IN ANOTHER MANS LAND EPISODE 5

On the bike, your heart kept pounding. You had wanted a little bit of adventure and this was it. Everything happening looked like a pre-kidnap situation. Aunty Faith was no longer talking to you on the bike and she felt a little bigger from where she sat behind you in the little space you shared with the bike rider. You swallowed hurriedly, getting adrenaline ready just in case, while rehearsing Psalm 23 in your head as the bike jetted through the woods. The few painted buildings, large churches and schools with iron roofs gave way to the forest, and you began to see thick-trunked trees with lush green canopies. And if you looked beneath them, you would see thatch-roofed round huts.


And on talking to the bike man in the Tiv language, Aunty Faith mentioned a mango tree, and on looking,  under a mango tree were women waiting to welcome you. One of them was a very old woman with wrinkled skin, the other looked like she was Aunty Faith’s mother. In their eyes were curiosity and a certain kindness that dispelled your thoughts of being kidnapped. 

You told your face to smile, and the necessary muscles made sure you presented a harmless demeanour to these women, as you tried to remember the proper greetings. 

“What am I going to say?” You asked Aunty Faith and the bike rider because all your Tiv vocabulary had been whipped off you by the wind as you transitioned from town to village. 

“U pande vee,”

“U pande vee,” You said unconvincingly while bending at the knees like a proper Yoruba girl, after an initial attempt at "U nder vee” which meant good morning. It was almost 1 pm, and it became a consistent error, as everyone who heard that Aunty Faith’s kopa friend was around wanted to say a greeting, and met with a wrong answer every time until all of you became comfortable to laugh about it. 

Aunty Faith had you sit on the big blue plastic chair that was probably her father’s. Feeling foreign like the British that came to colonize Nigeria, you sat in the peacefulness of the simple environment.

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