Dr Fixit (141 - 150)

 141

seven formed a week in my generation.

The seventh day was sacred but a counter notion 

was embedded somewhere in the Holy Book:

who had a chicken escaped from the coop 

and would not chase on the sacred day?

Some quoted this portion to lay

a cover on their laxity to observe

the non-work dictate every believer is served.

But Ahdet, in grandma's days, was the eight 

and sacred day and it is widely said 

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who ventured to the wood or farm to work 

had themselves to blame. They were sucked 

like water through a pipe into the other world

and only through sacrifice and the word

of an ahbiah hebuck were they brought back.

From both faiths, my grandma wasn't slack.

She had often quoted me a passage 

from the scripture: when faced with the rage 

of a foe, change colours like the chameleon 

to stay alive. When I'd said the notion 

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with an army ant was unrealistic,

she had laughed and said the idea pragmatic 

from the concept, being a parable, was 

I should get crafty to outwit a foe. It's a plus 

for the game of survival in a world quite wild

where harm could reach anyone, the adult or child.

Grandma was fond again of quoting this passage:

'What an army ant  keeps - whether sausage,

bone or meat - in their storehouse,

that they would eat when hunger would arouse 

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'pangs deep in their tummy at the apt time 

or day; now or in the future. If preserved fine,

they would relish the flavour. If not,

they'd consume it  with the stench from the rot.'

The actual line from the scripture 

could have had a different feature

but the preachers in Antburg inserted 

images that would go into bed 

and out of it with the army ants 

and juggle their memory as under the plants 

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day in, day out they hustled. And they stuck 

in grandma's brain like termites' fangs  that struck 

and stuck in the sole of a human's foot.

But it was hard for grandma's peers to refute 

what they had imbibed while growing up.

The old beliefs were hard for them to drop 

from the midst of the new so they would talk 

of God's power and how their forbears could walk 

from the dead to avenge for them.

Their superstitious ways were hard to tame.

1'46

Did you know across Antburg it was a norm 

in the dry season that water was drawn from 

the streams in the clans. As crowds marched here

and made the water murky, the time quite dear 

to fetch clean water was early before dawn 

and the first set of fellows who had drawn 

their feet near the edge of the stream 

would throw sand in as it was deemed 

to startle a sleeping dream would make it 

sweep away the intruder so you wake it,

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every kid's ear was drawn, before stepping in.

Way back in the past, the message was beamed

and till my time our folks didn't refrain 

from telling us. Would we too like the grain 

sow them? Funny enough, the old beliefs for some 

did work making us wonder if they were some form 

of superstition or not. If grandma's left eyelid 

did twitch for days, she could predict a deed

quite negative would take place and soon too 

her prediction would come to pass. If she didn't pursue 

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anyone or anything but in her leisure walk 

she struck her right foot, she would talk 

about a positive thing happening like a grand visitor 

or gift crossing her threshold. I would monitor 

her prophecy and it had always turned out true.

So the spine of these beliefs I did review 

while growing up constantly. From bank 

to bank of the stream but from Bendit's flank 

I didn't stray too far. I kept diving deep 

and staying there quite long, then would leap 

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to the surface when desperate for air.

Then, the girls were all out. With their dry wear,

they urged the boys out so we all could 

return home before dusk as the brown doves had cooed 

and the 'uhdudu' had warned that night 

had stolen in and could ambush us right 

in the stream. As the girls climbed the hills,

we followed tight with our stuff, agile on our heels.

In the GRA, an official on a white bike 

fondly called 'white horse' did leisurely ride 

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with his wife sitting on the carrier,

legs packed to one side. We did holler 

excitedly our greeting at them and they did answer

with words, smiles and hand-waving. Of course, power 

elicited respect throughout the clans. But what we did 

mirror the training in school and home. Every deed,

good or bad (the army ants believed)

showed the level of discipline a child had received.

A child respecting an elder was a rule 

taught across the clan, at home and in school.