My Memoir (this Is The First Chapter, True Life Story, Read And Critisize)

Dear Genius,

I want you all to comment on this first chapter, thanks and enjoy reading,

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1
It is July 17, 1994; my country Nigeria is in a state of turmoil as Moshood Abiola has declared himself president post a controversial election. Tension fills the atmosphere yet people scampering amidst the hustle remains the order of the day. Such is not the case in my world, on this day in the city of Otta, Ogun state. Hastily she emerges from the back yard with the medicine man, her eyes unfocused, somewhat in slumber. She stops in front of me, slowly lifting her eye gaze from my dislocated right knee before fixing it on mine. In her eyes, I try to find meaning but the blank stare from her, my mother provides the final answer.
The medicine man stands behind us, staring at Mom more than me. Moving closer to her, he utters, “I’m sorry. I’m just telling you the gospel truth. The brutal truth about your son.” 
Gazing up, I notice the gloomy sky, the drizzle starting to fall, only this time the source are my mother’s eyes as she glowers at me again, and I do not know whether or not she is listening to this man.
“Oh, my God, what is happening?” she says, even as she gestures to me to follow her, only adding more confusion to an already perplexed situation. The medicine man stares at me, his thoughts a mystery to decipher. He is a man of forty-something years, the rays of the sun appear to have darkened his skin to resemble coal, reminiscent of the ancient Ogun warrior, the chief of all, huge, with a spherical head and a rough moustache. His ears are set closely to his head, and his close-set eyes seem to be red.
“You,” he verbalizes to me, “God will heal you,” he adds wearily.
“Amen,” I say.
I stand up. With my staff in my right hand, I hop behind Mom like someone whose right leg has been amputated. Lingering thoughts stay on my mind as I wonder why she wants me to go away without being attended to by the medicine man. The sharp pain brings me back to reality as I hope I am being taken to another place, to another medicine man.
She walks as if she is in daze, almost falling. We amble out of the medicine man’s house to his compound, which is surrounded by green grass. The grass is moist because the dew is still on it; maybe it too feels sorry for Mom, offering its appealing look in exchange for her tears. The dust-covered road begs to differ even as we embark home unfulfilled.
We leave the compound and face the tarred road, which resembles the overfilled public incinerators that we see in the city. Mom trudges oblivious to the smell and not covering her nose in her usual manner. The monotonous rain of the past few days had made the road muddy, making everyone walk more slowly. Our irritation at the muddy roads pales in comparison to the normal extreme heat of the sun that makes every house an oven. 
My mother is born 43 years ago in a village called Seriki in Ogun State. Fair complexion with a round face, deep brown eyes, and hair the color of charcoal, she stood tall, like the architect she is trained to be. She didn’t graduate with an architectural engineering degree from a university in Lagos, she learned it under a company, but since Nigeria freed itself from colonization, the architectural work she learned is not lucrative and she had to pick up a trade for income.
She is raised by her parents to believe that there is nothing more important than children. Nothing else she can count on, nothing else she can trust more than her children. She learned from her mother that the one who suckles your breast from infanthood is the one to lay your trust in, and so she should not trust any man the way she trusts her children.
She had started suffering with her children twenty-two years ago, when she had her first child, my sister Fatima. Mine appears to surpass it all, the suffering of this big-headed boy of fifteen, the boy she had wished to help her in her shop three years ago is now feeble to work. 
I’m still unaware of what is happening, not quite sure where we are going. Should I ask her what the medicine man has told her? Oh, no, I mustn’t. She won’t answer, and this is not the right time to ask.
We finally reach the tarred road and stand quite still in our usual manner, waiting anxiously to no avail for a commercial bike to take us to Sango, the nearest city, where we can get a bus to take us home.
“Can you walk?” she asks wearily, at last.
Here is the opportunity I had been waiting for to ask her what just happened.
“What is happening, Mama?”
She gapes at my eyes, then down at my knee. She turns around, starring behind us at the medicine man’s compound. He is still standing there, looking at us. Almost immediately, Mom turns her eyes away from him and closes them in defiance. “I don’t want to see him again,” she declares.
“But, Mom,” I say, “what is happening?”
She doesn’t speak, slowly gesturing with the index finger of her right hand that we must be going.
Is it that she doesn’t want us to stand where the medicine man can spot us? Am I going to toddle that long distance?
The rain continues as the tears are still streaming down her face. The passers-by gaze at us, looking at me more than at her, gazing at my knee more than other parts of my body. Mom holds her breasts, her mouth ajar, but words appear incomprehensible. The movement of her lips seems to indicate that she is praying but to whom or for what is a mystery.

