Banker's Training School Diary: day2

                                                                   Day Two.

The second day the training class was to be held in another branch at Sanusi Fafunwa Street. I had decided to always get to the class earlier than I did the previous day. Jumoke had said there was going to be an Early Bird Prize for the most punctual of the class. I was poised and itching to grab the prize. I didn't find it hard to locate Sanusi Fafunwa Street; the Okada man knew the locale. That was why I liked Okada. They seemed to know everywhere. With the Okada men there is no way you could lose your way insofar as you have the money to pay them. Just say it, they know it. The Sanusi Fafunwa Branch was also beautifully decorated with a huge Xmas tree by the gate and some lines of Xmas light dangling from the roof of the building to the walls and other beautiful green and red flowers here and there. From outside, the building looked smaller than the other branches I had visited. One of the security men at the gate wore a Father-Christmas cap together with his uniform. He was the one that smiled at me and threw the gate open for me without asking for an ID. He must have seen my folder with the bold Z logo on it. I arrived at Sanusi Fafunwa branch at 6:45am. I thought I was early enough till I stepped into the class. Some people had already come as early as 6:10am as shown on the clock in column of the attendance list. I was the 25^th on the list.

“Do these people sleep at all? Maybe they are resident in VI" I consoled myself knowing I had lost the early bird prize. The class in Sanusi Fafunwa Street was bigger than that at Aademola Adetokumbo Street -- same sitting arrangement, same lightening but Sanusi was chillier. At the front of the class was a giant Air conditioner that stood like a refrigerator besides the big black speakers.

I was looking for where to sit when the veranda got noisier. Many people trickled in and queued at the table where the attendance list lay.

“The staff buses have arrived” the girl at the back seat said and checked her time. From the window I could still see the two staff buses making a U turn at the Ajose Adogun roundabout. The round about I had decided to call Zenith roundabout because of the various decorations of Zenith Bank logo on it.

 The day saw a lot of bonding and socialization; even those I thought were deaf and dumb proved to be the parrots. As for me, I had to mingle too. At the back was a group of four guys, at the centre was another group of five girls and a guy. I looked around and chose a group to join. The group I joined composed of people of various tribes. I liked it. Besides me was Adetutu a Yoruba girl. She was dark, tall and good looking. Her girlish voice reminded me of the Alice in wonder land tape I used to listen to when I was younger. Tutu had the shape I so much desired of a girl -- moderate sized everything (don't ask me what) and flat Tommy. Tutu was the talkative of the group. She did all the talking and laughed all through. They told stories of what happened in some branches of the bank where the branch manager ordered all the marketers to kneel down on the bare flow for not getting businesses. The story was so strange to me. Salamatu was the quiet type. She just sat calmly and watched without words. Only the contortion of her face changed at intervals as response to the story.

"I won’t kneel if I were to be there" I boasted, unsure of myself.

“ah see you; you will even crawl on the ground" Chidimma said. I didn't want to argue. I always carried some kind of male chauvinistic mind set - never to argue with a woman. Chidimma had an intimidating appearance.  She was the extraordinarily bold and confident type. She spoke very refined or do I say funkifised English. Her accent was good and lacked the inconsistency of 'wanna be' hyper-correction. I tried talking to her always just to decipher some inconsistencies in here pronunciations, which I didn't see. The class kicked of for the day when Ronke stepped in and sashayed to the podium.

“oo az not written is name here?” she said waving the attendance sheet. Emeka turned and winked at me. I gave him a thumb up. He was poking fun at Ronke’s mother tongue interference. Ronke took the class on nominations for class president. Uche protested and said the class was a mature one and needed no president and entire class affirmed to that. Ronke tried to explain why the class needed a president but the noise in the class over powered her whispery voice. She gave up and then nominated Richard as the class transaction officer. Richard was the one that went out to make cash withdrawals and deposits for other members. He was the cool fine boy I envied for his popularity with the girls.

