An Earthquake?

The ground kept shaking boom baam boom at a high frequency. What, an earthquake, a thief – it can’t be.

 I looked out the window and I saw a wall. Panic almost set in. I sat up; my senses acutely alert. I heard footsteps and some dogs barking some distance away. Hillary and Paul, to my left and right, were fast asleep. The dark room felt cold – it was the wee hours of the morning. When I noticed that the sound continued with no corresponding displacement of the building – as it happens in earthquakes, and that the room door wasn’t forcefully opened, I lay me down again. Later on, I got to know that a grinding mill was adjacent to Corper Paul’s room and that by the elementary principle of Transmissibility of Forces, his room had to endure its fair share of vibration.

[Farming is a familial occupation of the people of Kwara state and cassava is a predominate produce. The people process the cassava tubers into Garri (Cassava Flour). This explains the mill and the early morning vibrations.]

This was my first night in Kanturu.

After Corper Hope’s sumptuous meal the day before, the coordinator of Kanturu CDS – Patrick, led us to Paul’s room. He was to be our host. His room was redolent of Bachelorhood. To the left of the door was a ‘combined’ mattress, comprising three sheets of mattress stacked on top of each other. To the right were a hot plate, a stove, and some pots. The far center of the room had food stuffs arranged neatly while the near left had a laptop on a short stool to which were connected system speakers. In all, it was more than a room, it was a ‘house’ – with a room, a store, a kitchen and a Parlor. It was simply Ingenious. We took away the blanket that bound all the mattresses together and separated them. This gave us more sleeping room.   

After the initial scare (first paragraph), I lay and closed my eyes but did not sleep. I can only imagine how the children of Israel would have felt in the wilderness on their first night, I’m sure many children would have gripped their mothers tightly whenever they heard the hoots of the hyenas or the occasional roar of the desert lions. However, I’m equally sure that the brightly burning flame of fire – which symbolized the presence of God – would have driven away the fears of the more informed adults.

We woke up and instinctively got busy. Hillary washed the plates, I swept the floor and – well, Paul – I can’t remember what he did – but, of course, he was the owner of the room. After the usual morning rituals, we all – Paul, Favour, Matthew, and Hillary headed for school. As we walked through the village, I took in more of the scenery and I couldn’t believe my mind – I was loving the place already. As we branched into a pathway that led straight to the school, we saw students walking towards us – a large number of them.

“Paul, where all this students dey go,” I asked, “Na only 11 O’ Clock now.”

“Today is their closing day. End of second term.”

“Really, then we should have left home earlier –”

“Kai! Earlier for wetin? We don teach them, we don give them exam, we don mark scripts finish and we don even record am; wetin principal want make we do again?” Paul said demonstrating as he counted with his fingers.

“So where we dey go?” I asked.

“Watch out – we want give una welcome tour.” Corper Favour chipped in.

“Corper Paul, Corper Matthew!” Some students hailed as they passed by us.

O my word! So these students can’t even say sir. They call us Corper…

I was awoken from my thoughts when one student greeted me, “New Corper, welcome.”

“Yea.”

We arrived at school and I briefly walked around it. To me, it seemed as if the land was designated as a cashew tree project with the establishment of the school merely coming as an afterthought – or how could I explain the ubiquitous Cashew trees that stretched as far as my eyes could see. How else?

[A few weeks ago, I checked out Oxford University on the World Wide Web and I saw 1096 as it’s founding date. I was, in no small measure, amazed. The first thing my mind did, without thinking, was to imagine the present location called Nigeria at that time. (Your guess is as good as mine.) Before you bemoan the African continent, wait a minute! The Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, founded in 969 AD was the first University on earth. So, we can safely say that Africa ‘was’ the birthplace of formal learning; but if we juxtapose this with the number of blacks that ply the airways and seas to foreign climes to get educated, one question stares us in the face: “what happened to Africa?”]

Hillary and I followed the other corps member to a nearby rock. It was a large outcrop of granite with a gently sloping face and a steep precipice at its far end. Fighting my acrophobic tendencies, I took a sweeping view of the area from this high point. I noticed that at specific places, far away, three of four telecommunications masts delimited a village, then another and yet another.

I began to wonder how primitive man was able to conquer these territories. Each village was far away from the other – why? And large rocks did well to separate the villages even more definitely. My thoughts ran and stopped at babel. Remember the Tower of Babel – where the languages of men were changed? It then occurred to me that the first exodus of man occurred from babel of which some migrated to Kwara state. Now, I’m no anthropologist, these are just my thoughts. We were told God separated man to prevent him from building a heathen tower – right? Consider the nation china, why would a third of the world’s population speak one language? One possible explanation comes to mind. Perhaps, the Chinese weren’t ambitious at the time of Babel; so, God didn’t have to split their languages as much as he did those of us that came to Africa. If this is true it means they’ve changed a lot because right now, they are building an empire that threatens to overthrow the American economy

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Africa: My Prayer (An adaptation of Katharine Lee Bates’ popular song “America the Beautiful”)

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My Africa! My Africa!

God shed his grace on thee,

And crown thy land with good leaders

From sea to shining sea!

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DEAR faithful Reader,

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