A Life Built on Hard Work #2

Egodi: You mean that this is twenty thousand naira?

Chiadị: Yes, ma. They said, we should buy a medical book, How to Become a Modern Doctor Volumes I and II. We should also buy Encyclopedia Britannica. That one must be presented every day at the venue of the exams. We are also to buy Where There is No Doctor. Again, we should also buy a big medical book called Health Today: A Practical Handbook.

Some of them cost fifteen thousand naira, others twenty-five thousand naira and the least among them is ten thousand naira. All is a total of eighty thousand naira, mama. There are also other small things I urgently need, mother.

Egodi: (Forlorn and downcast.) My child, the money is almost running into a million naira! Where am I expected to get that kind of money, my son? A widow like me? Who will give me? They will say that my case is like the case of a rat that jumped into the water with a lizard, the body of the lizard got dried up and that of the rat did not. My son, is it this thatched house with a leaking roof that I am going to sell? Or the only remaining parcel of land at Isiogwe that I am going to sell? Ah!

Chiadi: (Goes over to her to comfort her.) Mama, you know I am studying medicine and surgery.

Please, don’t look at the money but look at the future when I will become a medical doctor. Do you know the son of Mazi Anyichie, the doctor?

Egodi: The son of Anyichie from Ndida village? The one that his son is building big mansions everywhere? The one that rides a red car that looks like an egg? Chike, right?

Chiadị: Yes, ma. Mama, do you see Chike, he will not see my back when I finish school. I will continue to build houses in this village until the king and the villagers come and beg me to stop so that others will still see space to build theirs. (Egodi is pleased.) My cars will park from here up to the village square. You will have a car and a driver to take you anywhere you want to go in this village even just Nkwo here.

Egodi: (Pleased) Even Nkwo here?

Chiadi: Yes, mama. Even Nkwo here. You see this house, the year I will graduate is the year I will pull it down. Don’t worry, let me graduate first. I will wipe poverty away from you and my siblings.

Egodi: My child, God will keep me alive to see you fulfill your wishes because I have truly suffered.
My promise to you is that as long as I am still alive, you will surely become a medical doctor whether my enemies like it or not, you must, my son. I sold some baskets of okro yesterday. I will give you all the money from the sales. I will also give you the proceeds from the oranges and udala that I sold.

There are other bags of oranges, baskets of udala, gallons of red oil, and other items that I will sell in the market tomorrow. I will put all the proceeds together and give them to you. I will also meet the chairlady of our women’s forum to see how much the women can lend me from our daily contribution money. Don’t worry, before you return to school, I will give you the much I can raise while I continue to run around for the rest.

Chiadị: (Now visibly excited.) Thanks, Mom. Thank you so much. I will make you proud, you will see.

Egodi: My name is Egodiniru. I will wait for the money to come in my lifetime. They said that a person whose yam germinates two tubers must harvest both tubers. As for me, if my yam produces up to ten tubers, I will harvest them all, I will not even leave a single tuber for anyone. I will harvest them and eat all of them in this house because I have truly suffered. (They laugh.) It’s well, my son.

I hope you still remember my advice that you should stay away from cultism. I see how small boys waste their lives and die prematurely in the name of cultism. The other day, it was Mama Nnenna’s only son, Chibundu.

Chiadi: (Surprised.) Chibundu is late, mama? What happened to him?

Egodi: The story has it that he joined a very dreaded cult and was among those who killed a lot of people and ran away. He came out of hiding to bury his father and the rival cult traced him to his father’s compound and killed him. He was still holding the sand he intended to put in his father’s grave when they shot him and he fell inside his father’s grave.

They brought him out and cut off his head, and hands; in fact, they customized his body like chicken before they left. They even played football with his head and shot repeatedly at his father’s corpse before they disappeared.

Chiadi: (Touched.) This is sad, mama; Chibundu, the only son of his father?

Egodi: It is him, my son, it is him. That is how my friend, Anulika, washed her hands, only to crack palm kernels for chickens. That is why I am begging you to beware of cultism. Another one is girls. Stay away from them and focus on your studies. When you graduate and make money, you can marry any type of girl you want.

Again, avoid alcohol, nothing good can ever come out of alcohol, not at this young age. If a boy is not old enough to tie a loincloth, when the wind comes, it will carry both the boy and the loincloth away. Stay away from any form of hard drugs. Once you get addicted to drinking and taking drugs, you are gone forever. You will use even the money meant for your school fees to drink and take drugs. Finally, stay away from bad friends; it is not everybody who laughs with you is happy with you. These are wisdom, my son, always remember them.

Chiadi: Thank you, mama, I will always remember them the same way I will remember where I came from. I am not doing any of these things and none of them is in my mind. All in my mind is how to pass my exams and graduate in peace as the best student in my school, and from there, God will take me to greater heights I know He has prepared for me. You know me, mother.

Egodi: I know you, my son. I am reminding you because you are the only eye that holds the gap between me and blindness. You know that a child’s only palm nut does not get lost in the fire. Let me go to Olikeze’s house, there is a business both of us are hatching, let me go and see if the breadfruit we are processing has any seed inside of it. I will soon be back, my son.

Chiadi: It is okay, mother. I will take care of Osita till you return, go well, mama. (Egodi exits while Chiadi lies near Osita and soon enough, he dozes off.)