SURROUNDED
EPISODE 2
I was forced to tell my mother what happened at the shrine when she was asking my father why i am carrying a bald head but i couldn’t for fear of death.
My father said it was for my healing and truly after that, i was no sick . My father ran back home on afternoon shouting “MAMA UDO OOOO, MAMA UDO OOOO”. We all rushed out. “OGINI” my mother asked. “Osugooo, mama udo, osugooo. Ubiam anaaaaaaaa” meaning, it has landed, suffering has gone. My mother was curious, “Ogini mere”? She asked. My father asked us to go inside because walls have ears. We all sat down inside, waiting anxiously to hear what papa had to say.
Papa said, in the site where he carries mixed concrete, one white man was there, the white man just called him, he was like me? The man said yes you. My father came closer. He said, i need groundnut in sacks. I want them processed and exported. Can you help me? My father said yes. The white man asked how much, my father toped x4 of the original price. The white man agreed. That was the begining of a turn around in my family. We entered the business of frying groundnut. We employed people. My father became groundnut exporter. In less than a year, my father built the biggest house in our village. Udoka, my elder brother came back. He started help my father in his business. My father went into full time agriculture. He had palm plantations, orange, mango, cashew, sugarcane, pineapple, rubber, kolanut, bitter kola plantations. He ventured into Animal farming.He had fish farm, the biggest in my village, poultry with so many species of birds, goats, infact, out of nothig, my father became a billonaire to the Amazement of his brothers. He was even richer than they are. My father enroled all my siblings in private boarding schools but enrolled me in a school in the village on grounds that I’m his last born.
My father did not enrol me in a school that even befits his status. He enroled me in the poorest school in my village.
My mother was very angry. He even instructed my mother never to give me money. I don’t go on errands that involves money. I don’t sell to people so i won’t collect money.
Every month, i must visit that shrine and the priest must barb my hair, my hairs will be burnt, the ashes put into water for my dad to drink, the eggs must be laid on my tummy, snake must come out of the pot and swallow the egg and surround me for a long time. I will always shout and cry.
My father said, it is what i will be doing to live. Any month i stop, i will die. If i disclose it to anyone, i will die. That is the only day my father takes me shopping. Change my wardrobe, buy me new shoes, provisions and whatever i ask for.
In my father’s new house, my room was the best but my life was the worse. I struggled through primary school, secondary school, my father put me in the worse school again. This time, my mother refused. She insisted i must attend the best boarding school like my siblings.
I finally left the house but every month, my father will still come and pick me from school to the shrine. I was in js3 when somebody started looking for his money in the hostel. My father doesn’t give me pocket money but give my guardian. He also instructed her to be the one who would buy whatever it is i requested. The started searching and found the money in my bag!!!!
I started crying. I have never stolen before. I did not steal anybody’s thing before. I was flogged mercilessly in school and was expelled. That’s the punishment for stealing in my school then. My father came in his car and landed me hot slap. He was shouting…….
“your mother brought this disgrace upon me. Now see the disgrace. Why will you steal money? Is your father poor? Are you hungry? Are you lacking anything? You are a disgrace.” The man refused to even listen to me. I cried uncontrollably. My pain was the scholarship competition i was supposed to participate in. I am representing my school in the JS category. I was a very intelligent mathematician in school. My friends calls me maths Guru. Infact all subjects. I even collect money to teach some of them mathe and other subjects. I was dismissed from secondary school for crime i didn’t commit.
Getting home, only my mother stood by me. Brother udoka beat the hell out of me. My mother came in and gave udoka the beating of his life. My dad came out and bounced on my mother. It wasn’t a small fight. Udoka was like, “you see what you have caused” he raised his hand to hit me, i had to fight back. I did it on purpose. I just wanted my parents to be distracted and it worked.
My mother said she is done with the marriage. She will be taking me along with her. My father started pleading. My mother said only on one condition that he will put me back in school.
I went back to the poor secondary school in my village and finished secondary Education there. I still visit the shrine.
I gained Admission into the university. It was really tough. I suffered.
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