HABIBI AND A DOZEN SMILES

He peeps from the hole between his seat and the window, smiles at me, and then automatically expects a response. I touch the cape of my hat, smile back and ask his name.

“Habibi.”

Habibi, four (as he said he were), is probably not flying for the first time (if you also factor in the number of times, he’s ran around the neighborhood, mimicking a bird in flight). I rambled around at him about what I was doing when I was four – playing ball, flying kites, 'riding tyres', learning Hausa, counting planes and swans that fly past above. “Your generation is quite blessed”, I murmured to Habibi; and he replies in Hausa.

“inna jin tsoro.”

He’s scared. The plane begins lift off. That's the part you feel your eye rolling, and pressure building in your ears. My friend, who’s buckled besides me, knows that feeling so much. She complains of not bringing her pair of earpiece along.

Habibi closes his eyes and smiles.

As the plane has stabilizes in flight, he opens his eyes and looks out the window. 1, 2, 3…10, 12; Habibi is counting the cars he can see down below. He smiles, and tells me in Hausa; “ga motochi.”  He points at cars he can see from nigh. When asked how many he could count, he smiles and replies:

“one hund-i-red.”

Habibi’s family is headed to Owerri. From appearance, you know they are of North-Eastern descent. I didn’t find time to count how many they were, as my attention was divided between my friend and the book I was attempting to read. I bumped into her, a little before I boarded the plane. She just won’t stop asking what I was going to Owerri to do, and my response of “I’m going to tweet” was not satisfactory.

I kept comparing a four year old me, and Habibi. His meekness spread a smile across my face, and told myself, my generation is blessed too.

Habibi keeps peering through the window, and each time he did, I followed suite, not out of curiosity, but for the fact that each time I have the luxury of flying, I learn again, the concepts of Geography.

An ardent student from primary school, it wasn’t any mistake when my Geography teacher in secondary school said in class, that I was going to study Geography at the university. What transpired between him and I in my fist of anger, is a story for another day.

Today, I’m a trained geographer, no professional certifications, no work experience in the field, but every time, I’m amazed by the depth of learning I get when I go high up in the skies –flying or mountaineering . Today, I was opportuned to peek out just when we were flying above Lokoja. I could see in the background, the slow winding River Niger, it’s ox-bow lakes and the small islands formed here and there within it.

I’m always left amazed by the power of nature every time, whether it’s the desert formations in Niger, Mali, Libya or Tunisia; the River Sasandra or San Pedro in Cote d'Ivoire, the River Niger or the thick forests of central West Africa; I’m more than amazed by the power of nature, the creation of God, and by the level of learning I get when I behold.

Flashes of classroom instruction overcome me, and then I see myself going through my Gho, Cho &; Leong textbook, which formed the foundation upon which all of my understanding of geography is built.

As the cumulus clouds thicken and our view is obstructed, Habibi shuts his window, and returns to life in the plane. My ears are giving way to the pressure in the cabin, and I quickly dive in to my pocket for my earpiece, archiving that experience for another day in a bid to try and enjoy the flight to Owerri.

We got to Owerri in time, and Habibi remained my companion as we approached the arrival lobby. Habibi was dragging his luggage on wheels, and offered to carry my strap-on bag, which weighed almost double his weight. He said it in a way that humored me, and I erupted in laughter. His guardian looked our way, and smiled. Habibi must be the Sanguine of the lot, and his guardian must have thought, “Habibi has met his type.”

Fates had to separate us as he had to wait for the rest of the family to get their luggage, and I had to catch my taxi taking me to Owerri.

I murmured to him a prayer, “God bless thee child”, and he just characteristically smiled on!