The journey continues as we keep meandering, the clock’s minute hand shows ten minutes has passed. The sun is playing hide and seek from behind the clouds, somewhat eager to start its daily duties. The normal hustle and bustle is happening as everyone is heading back to their respective homes or offices. The bike riders will soon stop riding to avoid the glistening rays from the sun, which I wish my mother will also suggest we do instead of having us turn to akara, our local fried delicacy made from beans, in this oven. It seems like we have been walking for ages, yet the medicine man lurks behind us, even as we are still within view of his house. I wish I can walk faster instead of these frog-like hops I can only manage to take.
Still trekking, still hoping, she is still whining, and I’m still wondering. Her bemoaning is scaring me. I’m thinking… What is going to happen?
To whom will it happen?
When?
Where?
What is the bad thing that will happen?
Why would this happen?
How?
Now I am thinking maybe it has already happened. I do not know what to think. All I know is that very soon it will be over and I will be out of this suspense and her out of her misery.
I begin to feel fatigued. The pain and the stress are terrible. I wish I could whimper but remember it might only upset Mom even more. I wish Mom would let us have some rest. This hopping may have caused another problem in my wounded leg.
As the pain worsens, anger starts to develop within me; doesn’t Mom know I must rest? Why is she not talking to me? Why are we taking this long trek? Sometimes the anger in me seems to win over the pain, but the pain in my knee always wins because of this non-stop hopping.
I wonder what she is s declaring that is keeping her lips so busy.  She is ignoring me and seems oblivious to my pain. I wish she would look at me so she would see what I’m going through. Like an answer from God, suddenly she gazes at me.
“Shall we rest?” she verbalizes.
“Mom,” I respond, “what is happening?”
“Let’s have some rest here,” is all she says.
Though we remain within sight of the medicine man, we are now far away from him.
Almost immediately, a commercial bike with no passengers approaches. Waving her right index finger, Mom stops him. Bike drivers have been acclimatized to people just gesturing with their fingers to stop them, but when passengers are on the bike, they talk.
“Are you going to Sango?” the bike man asks.
Mom nods her head. “Yes.”
“I said Sango,” the bike man says, “because I have taken you there one or two times before.”
Given the dismal amount of customers on the street, the bike man is probably ready to take us to Timbuktu if we ask him. I hop onto the seat awkwardly right in the middle, and Mom sits behind me. She pays the bike man as soon as we arrive at Sango. We get down and start to move to where the commercial buses are. She is still using her fingers to communicate.
As we are going, the bike man calls, “Madam!”
Mom looks back. She decides to pay the bike man. “Sorry,” she says wearily. She is reaching for her bag, bringing out some cash and saying again, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that I hadn’t paid the fare.”
She takes out a Naira Note, which she begins to give to the bike man.
“But, Madam,” he says, “I’m just calling you for your change. You’ve paid, but you did not collect your change.”
She takes the change. “Thank you,” she says, her mind obviously everywhere else but here.
The bike man pulls away, and I stand still, wondering and surprised that such a nice man still exists.
We stand there, ready to board a motor vehicle to go back home. Mom stands with tears in her eyes, and she glowers to heaven with her brown eyes, as if to curse it.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she addresses heaven. “So whether or not they amputate him, he’s dying soon? So am I losing him soon?”
“Huh!” I say. I do not know whether or not I heard her correctly.
She suddenly looks at me. She is terribly shocked. She grins quickly. “I am just saying something else.” She takes a longer breath, then continues, “I’m not talking to you.”
I do not speak. I do not need to talk because I know what is going to happen. I know it. I’m going to have my leg amputated.
I am afraid of amputation. I picture being strapped on a bed. Or am I going to be on the ground again with huge men holding me down? Will I be hooked up to an assortment of knives that will do the cutting on my knee? Or is it not going to be a knife? It could be one of those local cutlasses, right? What are they going to use? A white man’s machine that makes the loud noise as it slices right through maybe? Where are they going to cut my leg? Below the knee or above the knee? It will surely be above the knee. Then what will happen? Will I have to use two staffs to toddle? Then I will look like a toddling dead man. Maybe I'll be too weak to use a staff at all. Then I will be left to sit put for the rest of my life until my hair becomes gray.
I will have to live in pain for another couple of months, if not longer. I know the treatment will take days. It will hurt. There will be a lot of bandages where my leg will be amputated. My friends won't recognize me. And I won't like myself. I won't be able to concentrate on anything in this world again. My life will become a blur, one throbbing moment after another. What am I waiting for? I must run very far away from home today. But must I run away? It seems that she said I will die soon. I’d better die where they will see my corpse; at least that is better than dying in a strange land. This might as well be the end of my life as I know it because in my head, I am like a goat being led to the slaughter house.

