VILLAGE LIFE PART 2

I PREFER A VILLAGE BOY

I prefer a village boy. He is sharper, stronger, swifter in thought, more daring and resistant to challenges of life. He can go without food for a whole day and you may not know it as he carries on with his daily. He runs a litany of home chores on an average day often without any level of supervision.

These are some of the crucial features that distinguishes a ‘local boy’ brought up in the village and his ‘indomie counterpart’ raised in an owner occupier GRA household in the township. The former may not know how to dress cutely or speak Queen’s English but when chips are down and they find themselves in the field of life n future, one is more rugged, tough, resilient, country-home oriented and will be able to stand his ground in the village meeting challenging an intruder who is claiming his father’s plot of land.



A prefer a village boy because he does not remain a village boy forever. Some of the governors and successful business were once village boys. Professors, medical doctors and army generals. This is because they gotten the basic education and overcome the early family restrictions and poverty, they become unstoppable once they come to the township. At that stage, they very equipped and ready for the battle of life.

I prefer a village boy. Have you not noticed it during Christmas home coming when the two interact in the big family compound? How a small village boy of seven years will be intimidating his returnee counterpart who is twelve years and restricting him in the confines of his mother’s bedroom always. The bigger boy will not be able to resist him because he does not speak the village vernacular and does not know any of the tricks with which they survive.

He does eat everything as he very dependent on selected foods offers little energy and common sense. He does not know the village routes and shortcut or ‘apiam’ ways. The township returnee-boy is afraid of everybody including his father’s brothers, his uncles, aunties and nearest neighbor and even of himself. After all, he has been brain washed by own father and mother that every old man and woman in the village can kill through poisoning especially those who were red caps. He continues to grow with this error in his head. Even as a grown up, he does not feel safe among his kith and kin when he comes to the village for anything until he returns to town.

He is not interested in the village meeting because he does understand their language and idiomatic gymnastics. When he does attend, he remains dumb and quiet until the end of the meeting even as a professor or medical doctor. Even if he has something to contribute, he will not have the courage to stand up because his not sure of his vernacular command. If he must come to the village for anything, he prefers doing so under darkness. He steps into the village around 7.30pm and leaves before 5.30am. He does not want anybody to see him.

I prefer a village boy. Women who married former village boys are not regretting it at all. The village boy knows the names of all their close and distant relations and the ways leading to their homes even in the neighboring towns. He knows the boundary of all his father’s lands wherever they are located because he used to go there to farm with his parents.

On the other hand, his township counterpart relies on his aged mother in the village for such knowledge and when she suddenly dies, he is at the mercy of his rival uncles who will be most unwilling to disclose everything. In fact, when he notices that you have started coming home more than once in seven years, he will stop answering your greeting and declare you ‘over-wise’ and a rival. They are more comfortable when you do not come home at all.


If the township-bred has a case to persecute in the meeting regarding boundary and land dispute, the meeting chairman will cage him effectively by declaring that nobody is allowed to speak ‘grammar’ in the village meeting. In this way, he will be shouting ‘Wat! Wat!!, Wat!!!’. The next option will be to storm out of the meeting and vow never to attend it again. That is how he will lose his father’s heritage to a village wine-tapper. Those whose children speak only English language and do not understand or speak Igbo, this is your lot and I pity you. Often, it does not happen until you are dead with the vain hope that you have a male child who can hold his own like others. A big disappointment awaits you. Those women who rejoice that their children speak only English and boast about that do not know that they are only setting up a disaster in your house. My fellow men, the time to act is now. Be wise.

A village young man can represent his father in a village townhall meeting and could stand up to speak, ask and answer questions especially if the meeting is being held in his father’s compound. If the need be, he can bless that kola nut in the most traditional way and in good vernacular and sound articulation of ideas communicated to the ancestors.

His township counterpart even at the age seventy does not know how to handle the kola nut ritual in Igbo language and cannot speak a single sentence in Igbo language without admixture of eighty percent English words in such a manner that even a visiting American can understand his own brand of vernacular. You will pity him when he doing the funeral of his father or traditional marriage. He begs for guidance even from those twenty years younger than he is even with all the money he has come home with and with all the barrage university degrees. What then do we do?

Early Solution

English Language is very good. It is a gate opener to civilization, wider connection and opportunities. But it is a disaster when a child does not match with vernacular. It is fraught with a lot of limitations and drawbacks when it stands alone. Remember the Igbo adage that a person who knows only one route to a place does not the way to it. Fathers, my fellow men, it is good for your child to learn English Language, French, German, Italian, Latin or any other foreign or local language but Igbo is the first language and the gateway to native intelligence and traditional wisdom.

Put embargo on English speaking in your household. Let them speak it only in the school any other place outside the family. Mandate your wife to take this instruction quite seriously. They will not understand what it means for all your labor to be in vain. Always go the village with your son whenever have an opportunity of doing so. Take him wherever you are going to including visitations and village meetings. You are a village boy. I am also a village boy. Even Jesus was a village boy. Your son must be one too. You will not regret it. Rather, you will live to rejoice and encourage other, your fellow diaspora Igbo to do the same.

To be continued.

From the Village Elder,

Okenye

Ụkọchukwu Osebụrụwa
IGBO PROVERBS

Read the previous part

THE VILLAGE LIFE PART 1