The class nominated Chidimma in charge of vote of thank at the end of each lecture. She was either to give the thanks or appoint someone else to do that. That must not be unconnected with her accent. She said "na na na na" for "no" and "yea" with low rising tone for “yes”. Chidimma wore artificial eye lashes that stood so straight like the edges of a tooth brush. She had long finger nails that looked more natural than artificial with pink nail polish on them. Her hair style was the type that covered her left eye at intervals and she would remove them so attractively with her index finger. The swing of her head as she removed the hair gave her the look of a movie star. I guessed she liked big things.

"You are going to give the vote of thanks today", she leaned over my shoulder and whispered in my ears as we filed out for breakfast.

"Me? Why me?" I asked rather excited. I always wanted an opportunity to speak in public. I wanted to show that I could speak good English too. Immediately, I started thinking of what to say. I wouldn't want to mess myself up in front of the class. I sat alone at the extreme left corner of the hall taking my tea and snacks as I thought of what to say. It was unlike the student’s politics thing I used to do in school. This was to be corporate. I wouldn’t have to billow; “greatest lions and lionesses!’ as I did in school. I thought of some sesquipedalian words that would shake the class.

Amaka later joined the group as we regrouped after breakfast.  Just like every other Zenith girl, Amaka was beautiful. The most conspicuous thing on her face was the wide gap on her teeth that looked like she lost a tooth in front. She had big bursts that made her appear misleadingly fat. She was the type some mischievous Igbo boys would call "Nkiruka" or bright future.

All through the class for the day, I kept thinking of what to say as votes of thanks that I didn't get the sense of the lecture till the end. The lunch was a plate of rice with full chicken or full turkey as usual.

"SIR WITHOUT MINSING WORD, I WOULD SAY THAT THE LECTURE WAS EXTEMPORANEOUSLY DELIVERD. AND ON BEHALF OF THE MEMBERS OF THIS CLASS I WANT TO SAY A VERY BIG THANK YOU TO YOU. AND WE PROMISE TO PUT WHAT YOU'VE TAUGHT US TO GOOD USE. THANK YOU."

That was the vote of thanks. The entire class stood up and clapped and clapped and clapped until Mr. Femi left the class. I was still standing and clapping with the microphone on my hand when Chidimma tapped me and whispered:

“That comment was superb! Extemporaneously” she smiled and collected the microphone from me. My face creased more with smiles. I felt relieved. My heart palpitation came down.

At the end of the class, we trekked back to Ademola Adetokumbo Branch to join the staff bus. I walked down with omowumi. She was the jovial type. I head felt bigger when she asked me the meaning of “extemporaneous” and I explained gaily. We couldn't talk for so long because I was feeling hungry moreover, Oloshola was interfering. He spoke Yoruba to the girl. I never liked to receive less attention in any gathering, so I left both of them together at the car park and went into the Ademola Adetokumbo branch canteen. I had to eat something.

"Please Madam I want to buy food" I told the fair fat woman behind the counter in the canteen looking forward for some food.

"No... Bros, we don't sell food here" the response came like a thunder bolt on my head. My stomach made a very loud rumbling sound "kprrrrrrrrr" and I turned to see if the people around there heard the sound. Nobody cared. They were watching the war scenes of Middle East on CNN.

"Please madam I am very hungry can I get anything to eat?" I begged. I couldn’t say why I felt that hungry. My share of the lunch of rice and turkey was big enough.

The woman smiled and gestured me to wait. The deep dimples on her chicks remained in my minds eyes as she turned and walked into the room behind her. I liked dimples though I didn’t have one. When I was younger, I had always pressed my cheek with the index fingers to create some dimples there for no avail. The woman later emerged with a bowl of hot rice and a chicken lap.

“Ha! This is exactly what I never expected. Thank you so much Madam." I said and rushed through the food hungrily like a ravenous wolf. From the canteen I hear the sound of the staff bus and dashed off leaving the food unfinished. The bus was already joining the traffic when I came out. I joined the bus and slept all through the journey till VGC.