Our family story starts many years ago in the little Yoruba village called Areta.
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end of chapter one

Good idea honey. Everyone should write one, however quick piece of advice. You should see a writing coach or attend a workshop if you seriously want to publish. You have many 'good writing murderers' embedded in your story.
All the best though.

Interesting. You need to watch your tenses though.

My mother is born 43 years ago in a village called Seriki in Ogun State.

I will like to thank you all once more. Nazed, Krazze, queenesthr, and Myne White. Well, below is the chapter two, and does anyone know where a workshop is in Nigeria?

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The dry, cold wind blows from the Sahara, it is the start of the harmattan season, November 1935. Grandmother is writhing in pain on the raffia mat she lies on. There’s no one nearby, and she has never before in her life experienced such pain. Though she had pains in her knee and ankle few weeks ago, the pain she finds herself in right now surpasses all previous pain. Nothing in her life can compare to this, but although the pain is excruciating, she feels strangely ecstatic because of the promise of life and love that the pain holds. This special gift is worth the suffering.
My grandmother was the most beautiful woman in the village during her teenage years. Like the rising sun, her radiating beauty was the talk of her community.  With her distinct features, it was as if she were the only woman designed on her day of creation. She had a beautiful voice and soft, lovely skin that gave off a glow that even a blind man could sense. Rotund face and well-arranged teeth, dentition so perfect that her smile was a delight to see. Her hair was very long, black and shiny, a replica of her mother before her.
   She has waited so long and prayed fervently for this, she will endure any discomfort or pain. She will be happy she has attained the stage of motherhood and can take her place in society truly as a woman.
   The baby’s head slowly emerges, springing forth life as the rest of the body undergo the slippery journey. He remains attached to her, a symbol of that intricate connection that must be severed. Grandmother sees that she and her baby are in danger because they are held together by a slimy rope. She has seen this many times when her own mother has delivered babies. She has watched childbirth many times, and now she struggles to remember what they do when mother and child cannot be separated. She is almost too weak to move, but she knows that a decision is urgent. She takes the sharp knife lying beside her and slashes the rope close to the child’s body. As the blood seeps through, she ponders on her next move. Her mother always tied a knot to stop the blood. She does the same thing, but she doesn’t tie the knot tight enough.
   She feels the pain again, and now she knows that there’s another child in her womb. She has seen many women in that situation, so she knows that she will deliver twins, if not more. Tired and exhausted, she wonders how she will be able to make it through yet another one.
   Ajike, her close friend, is coming from the river, she always passes the window. Today, Ajike is worried because she doesn’t see her friend. She is baffled. When she gets close to her friend’s window, she hears that tiny cry signifying a newborn. Slightly perplexed, she listens carefully. Upon realization of what could be happening inside her friend’s house, Ajike throws down the clay pot on her head. The pot breaks into pieces and the water she has fetched from far-away river spills on the ground. Ajike runs into the room of her friend, the blanch that the worse just may have happened.
   When she comes through her friend’s door, she doesn’t need to be told that her friend has died. The woman’s body is not moving and she appears lifeless. Ajike collapses on the ground, crying out that this is a calamity.
Other women hear her loud cries and know that something bad has happened. Like an army of ants they run towards the house, some even forgetting to cover their breasts. The women arrive and see the infant, still and bloody, his mother motionless, and Ajike rolling on the ground. The most elderly lady moves closer to the motionless woman on the raffia mat.
   “This girl isn’t dying yet,” she utters.
Grandmother has not died, but she is clearly exhausted. With the help of the other women, the second child is born, and they bathe them and attend to the mother.
   Now Grandfather comes in from the farm. He is elated when he hears the news and joyfully orders a big calabash of freshly tapped palm wine. The merry-making starts immediately, and all his friends and apprentices are there, too.
“As our fathers use to say,” grandfather stands up and verbalizes, “that the person that eats late-” continues grandfather, grinning.
