I ate kpachaa today. Kpachaa is a name for roasted yam and plantain. I guess they call it kpachaa because of the way you scrape out or kpachapu the stains of charcoal on the yam and plantain after roasting them. What method of name formation could this be called in morphology? Is it onomatopoeia or descriptive name? I will go back to my old morphology test book.
Okay now that you know what I mean by kpachaa, let’s continue with the story. I came home a little earlier yesterday at about 6:00pm because I was not feeling very strong. So I walked down to a kpachaa spot in obiagu to enjoy the local delicacy. The rotund woman behind a dirt caked table that housed three charcoal blackened pots and several flat plats of different sizes smiled as I greeted her. She flashed a dead brown tooth n front. That reminded me my mother. She was just as fair as my mother and at exactly the same spot in the front row of the upper teeth she had a tooth that was brown and dead like my mum. Beside the woman was the njaoku burning with golden embers and the slices of yam and naked plantains suspended on a metallic net. Sorry I don’t know what njaoku is called in English language, I an Igbo man.
“Nwam what do you want?” she asked still smiling
I didn’t smile back because I didn’t like the films of dirt lining like a brown ring round her neck. “How do you sell?” I asked business-like, pointing at the roasted plantain.
“One fifty each” she said and wiped her palms on her wrapper still smiling.
“Give me this yam and these two plantains together with one hundred naira worth of Ukpaka. I will pay three fifty for all. Is that okay by you?”
“okey, no problem but you will add fifty naira to it so that you don’t cheat mama o?” she said looking cunningly into my eyes, with the tone of voice these mothers use when they want to use moral suasion to get favour. I just didn’t respond to that but looked away.
“madam nyem mmrir!” screamed one agboro in the small dark water proof house behind the woman.
“a na m abia o!” the woman shouted to the air and asked me, “are you eating here?”
“where? No!” I responded disgusted.
She breezed into the water proof house and rushed out almost immediately. Something striking about the woman was her serious unseriousness and the never dissipating smile on her face just like my mum. Then she picked the yam that I spotted. Now I could see the several lines of wrinkles on her hands and shriveled fingers, which must not be unconnected with her constantly putting her hands in the fire to turn roasting yam or plantain. Now I could see the black and brown stuff that caked round her finger nails as the hand plucked the yam into a flat plate on the dirt caked table. I didn’t see when she washed the plate.
“ewoo!” she screamed and dropped the plate and made to a basin of yellowish brown water with some foams of red oil floating on it to wash her hands as if she knew I was watching the hands. The hands emerged drenched from the dirty water and she wiped them on her wrapper, still smiling. I screamed inwardly and wished she didn’t wash the hands at all because I could still see the brown and black stuffs around her finger nails and now the water must have melted them. She grabbed the yam, put it on her left palm and sliced with a crooked knife I didn’t see when she washed. From the front pocket of her apron she brought out some small black cellophane bags and flogged the air with them to straighten them. Then she did the worst. She put the cellophane under her armpit. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr…. She touched her index finger to her tongue and picked a white cellophane bag. There she emptied the flat plate of sliced yam. Then she poured some red oil in another plate, sliced some onions into it, added some already mashed pepper, a little salt and something that looked brown like old men’s tobacco snuff. Then she used a spoon to turn them together. Then she use the spoon to collect a little of the stew she had made and placed it in her left palm. I watched the left hand move up to her face and her mouth opened and a long pink tongue curled out of the mouth like a snake and licked clean the palm and lolled back into the enclosure of the lips. Her eyes squinted and her head nodded. Smiles….
The tongue licked palms grabbed the first plantain and broke it into seven pieces like the bread of christ’s evening meal and put them in another flat plate. She did same to the second plantain and added two spoon full of Ukpaka to the stew she made (I don’t a finished Ukpaka has an English name because the white man eat Ukpaka. He might have a name for the raw one anyway but that’s not my concern here). She brought out one of the black cellophane bags from her armpit and flogged the air with it and emptied the plate of plantain in it. She took another cellophen from her armpit, flogged the air again and touched her index finger to the tip of her tongue and opened the cellophane and emptied the plate of stew into it.
Now kpachaa was read!
I didn’t know how to tell the woman that the hunger gnawing at my stomach walls had disappeared. I just paid and turned to leave.
“thank you my son,” the woman said “I don’t have enough Ukpaka today, next time I will give you more jara”
I didn’t turn as if she talked to me. I just moved on.
“let’s pray I survive this one first before talking about a return purchase” I said to myself and sighed. I was not ready to throw away the kpachaa. So I ate it! Yes I did! It was my hard earned money.
Now if you are my friend
, just watch me and be ready to rush me to hospital just in case of any diarrhea or cholera. My car key is always on my reading table in case you will need to drive me with my keke to the hospital.
However I have pledged never to look into that small water proof house again talk more of buying kpachaa from there. But wait o… Kpachaa is a very good delicacy to enjoy. So where in Enugu do I get one made in a hygienic environment?
Please throw in your suggestions please please please.