PART 2: TROUBLES NEVER SINGLY COME

The night was cold. It was not traditional, like all nights – natural and usual. It was already two weeks in to the harmattan, but the heavens blew more wind this night. It was the biting type. The winds were gentle though, but the cold would seep through your skin and gnaw at your bones.
Temperatures were dropping lower than the usual for the period of the year, and by dusk, the streets were devoid of people. It was the kind of weather that is appropriate for twosome, when the young and old tangle and be twain, and morning fever would follow afterwards.
Weng lay in his covering, but still shuddered from the nibbling of the cold. It was very light – the covering, and had a couple of holes in it, which let in the cold. He donned layers of soiled sox, and his head wore an awesome afro, though very unkept. These he used as coverings for his feet and the head.
His stomach had not welcomed guests all day, and it protested in condescension. This made the cold even more difficult to keep out. The day had been full of high jinks. He had been assured a spot on one of the trucks that would go quarrying, and atleast he was going to get some money to fend for the stomach. But the foreman had told him when he got there, that there was no longer need for more hands. They were just going to stick with the band of laborers that went out daily with the truck.
It rippled a dour mood over him all morning. No matter how much he tried to get an alternative, the Good Spirit seemed not on his side, and he never was able to get any tangible done. He thus, went off to sleep till late in the noon, when there was a need for laborers to move cement off a truck at one of the warehouses around.
There was need for ten laborers, and it was going to be on ‘first come basis’. It took him time to shake off the sleep, as the body was already waned for lack of nourishment. By the time he got there, ten men were already working, offloading bags and lots of bags from the truck to the warehouse, where a local distributor sold in wholesale and retail.
He had debts to pay at the ‘Mama Put’, where he could eat on credit as far as he could payback at the end of the month. He owed three and half thousands, and may want to get a better blanket. But his day, like many past, and more to come was futile.
His cardboard did enough for protection and warmth, but the passageways for rats and the actions of weevils had rendered its job imperfect. It was in an alley, very close to the very wall that formed the end of the road. The alley was called Tapgun Close by the Metropolitan Planning Authority, and had a garden and a bar on it.
The wall formed a valuable piece of protection from the cold, atleast from its intensities. It was the backside of a housing complex. It was rumored to be owned by an ally of the chair of the board of the Metropolitan Planning Authority, who had lobbied for some contract, and had diverted the money to building the massive complex.
This wall had numerous windows that were for bedrooms and toilets and kitchens. During the harmattan season, when the cold blew so well and it penetrated walls, bedroom lights would stay on all night to provide some warmth. The wall had pipes crawling on it, from everywhere. Pipes that carried night soil and pipes that carried the water that drained from the sinks. A few times, the flushing of toilets that ran through burst pipes would rent the air with sour smell, while some running sinks continued through paths that were cut for them in the brown earth outside.
Bathroom lights would flicker on frequently, and once or twice the sound of deep frying oil rent the air. The very sides of the alley formed a complex of shops. Some buildings were storied, and had tiny staircases of thin metal which were individually installed by the shop owners. Going round to the side to climb up seemed a task.
Most shops sold building materials. In some, you find upholsteries, in others, only toilet and kitchen fittings. A few sold tiles, while the majority traded window panes, and zinc roofings, and nails, and general building tools.
The bar and the garden seemed like misfits on this alley, but there never could have been any site better for the both. Very often, the youth from the vicinity, and from around, would warm up to the steps of the bar, consume loads of liquor and then proceed to the garden to tangle in all manners. Some old folks would wind up there frequently, and mesh in the exuberance that overthrows youth.
A truck gets bye every Saturday, to deliver loads of cartons and crates of beer and whiskey and of locally brewed dangerous dry gins. It would then upload the empty ones, which have served the thirst and drunkenness of plenty, and made a huge hole in the pockets of many.
This part of the city was notorious for lawlessness, and the city’s authorities were really finding it difficult in dealing with its numerous crimes. A couple of times, gunshots have emanated from thence, and the victims either lay lifeless by dawn, or require the surgeon’s knife to rectify the damage made by hot spontaneous metal.
It was even rumored that the city’s elite frequented the alley for narcotics, and once in a while to poach on the availability of amateur assassins who would leave trails in their wake. So very famous was the Ministry official who was found with a need for the surgeon’s knife one morning, after he became the victim of what seemed to be his own schemes. He never told of what took him there anyway.
The alley also had its fair share of harlotry, as young girls loose from their mother’s leash, thronged, attracted by the lush supply of men, to the alley to profit from the misappropriation of customary and societal morals, debased more by the poverty that so thrives right on the fabric of society.
Little wonder, the growing number of unsung mothers in these parts. And the cold never did them any good, as there was hardly any need to press – the man, seeking to douse the rampaging fire running in his tap; the girl, warmth, and an anticlimax for the feeling that throbs there within, craving to explode. And this alley was very notorious, and very famous, and very well known around the nooks and cronies of this city.
And the little cardboard house stood on an empty plot of some rich man, who had left the land fallow, hoping its value was going to appreciate in years to come. A couple other installations, shared this valuable space with the cardboard.
Weng was almost drifting, part in agony of the cold, part in the looming need for sleep. Then some sound brought him back to reality. It was a car. It was obviously coming in late, and would lack the best of liquor that sold at the bar. The glitter from the car pierced through the dark, and formed figurine outlines in the vastness of the dark.
But it was not parked by the bar. The driver had faced the car to the adjoining street, putting the rear in the clear view of Weng. It was parked close to the garden, and carried a government registration number. Another elite in the hood he thought. He imagined what meaning life gave to an elite. He could see the silhouette of two men in the car. They seemed relaxed, and in a conversation.
Weng looked on in admiration, and wondered what the inside of the car felt like. The nice smell, the warmth, the comfort, and maybe a stereo played the DJ’s selection on bass boost woofers. He’s only heard music blasting from the speakers at the bar. All his life, he’d only sat in buses; and in trucks, when a few times, he’d been lucky to get a job to quarry sand. The car still glittered in the dark.
Then from the garden, a posse of men approached the car. It must be one of the daredevil gangs that lurk within these gardens at night. More like him, they are wont for money. The two elite emerged from the car. One of them had a briefcase.
Money for drugs Weng thought. He’d seen on countless occasions, this scene played out, when influential men come begging in the alley, for narcotics to cool off their thumping addictions. The guys who sell the drugs to these elites come from a cartel of barons who themselves live in Porsche houses and drive the latest cars, and drink the expensive wines.
A conversation ensued between both ends. Weng was beginning to drift back to sleep, this act no longer interesting. However, the act was one, longer than usual. He opened his eyes to find them still negotiating. Then fingers started pointing in opposite directions.
A brawl developed. Then guns were cocked, and pointed at heads. The gang was now in control of the deal. One of the elites was pleading for the gang leader to take things calm.
There was a final cocking of a gun. The elite with the briefcase had handed it over to the gang, and then the sound riffled through the night. Someone dropped to the ground, and the gang varnished just before the bar emptied to the alley, to come to terms with what had just proceeded. As the co-habiters of the bar thronged to the passage, the car zoomed past in a flash, and screeched on to the adjoining street, and out of sight.