”Will not eat spoiled food,” shouted others. Grandfather believes that they are supposed to have got married earlier like most of their mates whom are still looking for even a child from gods. Soon the compound looks like a market day as the influx of villagers roll in singing and dancing at the birth of the twins. Grandmother is still lying on the raffia mat, smiling to those who are congratulating them.
   Grandfather is a tall man, a fine figure of a man, bald with his ears set close to his head, a round face, and a pointed nose. A strong agile man, who loves our customs and respects the traditions of our ancestors. His father named him according to Islamic rites, but that doesn’t make him neglect worshipping the old gods. Grandfather has only an elementary school certificate, but he was always the best in the class with his stellar grades and head boy of the school. He achieved distinctions in every class and the highest score in every exam. He always dresses in his Agbada, the flowing colorful cloth grazing the ground as he proudly plods by, and sleeves so long they need to be bunched up to his arms. Grandfather is known as a very successful man because he has many large farms. He is also the head of the hunters and fishermen in Areta village. Because of his successes, everyone who lives in Areta and in nearby villages comes to him for help and to acquire a taste of his wealth of knowledge.
People call Grandfather by his father’s name, Ogunrinde. The name combines three Yoruba words: Ogun, rin, and de. Ogun means “god of iron,” rin means “walks,” and de means “back.” The name means “god of iron walks back.”
The next day after the birth of the twins, Ogunrinde goes alone to hunt some bush animals. He knows that his apprentices and friends would do that for him as they don’t want him to go hunting because he is supposed to stay in the hut with his wife and the two new visitors. The naming ceremony will be in eight days as tradition requires and he wants to have a surplus of bush meat for the guests. He wants it to be a village celebration where everyone can eat to their heart’s content.
Ogunrinde puts on his dirty hunting cloth. It looks like a cloth that has been worn for many years without being washed once, but there are many protective charms sewn on the cloth. His hunting gun is correctly loaded. He goes to hunt in the same place he went a year before, a place he has sworn he would never hightail to again if he is alone. Suddenly he sees, standing in front of him, the animal that almost takes his life that day. He is facing a buffalo, an animal known for its dangerous ways.
   He shoots at the creature without any hesitation, and the buffalo becomes enraged, erupting in a resonating whimper.  What grandfather does not know is that the buffalo is calling from help and almost instantly he is surrounded by the entire herd. Grandfather knows they are dangerous animals, but his experience still has him unprepared for this. He shoots at one of them, causing them to all run toward him. He turns to run away, then turns back again. There are buffalo all around him. His eyes search for a tree to climb to no avail, even as the threat of death lies near.
   What can Ogunrinde do?
   There is no way to escape.
   As he starts running in one direction, the buffalos follow in pursuit. They are getting closer to him. He has made a terrible mistake, but as the head hunter in the village, he always prepares himself for danger, not only from buffalo, but also from the many other dangerous creatures he might encounter while hunting. Any hunter that neglects such precautions when he goes hunting really wants to be killed.
   Grandfather reaches into his hunting bag to take out his egbe metaphysical charm. This charm has a power that takes you away from any dangerous spot when you command it. Sometimes, alas, it takes you to a more dangerous place where you may die. The power that Grandfather uses always takes him to a safer place. Something strange happens when he reaches for this charm, reaching within, it seems that he has left the charm in the village.
   He can’t have left it behind.
   Where is it, now that he needs it the most? The angry buffalo are only steps away from him. Again, he thrusts his hand into the pocket of his hunting trousers. He finds the egbe charm.
   He smiles.
   He is standing there, just steps away from the angry buffalo. He realizes he is in danger if he continues smiling without taking an urgent action. He then says, “Ofe!” He commands the charm.
   And he disappears from the sight of the buffalo.
If he hadn’t taken this action, my story would be different.
   On the second day of his twins’ life in the world, Ogunrinde is hunting in that same place again. Again he sees buffalo. He will tell you he does not want to shoot at them. He will tell you there are more than he encountered a year before. Today he must kill them, at least two, for the huge naming ceremony. He is hoping they are big enough to make some great difference in the naming ceremony of his twins.
