The Maize Story

It’s so cool to be back with my page. A couple of days ago, I didn’t think I’ll ever be in the mood to do any typing. I thought, maybe I’ll hire a typist, and just be an editor! Well, here I am again, doing what I know how to do worse!! How una dey? We’re barely into the New Year and it’s already the 3^rd of January. I really do foresee a fast year ahead of us. Wish you the best.

I was going to edit this post I had drafted earlier to be up to date, but I figured I’ll just leave it as it is so you can feel what I’ve been up to in the past few months or so. I put it down just after I returned from school. Enjoy…..

Just got back from school two days ago. What’s being happening to ya’ll? Doing okay I hope. I meant to drop a post before I left, but you know how it is with time. Anyways, school was okay, spent a total of three weeks plus. Hope you guys missed me cos I did. Your boy is now officially a Chemical Engineer, so if there’s any job opening you know of, holla at me, and quick too, cos my eye dey red right now! That’s that about that.

Now to business of the day, or post of the day. What’s being happening out there? Funny enough, I was expecting at least 80 comments on my posts (really lol!), so you can imagine the way I laughed at myself when I found 2 very forlorn looking comments staring at me in the face. But I guess they’re better than none at all. Thanks to both of you.

A lot have happened in my life the past few weeks. On getting to school, a lot of memories came to the fore of my mind and I began to ponder and ravel at the experiences I’ve been through(I know, I know,I suck at poetry!). I really can’t wait to tell you all about them. I’ll start with the first one that came to my mind, which is about the title of this post: The Maize Story.

Just incase I’ve not mentioned it before, I schooled in the east and we all know what the eastern part of the country is characterized by: lots and lots of green luscious vegetation. Cash crops being cultivated every season. Now overlooking my 2-story balcony is a very wide expanse of maize plantation. I remember how I and my flat mates used to stand from that height and watch one old woman and her children (I guess) take their timeout to take professional care of this plantation. It never crossed my mind that I would one day become a farmer, even if it was just for one night!!

It was one of those times in school when there was a general and simultaneous blow of the North West trade ‘owu’ winds (long for ‘being broke’). Nobody could boast of not being affected. It was so bad that me and my flat mates sat down one day and had a serious talk about alternative sources of staying alive, as resources were scarce and we were down to eating about once a day! All of a sudden someone suggested we invade the maize plantation behind our building! At first it sounded hilarious. But before long, hunger overcame reason and it started to sound like an ingenious idea. And so we planned out the strategy with which to carry out this our plan that was beginning to take the form of a very covert mission because of the way it was all mapped out: 8 of us were to take part, all armed with flash lights and backpacks, with respective directions to ensure proper coverage of the farm. All was set.

So two days later, we couldn’t wait for night to fully fall. We were very appreciative to NEPA, or is it PHCN for their incompetence. There was no power supply so our cover by darkness was absolute. We even made an attempt to don ourselves with dark clothes. Real clandestine stuff! That was how the 8 of us hit the road. It took us about 5 minutes to get into the farm space and without much ado and heading out in our various directions, we started to harvest.

I must tell you that it was no mean feat! What with having to harvest quickly and watching out for intruders.

Now I know this story sounds very flat and bare, but as with most of my posts, there’s a twist to this one as well. Wait for it!

In the middle of the farm was this tree, about 10ft high, for protection from the sun for the farmers. Now, one of us that was harvesting that way, suddenly called our attention. He said (in hushed tones, we were trying to be as discreet as possible) he heard voices coming from the tree’s direction. Voices of about two people ‘talking’ and ‘making funny sounds’. We all thought it was very funny and we laughed at him saying he was seeing and hearing things. We told him we’ll soon be done here so he could go to sleep. But I suspected we were all secretly wondering if was true. I did. Infact I couldn’t wait for us to be done with the operation and get my hungry behind out of the bush at that late hour. Honestly I was getting the creeps. Everybody unconsciously kept quiet to verify the mockery of one of us, hoping he was indeed hearing things!!.

So we continued in relative silence, with the only ruffling sounds being made by the plants as the wind and our hands passed through them. I guess it was instinct or fear, but about 20 seconds after the ‘people talking and making funny sounds’ drama, one of us pointed his flash light up the tree. All our eyes instinctively followed his light. Hanging very precariously, was a calabash with stuff that looked like cassava leaves or some other leave, pressed in it. At that moment, I guess we were all awe struck because nobody could move. All we could do was look from the tree back to ourselves, contemplating what to do next. Then something else happened that gave us no further need to decide what to do next. We all heard it!! It sounded like “Na bia nu. Bia ba nu” (meaning “come on, that’s it, keep coming” in Igbo). Keep coming to where??? I still pinch myself till today for not being the first to take off. We all took off, fast. Nobody wanted to be behind.

Believe me that night was really scary. It was so scared, I’m getting goose bumps as I write now. Brrr!!!

The ironic thing that night was that, despite the hunger that drove us to go stealing, we couldn't even eat the corns for fear of turning into a stone or chair or some other inanimate object...or out rightly dying!! And so all that corn stayed with us for the next two days with nobody daring to eat any, until the hunger was just too much bear. So we just came up with a reason to allay our fears somewhat. If there was any form of ‘juju’ or ‘otumokpo’ in the corns, it probably won’t be enough to go around and affect all of us. i.e. the resultant effect will be lost out and we’ll all be in the clear!! You think there’s no sense in that?….take it up with our demanding stomachs! So we processed the damned crops and demolished with our mouths. It lasted for three days, which was quite a substantial amount of time to be getting free food in school!

Moral lesson of this experience: When going to harvest from a maize farm that doesn’t belong to you, wear earplugs and dark shades and just grope in the dark!!