Copyright © 2014 by Egbujie Ebere Kissan.

ISBN:          Softcover          978-1-4990-8872-4

                   eBook                978-1-4990-8873-1

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Rev. date: 08/21/2014

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER 1   AFFOR

CHAPTER 2   NKWO

CHAPTER 3   EKE

CHAPTER 4   ORIE

CHAPTER 5   AFFOR

CHAPTER 6   NKWO

EPILOGUE

Her mother was a stranger in Affa, wanted by two gods, one thirsty for her blood, the other for her service. The battle between the gods came to an abrupt stop when it was discovered that she was pregnant; both gods then wanted her out of the village, far from the people, and wanted isolation for her and her baby.

They were denied the most natural and common desire of every creature: love.

She grew and learnt to hate and had only one desire in life, and for that desire she lived—THE EXTINCTION OF AGU-AFFA.

To the people of Affa, my late sister Bernadette, and Amofia Agu-Affa, a resilient people

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work would not be complete without acknowledging the following persons who were instrumental in one way or the other to the improvement of this work.

1. Mr. and Mrs. Faliko, especially the wife for having time to read this work, and for the husband’s advice

2. Mrs. Oyema Nwodo, not only for her encouragements but for making me believe in myself and that I have the quality to become whatever I want to be

3. My brothers Stanley Odior and Chinedu E. Nzelu for their unwavering support and encouragement

4. My nieces, Maria, Ukamaka, and Ifeoma Udeh, for being there when I needed them

5. Mr. Ayila, a veteran editor with many Nigerian publishing houses, who went through the work and made some valuable observations and corrections

6. The premier university, University of Ibadan (my alma mater), lecturers and students at the Classics department for advice and encouragement

7. My mother and family for their patience, and many others whose names I cannot now mention—the Almighty God will also be there for you.

8. Most importantly I thank God, my maker, for his graces and love.

CHAPTER ONE

AFFOR

1

The congregation in the church that evening was scanty just like every other day. Christianity, a new religion in the village, had few followers.

On Sundays, the long stone structure hall, with two large added rooms at the head, for store and a dressing room for the ministers that was used as church as well as school classroom, was barely half-filled. The hall was strongly built with dark-brown stones, the type mostly found in the hills surrounding the village, and was the only one of its kind in the village. It stood strong and stout.

Their number did not discourage the few regular members who had come to take the teachings of Christ seriously and struggle to follow the rules of the church.

The church catechist, a hairy lanky fellow whose Adam’s apple kept bouncing like a ping-pong ball in his almost-too-long neck, always quoted from the scripture, ‘Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst.’

As he spoke that evening, he waved his hands for emphasis: ‘Let us not allow the evil others commit to be a curse upon us. Let every one of us, few as we are, be a keeper of the other, as the first Christians did. Do to others as you would want them do to you. We cannot be like the hypocrites who claim they know and love God, whom they cannot see, and yet hate their fellow men, who are created in the image of God and they can see. That, my brethren, is not possible.

‘Our Lord said, love your neighbour as yourself! Another issue I would want to talk about this evening is the matter of worshiping idols as well as the Almighty God. My dear brethren, this is very bad, a grievous offense against the Almighty God! Our God, the Almighty, is a jealous god, very jealous! I see a lot of this happening in our community here, it’s sad.’

Many in the congregation nodded their heads.

‘You cannot serve two masters at the same time, like pursuing two rats and expecting to kill the two with one stone!’

There were snickers and small laughs from the congregation, which died down as he continued.

2

Agu-Affa is one of the villages that made up the seven Affa villages, a part of Udi local government in Enugu state. It used to be a hamlet with a population of about two and a half thousand residents. Their main occupation was farming, self-subsistence farming. It was small, and nestled in the valley of hills. Viewed from above, it had the appearance of a cluster of huts with round red mud walls in a large pit, most of the huts screened by green vegetation. It was breathtakingly beautiful if viewed from the top of the surrounding hills, like a deserted colony of ants with the abandoned few moving about in search of one thing or the other.

The trees in the village were tall and lush, the bush thick and dense; wild animals could often be seen dashing from one bush to another across the footpaths and sometimes moving at a leisurely pace with a mindless assurance.

During the rainy seasons, the whole place would be thick with trees and vegetation, and one would often hear the sound of the truck that ran from the village to Enugu a long time before seeing the vehicle. The truck, an old smoky, rickety wooden van with passenger entrance door at the back and a wooden bench for seats, ran from the village to the city once every market week with farm produce and people. The truck was often overloaded with goods and passengers. The passengers often sat on their goods than on the wooden seats, which the conductors would usually remove and tie to the body of the car. The movement was slow, rocking left and right with groaning weary sound as it moved up and down the rough, rocky, hilly road, moving at the speed of fifteen miles per hour. The whole body of the wooden truck with its goods and passengers was covered with red dust.

Most of the villagers were idol worshipers who believed ardently in the powers of the old, their forefathers’ gods, and the spirit of their ancestors. Christianity came to the village like water seeping through a leaking roof into the house. The religion had arrived through the village contacts with Eke and other surrounding villages, which were more developed and nearer to Enugu, villages like Inoyi and Udi, a developing town. It was generally believed that the wonders of the white man came from the religion. And so, there was tolerance between the few Christians and the rest of the community.