   He reloads his gun and takes a careful aim at the eye of the first buffalo. He shoots, and the herd scatters. The one that is shot makes loud cries and collapses on the ground. The sound it makes seems strange to Ogunrinde. The yowl of the buffalo is almost human, and he has never heard that sound before.
   The buffalo’s cries continue. Ogunrinde isn’t sure what he has shot, could it possibly be a human being? He never heard from his father that animals can yowl like that. He has never seen buffalo yowl like that before.
He moves cautiously toward the fallen buffalo, as the sound gets louder. It sounds like two people freting.  What can he do now? Did he shoot two people? He must kill them completely, if he sees they won’t survive, and bury them here right in this bush so no one will know what he has done. The hunters’ leader has committed a sin, for murder is clearly one.
   He approaches the buffalo, which looks stone dead. Now he notices not only the buffalo, but also other two hunters, a colleague and one of his apprentices. He can see that it is not the buffalo that is crying but his apprentice. He breathes a sigh of relief knowing that all is well, or maybe not. They are now informing him that the new-born twins are sick and sacrifices are needed to appease the gods.
   Sick?
   What could have made them sick?
   As they run back to the village, grandfather tells the apprentice to come back later with another apprentice to pick up the dead buffalos as he succeeded in killing two for the feast ahead.
When they get to the village, grandfather doesn’t see his wife. Confused, he runs directly to the place where the twins are and his smile slowly diminishes as he realizes these babies are stone dead.
Grandfather collapses on the ground lamenting as his wife rolls besides him. She is carried out of the place where the elder women have hidden her. They are both crying, hurting and filled with anguish, he cannot eat for three days, she refuses to eat for seven days.
   Grandmother and grandfather are soon being consoled by their friends and neighbors, assured that she will conceive and they will have new twins, if not triplets or quadruplets. These children will live but grandfather feels that he is the one that caused the death of the twins because he did not make the necessary sacrifices when his wife conceived. No one asks him about this error, and so he says nothing. He makes up his mind that when his wife conceives again, he will make the proper sacrifices immediately.
   When one is waiting anxiously for something, time seems to move as slowly as an old African tortoise. Grandmother and grandfather wait in vain for three years making the sacrifices yet all seems hopeless.
   Finally on that faithful day in 1949, grandmother conceives again much to their belief. Excitement and joy fills their household once again, no longer will people ogle at them as a childless couple, for with children come respect in our society.
   This is the pregnancy from which my father is born. His birth comes in 1949, at the end of the worst harmattan season. Grandfather stands outside to praise the gods and ask them for a quick delivery, and grandmother is on the raffia mat again, heaving and gasping with the pains of her labor, also praying to the gods for a safe delivery, praying for long life. This time, two women of the village, Asake and Ajike, come to grandmother to assist in the birth. They are eager for this baby to be born so that they can rush out to announce to the villagers that the leader of the hunters finally has his child.
“Will you push?” Asake says to Grandmother, who is gasping and panting.
“Ogun O! Will you push?” says Ajike.
Grandmother is not pushing.
Grandfather senses that there’s danger and runs inside. “Is there anything wrong?” he asks.
“What do you think a man can do for a woman in the situation like this?” Ajike replies.
The two women send him back outside. They believe that if he stays around, his wife will not push.
Grandfather goes to the shrine of Ogun and addresses the god.
“Ogun O!” he cries out. “Help me, help my wife, and help my child. You know that I lost twins few years ago. I’m desperate.”
Still on the mat, Grandmother grunts and pushes and the infant’s head finally appears.
“Come on!” Ajike tells her.
“Push!” says Asake
Ajike addresses the infant. “Will you come out?”
With the last ounce of energy in her, Grandmother gives a great push, and the child is brought to the bed.
“Ah!” say the two women in unison, “Ose, thank you, Ogun O!”
Almost immediately, Grandfather rushes back in and they start rejoicing.
Grandmother stretches her hand and calls her husband. “Baale mi, my husband you will have to find out what this child brought from heaven,” she says.
“I already know that,” her husband replies. “I have made the necessary sacrifice. This baby will not die like the twins. He has a kindness in his heart.”
Grandfather uses thick Oke cloth, which is woven of purple, yellow, and green yarn, to cover up my father on the day he is born. On the eight day, according to tradition, the child is bestowed with the name Waheed.