BIRTH DAY

BIRTH DAY

You returned to Enugu on the 23^rd of October 2009 after your father’s burial.  You didn’t want to talk to anybody in your neighbourhood yet because you were tired. Your eyes were still heavy with the many tears you shaded for the eight days you stayed in the village. You left your mother and younger sisters at the village to escape the evil hand of the bad people over there as you were the only son of your father. Besides you wanted to get to Enugu and prepare for your birth day that was to come up on the 30^th day of October. You wouldn’t allow your father’s death and subsequent burial spoil your birth day. It was a very important day for you - your 27th birth day. 27 was a significant year in your Zodiac and you were determined to make it remarkable. You had drawn a red and black scorpion on your left biceps. You had planned to unveil the beautiful tattoo on that day. You also planned to adopt the nick name – Jupiter – for yourself in consonance with your zodiac planet. Joan your girl friend promised to bake you a grey cake shaped in your zodiac symbol. It was to be your biggest birth day ever.

 You walked straight into your room and slumped on the bed facing the window like a tree chopped down from the roots. Then you noticed that your window had not been properly closed for the two weeks you had been away. Cobwebs now hung loosely on the frame of the window and dangled like a badly fixed PHCN wires as the breeze from outside moved them. The room stunk dusty. You didn’t border to clean your room because you knew Joan will soon come and help you with the arrangement as soon as you called her. You couldn’t bear the choking dusty smell so you decided to get busy with cleaning the room that was formerly your father’s as you were now the man of the house. As you opened the door to the room, something inside of you was expecting to hear your father’s voice from behind say; “James what are you looking for in there?” but the whole house was calm. The voice didn’t come. The door cricked and swung open. The entire room was in disarray. You meant to start with the cloth strewn bed. Then you eye went over the rust eaten black box that stuck out from under the bed. It was that kind of metallic boxes you used in primary school. It was not locked. It was the box you were never allowed to fiddle with while Daddy was alive. You sat on the bed and drew the box out from under the bed.  As you opened it, a community of cockroaches scampered for safety. One cockroach crept out of the box and you smashed it with my left foot. The box was full of papers that now looked brownish as if they were heat with fire. There were deposits of black rat shits that looked the shape and size of rice seedling scattered everywhere in the box. The papers were receipts and invoices and school fees receipts and repot cards. The first one on top was the receipt of the old Philips television that was your sitting room. The receipt said the TV was bought N25. It had some holes here and there on it and some cockroach larvas clung to it. You turned the box upside down and more insects dispersed for safety. Right on top now was your Primary school report card with your name boldly written on it in a sprawling handwriting of a learner. You smiled at what your hand writing looked like. No wonder your then primary school teacher aunty Chichi called it the struggling of a hen for food. You flapped the report card on your left wrist and screwed up your face against the dust it emitted. In the first page of the report card you saw an assignment you did with the teacher’s mark of good that stood like the NIKE sign across the paper. You smiled and whispered that you always took the first position in the class. Then you saw your birth certificate. It was brown now and some parts of it had been chopped off by the cockroaches, maybe. It now had jagged edges like a rat eaten rag. Then you dusted it and cleaned the surface with your palms. The date read 22nd February and the year had been chopped off. Your head felt swollen as you saw the date. You looked up at the name; it was still James Chineme David. It was like a dream. You had always celebrated October 30th as my birth day.

“Oh! God what do I do with this tattoo” you screamed and fell backward into the bed. You didn’t hear your phone ringing; you wouldn’t have picked it if you had heard it. Your head felt heavy and tears ran down the two sides of your eyes like a leaking tab. As you felt the scorpion engraved on your left biceps you sighed and thought about Oluwole. There they can change the dates and even bring your age down. You lay there thinking till you slept off.