Very few people paid attention to the new religion, and there was little discrimination; rather, the religion was referred to with jest among the villagers. More than half of the population of the congregation was made up of children and youths, a few poor villagers, some old and infirm, and a few Osu-castes, who were looking for acceptance. Some villagers sent their children to the church and school to learn the ‘white man sense’, which it was believed that those who attend church often acquire.

The discrimination would start only during idol festivals when Christians refused to join, partake, or eat food offered in the shrines of the gods during feasts or festivals.

The density of the forest surrounding the village made it possible for wild beasts to roam freely in the hills and around the village. Wild animals like wildcats were feared at night, especially by those living at the fringes of the village. Baboons and monkeys were known to commit havoc in the farms. Children and women were often given the beating of their lives when caught alone at the streams by angry monkeys or baboons.

Bushmeat was a regular diet in the village and sold very cheap in the market. As a farming community, the villagers farmed for three days and on the fourth day marketed, bought, and sold. Market days were not only for buying and selling; these also served as a period of resting and relaxing, sharing of palm wine and eating of bushmeat while gossips were also passed, old stories embellished and retold. Folk stories were also re-enacted and retold there.

Nkwo, the traditional market day, is held every fourth day. It was attended by all, except on rare occasions like the farming and planting season, when there was too much work in the farms, like weeding, which was done with hoes, or tending to the yam seeds’ shoots. Such periods of farm work for the villagers were sensitive and should not be left even for a day. Yet even at such periods, villagers still assembled for marketing.

Farms were often miles away from the village, and the farmers left their homes as early as the first cockcrow and returned as late as sunset. During the harvesting or planting seasons, small huts were built at the farms, and cooking utensils as well as sleeping mats were taken there and the whole family remained there for market weeks till almost all the farm work was done. Wives often returned to the village once in a market week to attend to household chores.

Men rarely went home before the farm work was finished. But before leaving their homes, they would hand their palm trees to someone, often elderly men who no longer went to distant farms, to tap for them. They only returned to the village on occasions like village meetings or on emergences called by the town crier or age-grade meetings.

It was the month of August and the village was preparing for the Akani, the new yam festival.

The church building was a rectangular stone building with corrugated iron roof. It had high windows in long rows and four doors, two on either side, the biggest structure in the village. It was built by the first Catholic missionaries who came to the village in the early nineties. They had first settled at Udi and Eke, where they had built schools and had bigger communities.

The church hall was meant to serve two reasons: a place of worship and a school for the community children. On weekdays, the church was demarcated with wooden tripod boards into classes where a table and chair were kept for the teacher and mats or animal skins spread for the children to sit on. The school had started with one class and as few as three students, an orphan and two children of an outcast, who were among the new converts. Much later the class increased and was later divided into two and handled by only one teacher, who was popularly called Master Onu.

Master Onu was from Udi, and in his bid to attract other children, classes were often held under trees and games played at weekends. More children came, not mainly for the education but for the games. At that early stage the school was free, catered for by the church and missionaries but when the children’s numbers increased, fees were introduced. The children learnt to do crafts and pick cashew nuts, which they sold to support their parents in paying their school fees.

In the church, the same set of people that came for Sunday services also attended daily services conducted by the catechist, mostly youths and a handful of elderly men and women, none highly regarded in the village.

Education had helped to stimulate the interest of the youths, who formed the other part of the church congregation. It was becoming a thing of luxury and fashion to have a son in school who also attended the church. Villagers in big cities like Enugu encouraged their younger ones to attend school when they had any occasion to return to the village.

3

On the row of benches where men sat, a young male of sixteen tapped his brother on the leg and whispered loudly, with excitement.

‘She stared at me with lovely eyes that said a lot, wow. You should have seen the way she looked; I can’t wait to be close to her—’

There was a sharp hiss from an elder sitting near them.

‘Shut up!’ his companion whispered fiercely. ‘You forgot you’re in the church!’

Uzokwe was frowning slightly. ‘I wish that old cow would cut all that long story short, wasn’t that the same story he told us on Sunday?’

Okeh slapped him on the thigh, glaring at him in mock anger. ‘Don’t turn the house of God into a nest for lovers, what would you wish him preach, love?’

‘For a change, yes, besides where is a better place to build a nest of love if not the church?’ He turned again to see if he could catch the girl’s eyes.

Okeh watched his half-brother for a while, shook his head, shrugging tolerantly. Uzokwe was not a person one got angry with easily; he was too easy-going to be annoyed with and would not bother to notice or care. He was tall and handsome, with bushy brows and dark shiny eyes that were always twinkling with happiness. He was tall for his age and broad-shouldered and could wrestle and throw any of his age mates on the ground.

Okeh wondered which girl was arresting Uzokwe’s mind this time around; recently it had been one girl or the other, but none of them ever lasted. He still had not seen her; the girls were backing them. When they all stood for the closing prayers, he had shrugged the thought off. Then he saw the girl, just as they were about to leave; she turned, giving Uzokwe a side glace. Instantly, Okeh’s lips tightened in anger.

Uzokwe was among the