My mother was not the only child of her parents, she grew up in the village that never laughed. There were panics and fears in the village when white men came long ago and took people away as slaves.
My mother’s mother was a very beautiful lady, and my mother has not only inherited her mother’s rotund face, but also her mother’s dark, long hair. My mother’s mother and my mother herself did not like her father because he was an alcoholic drinking about in the village with the little amount of money he made, taking no care of his family. My mother was a lady with good values and respect, she was the envy of every girl as all the men in the village would always stop and stare at her in admiration. She didn’t understand the attraction, for she saw herself as ugly.
Mom helped her parents every day with the farming. “Nothing is so serious about Western education,” her father always said. He believed in using the children to farm than sending them to school or to the city, where one wastes money, to learn a trade. The hectares of land a child will cultivate in a year are enough to take care of the child for ten years.
His wife believed otherwise, she believed in trading or schooling instead of farming. She always worried because if she had the resources, she could have sent her children to the city where they can learn a trade or go to school. In her position, all she could do was to dance to the tune of her husband?
My mother grew up tall and strong. When her grades suffered in school, she realized that there might have been some truth to her father’s words. She would rather stay in the village and do farming instead of wasting her father’s resources, which he had worked diligently to earn.
“Mama,” she said to her mother, “I want to stop my schooling.”
“But you will go to learn a trade, right?” said my mother’s mother, “I don’t want to believe that you want to dance to the beat of the craziness of your father.”
“Mama, I will like to go to Lagos,” was my mother’s response.
“What do you want to do in Lagos, then?”
“Learn a trade”
“What kind of trade?”
   “Any,”

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end of chapter two,

 

Nice wrk,bt sum blunders whr made,fine though.

Nice wrk,bt sum blunders whr made,fine though.