To See Nwautam

Every 26^th of December was for Ekpo Nwautam at Eche road field in Aba. I had heard so much about Nwautam but had not seen it for once. Nwautam was the spirit masquerade that they said came from the world inside the waters. They said it came out from the Ogbo Hill waterside river every December. It was the Ekpo that mummy-water had given powers of appearing and disappearing at will. “I am going to see Nwautam tomorrow” victor had said to me as we sat looking after his mothers stall. he looked me in the eyes for some reactions and I didn’t say anything but watched him as he continued cooking the stories about Nwautam’s magical powers; how Nwautam used to steal scared children away to waterside for rituals; how its followers used to disappear with it at the end of their performances and many other incredible tales. Victor was three years older than me but I was taller than him.

“It doesn’t walk like us humans” victor said “it is not human; It just appears wherever it wants to be at will.” Victor’s big eye balls looked as if they where bulging out of his small round face as he told the astonishing tales. I was stunned to speechlessness. Kalu had told me this same story of Nwautam some time ago. It could not be a lie. Right there, I decided to go and see Nwautam the next day.

“This December,” I beat my chest and said, “I must see Nwautam”.

 26^th of December 1997 was a Friday. The weather was cold and dried with harmattan in the air. The dried dusty harmattan breeze hissed at intervals, rocking tree branches and blowing leaves and papers and cellophanes in the air in a whirling move; the kind of whirling breeze they said could carry away even little children of my age.  I was barely 12years old. Fridays was the day we attended our mid-week services of theocratic ministry school and service meeting as Jehovah’s Witnesses. My mother had gone out for preaching. She had wanted me to go with her but I pretended to be having a terrible head ache. I was still lying feebly and pretending to be sleeping on the broken bench in front of our house when my mum left. It was one of the benches we used for visitors on my father’s burial the year before. It was the bench that Ete Ndukwo and the members of his age grade had broken when they argued that my late father will not be buried if my mum didn’t pay the dues my father owed the age grade for not attending all their meetings. I peeked hazily through the tail end of my eyes at my mum as she sashayed out into the street. The streets of Aba looked deserted amid the frenzy of Christmas festivity. Many people had travelled to the country side. We didn’t celebrate Christmas as Jehovah’s Witnesses. So we stayed back with the Ngwa people and people made jest of us and called us; “Ala-bu-out”.

I stood up from the bench and peeked behind the unpruned bushy hibiscus flowers in front of our house, into the street to ensure that my mum had gone far before I went over to meet victor. As I watched my mum get out of sight, I said a silent prayer that people should not throw knock-outs on her.

Victor came dressed in a pair of blue jeans trousers under a black and white striped T-shirt to match. I didn’t have jeans wears because my mum said they were immodest and debased dressing; that Jehovah’s people must dress modestly to radiate Jehovah’s holiness. I had worn a pair of plain trousers under an over sized T-shirt that was more like a gown on me and we hit the street. In the street we could still see people dragging their luggage to the park and other kids heading for Eche road field to see Nwautam.

Eche road field was randomly rowdy and noisy. There were too many people roaming about in their December best wears. Even little kids of my age were loitering and throwing fireworks everywhere. I had no knockout because mama said I would be participating in a pagan celebration if I threw fireworks during Christmas. There was so much smoke in the air, so much noise in the air coupled with the choking stench of the knockout everywhere. Even in the rowdiness of the arena, it was easy for me to identify the different mafia groups locking in the corners of the street. There, was Dibia under the mango tree behind the goal post area. Dibia was the small boy that broke bottles on his palms. It was he who had stabbed Uncle Mark on the neck and robbed him of all his belongings on his way returning from the market. I remembered vividly how Uncle Mark demonstrated the smallish size of the little boy that robbed him.

“That one under the mango tree is the devil they call Dibia” victor had pointed at him surreptitiously and looked around to ensure no other person heard him and added with adoration, “he is the capon of Ajagba maf. He has graduated from the middle of the street to the corner. His boys are now working for him as small as he is. He has so much jaz.”