TROUBLES NEVER SINGLY COME

The winds wound round the hills and came tumbling in to the sleepy town, carrying heavy July clouds. In this part of the country, the months of July and August come with heavy dark clouds that causes downpour, sometimes for days unending. It was the second week in July, and the water aquifer was fast coming closer up.

Irish potatoes would soon be ripe for harvest, and the local acha will revel in the much rains. The rains always come with angry winds, which torpedo after crashing against the fore-slopes of the highlands. They will take off roofs of houses, uproot trees and cause fear down the bones of children.

The swoosh-swoosh snarls that engulfed the low heavens that evening, ensured that as many peasant farmers that made it to their farms that day, returned home early on to the comfort of their hearths. Some animal was scowling in the wild, probably lost, and the sound was coming from near the village gate. The winds continued to torment roofings made of palm fronds, even as the poorly made ones began to make way, and the old ones allowed water to gather inside.

Somewhere distant from the village square, close to the burial ground, about a few meters from the border of the village and the ‘evil’ forest that sits below the hills, the cry of a woman rented the air almost beyond the sonority of the winds. In defiance, the winds increased in noise and intensity, the rains now pouring down in anger and torrents.

From the north, almost in the opposite direction, lightening flashed across the grey skies and the resulting thunder rested at the base of an old dried oak, three huts away from the place the cry had emanated. The winds had died down now, but the rains continued to pour. The thunderbolt had ignited a fire at the base of the tree, and flames began to blaze in the rains, even as the wail of a newborn rent the steel cold night.

Ayuka was fatigued. She and the unborn had tussled from midday. She had prayed to the Good Spirit, to let her get a safe delivery, and the prayer included her labour, in her hut. But her wishes were not being fulfilled. She began to realize this, the moment those severe pains had started. She was tending young mushrooms on a strip of land, an echo from the thick of the forest. She thought of the bountiful harvest she was going to reap, and the profit she would make at Tallata market. And of the clothings and good healthy food she was going to stock for the baby. She would call the baby Arziki, and prayed it would be a girl.

The land was very fertile, and showed this by the huge growth of tender edible mushroom that grew from it. At first, she thought it was someone else’s farm, and overlooked it. Her repeated strolls through that trail, alerted her to the weeds that now competed with the mushrooms. No good farmer would allow his farm overgrown with this much weeds she thought. And that was when she took over.
Her tummy had been bulging for five moons now since she took note of the protuberance. As the days waned, she became aware of intermittent pains. Although she had learned from experience to be as subtle as possible, not to call up the bouts of snapping pains, she was carried away in her thoughts, and didn’t realize how rigorous she was getting with the tend.

