I didn’t cry, I didn’t wail, I didn’t even scream. I closed my eyes and told mother I would be back, she threw a tantrum and begged me to stay, she said I was the only one who satyed so long…I told her I needed to go and serve my fathers and promised her a plate of elephant soup when I return. I heard Aremu and his doctor friend chuckle from a distance, but I could feel the fear and uncertainty in it… he still did not understand and I was afraid he would never undertsand, the books he read had blinded him…the sorry case of a lost child.

I heard the mid-wife scream as she held me up in her hands, I didn’t cry as every baby ought to, but I was alive…

Awero

Daughter of the great warrior

Awero

The one who never falls

Awero

A woman like a man

…I smiled as I was welcomed into the land of the living…and the dead…

THE END