In the middle of the field, where everybody ran around with fireworks, were other street boys parading their mafia identities and extorting money and other valuables from people. Besides the gutter across the road was a girl in a gown that had been white before, crying helplessly. Somebody had thrown a knockout inside the dirty muddy waters of the gutter that had refused to dry even amid the hash harmattan. The knockout had blasted and bathed the girl with the dirty water as she passed by. The small boys sitting at the veranda of the bungalow in front of Eche road field laughed uncontrollably. At the other end of the street a boy was screaming for help in the middle of three ugly looking boys with scars on their faces and their heads, dragging his pocket. One of the boys held him on the neck and punched his face in a swift jab, yet he held his two pockets tenaciously with his hands despite the creamy blood that gushed from his nose. People crossed freely and nobody seemed to look at their direction. The boy did not leave his pockets until he saw one of the boys brake an empty battle of bear with the flap of a white handkerchief. The other boys tore his pocket and kicked him down on the ground and ran away with all his belongings.

“You see that one in red running down there?” victor whispered and I nodded and he continued; “they call him Okiriko. He breaks bottles with handkerchief. He is…” Victor was about to tell me more about Okiriko when the noise in the field increased, announcing the arrival of Nwautam. I regretted that I didn’t see him appear from nowhere as victor and Kalu had said. I couldn’t see Nwautam clearly from the back where I was. Many people had converged to see it.

From Eche road it was hard to tell that over 70 percent of Aba inhabitants had travelled to their various villages for Christmas. The Nwautam started pursuing people. I ran too and stumble in the middle of the road. My over sized white T-shirt turned something between brown and coffee with dust and I ran to the corner of the street for shade from the blazing sun, not even for Nwautam that I couldn’t see. I didn’t see victor again. I searched through the crowd and victor was nowhere to be found. I didn’t know my way home; I didn’t want to ask the way from anybody. I was afraid of Ngwa people – with the tale of human flesh eating and head hunting. Soon the noise died gradually, the day was getting dark; knockouts were still firing; and people where dispersing. Nwautam had gone. I didn’t see it. I followed a group of grown up boy at the back as I sought my way home. I was wallowing in the confusing streets till I saw a man walking hastily with a bag that looked like a Jehovah’s Witness. I ran after him.

“Brother good evening” I said and asked if he was a witness. He said yes and I told him I had lost my way.

“Where is your house?” he asked keen to assist.

“36 Okezie street” I answered sounding throaty like I was about to whimper. He asked what brought me to the town and I didn’t answer him. I didn’t want to let him say I had participated in a pagan celebration. He took me home. My mother had flogged me with the cane she had bought specially for me and rubbed some pepper in-between the parting of my buttocks. I cried all night till I slept off. Even in the dream I didn’t see Nwautam.

     No Victor No Vanquish (1)

No victor no vanquish” he says

After battering me for three years

Like the clay prepared for mud house

As if in search of a greedy mouse

My house he turned to rubbles

With bomb shells like bubbles

My water he poisoned too

Eve amid the stomach’s rumbles

The world was watching too

Cumming bruised my wounds

And made them fresh in all bounds

Elbert was Matthew’s busy ant

Fanning the flames that burnt my hut

“Go on!” they said, “Gow-on! Gow-on!”

And ceased the food for the minion

Just because I asked for my right

The human right.

Ignoring the words we ate at Aburi

He came with friends to bury

From different corners they gow-on

So to make me a minion

But I alone I stood

With rusty courage and knife as I could

And I was busy crying

Yet the world was watching

“Odim egwu!” screamed my noble son

My most noble son

Who trampled on the olive truce

And crossed the seas and hills abroad

To appease the god

gods that have stubs in their ears

gods that sprayed fuel and hid in tears

gods that patted with one hand

And the other the embers fanned

Yet the world was watching

No victor no vanquish they said

And made my son drop his sword

Yet he turned Asaba to an abattoir

For bloods in the reservoir

In the Niger washing faces away

For Mr. Geno’s side to sway

Yet the word was watching

“Uwa, zuruike” I have said

Else my spirit would not rest

Because my wounds are still fresh

The world is still watching

And have said nothing

To be continued….