That was when the pains started, and got unusual. Though she had witnessed similar pains in the past, they had varnished after some while. This one had forced her to abandon the tend, and head for home. She felt very sore from the pains and from her urgent pace to get home. And it was right on her way, that the tumbling winds had met her. The gruesome throes of labour right in the heavy downpour had left her muscles battered and aching.

Her under body was still on fire, like those times the illness overthrow and got worse because she had nowhere to go, and no one to call for help and had to lie in her hut till she began to feel better. On those days, the reproachful words of her father would ring aloud in her head, while Inna’s loud sobs burst tears down her sullen cheeks. She had had little time to take enough valuables before the Majjalisar Dattawa came calling. That day was austere and desolate. She had never felt love leave her like that day.

For now, getting the child warm was her utmost priority, as every bit of clothing was drenched and unsuitable for the occasion. The cold was fast settling in. She let out frequent sobs now and then, and the frequency was getting on the high side. However, she thought not of herself, as the little bag of life lay, yelling to the night.

She mustered what was now left of her strength, with a lot of gut, and snapped the umbilical, as she tried to separate the baby from her, to then clean up the mess. The scene was indeed gory, as she, in closed eyes undid the child from her, and silenced it in “first milk”. Not knowing from where the will came, she dragged, not in an attempt to get to what has been her source of shelter for nine moons now, but to get closer to the burning tree.

They both now desperately needed the warmth, but as the baby sucked, what remain of her energy seemed to drain with the flow of the milk. She had not had anything to eat, since she ate some of the tuber some benevolent passerby had gifted her the day before. She could not remember the last time she had ample food to eat, so she continued unending, to thank the man, until his bicycle had had taken him far from hearing distance. She had roasted a half of the yam, and planned to eat the rest when she returned from the farm today.

Rumblings continued in the sky, but were now from afar. The rains had now migrated, and only the Good Spirit knew what havoc they meted where they now poured. No one would complain by morning. “The rains have made repairs” they would say, as peasants with damaged houses would now go about renovating them, while those with waterlogged farms or severely damaged crops would count their losses.

But now in the cold dark night, a parliament of owls exchanged successive hoots in the not too far distance, the most resounding coming from the hills. She knew that owls told of bad augur, and hoped whatever it was, would be as distant as the continuous rumbling of the skies. Her only source of salvation was the fire, which crackled in the rich fuel of the old oak.

She was grateful to be close enough now, to provide ample warmth for the newborn, a baby boy, and to also keep away any wandering hyena whose path may seem to cross here before dawn. The fire crackled as if in response to her. And she prayed that it burns far in to the night. Then everything went blank.

The torrents had moved ahead, but drizzles continued in its wake. The heavens were just clearing up the remnants of clouds that were heavy some few hours before. On some occasion, it would drizzle on until the resolve of the people would force it to stop. This they seem to do by defying it, and continuing their normal business. Today, there would be no need for it, as dusk was already night, and the hearth would provide better comfort. Only by morning would any damage be of any significance.

Some rhythmic mantra broke the silence that ensued for about a quarter of an hour. It came from the hills that stand guard for the village. The marabou, whose duty it was to carry messages from the Good Spirit for the village, had made there his home. The place and its inhabitant were very revered amongst the people.

Between the hills and the village laid the ‘evil’ forest to which no inhabitant of the village was to step. It had human eating creatures; fathers would tell their children to deter them from hunting Agama lizards from thence. Only the Majjalis – the council of elders, after cleansing could walk the forest to the hills, where the Good Spirit lived, and the marabou made adulation daily. And on such occasions, like today’s, atonement and reverence would be their only reason to approach the hills.

The tapping of the marabou’s drum was notoriously paramount amidst the chant. The Majjalis was performing a ritual to cleanse the land of all evil and abominations. It was a yearly event. Twelve moons counted unending, and then restitution would be sought. The marabou had premeditated the day for the ritual, and hoped the Good Spirit would provide ample supplies of sacrifice. They had needed the blood of an innocent child, or of a stranger.

Now, the ritual had gone ahead. It would last till the early hours of the morning, around when the cock let out its first crow. Then they – the Majjalis, would tarry two more days to unwind, and travel down from the hills from where the marabou’s shrine laid, a watchtower for the village.