Ekwe

Ekwe.


Photo credit:shop.afrimart.com.ng

While I was at work today, one of my favourite Dolly Parton songs came on, “My Tennessee Mountain Home”. The particular line that got me thinking was “life is as peaceful as a baby’s sigh”. I have had the privilege of visiting Nashville in Tennessee and I must agree that it is a peaceful place. I then imagined how peaceful it must have been back in the days when Dolly Parton lived there as a young girl.

Udu. Photo credit:AZSA.com

The picture makes me very nostalgic because I can relate it to my life as a young girl living in the coal city Enugu. Life was quite peaceful till a certain period which I hate to think about. In Enugu, everyone knew every family on the same street and several streets away, from age five children were already running errands to the next building; nobody was afraid of any evil happening.

Ogene. Photo credit: African drumming

In the evenings, the catholic children would all gather in a particular compound to say the rosary; the organization was called the Block Rosary Crusade. Children as young as three years old were allowed to attend this prayer session which often lasted till about 7:30pm.

On certain days, we would attend Block Rosary Congresses at different locations. Standing in threes, we would sing and dance on the streets to the venue of the congress where we met and mingled with other members from the neighbourhood. We would pray, sing and dance our hearts out to songs from us. 

While some sang, some played the few instruments of ogene, udu, ekwe and ichaka. Those were all we needed to to have a really nice time. Afterwards, the host would share cabin biscuits and soft drinks which sometimes we had to share two or three people to a bottle. We did all joyfully.

                Photo credit: Twitter

Almost all the streets in my neighbourhood had one or two empty plots of land which they allowed the kids to plant on. Planting was one of the fun things we did as children in Enugu; the most popular crops to grow were the green vegetables, curry, scent leaves and tomatoes. 

The joy in it for us was to go and water them and see the plants blossom. Harvest time was also fun for us as we got to take home to our parents the vegetables. We shared them peacefully and everyone was happy. Some of the children would sometimes get too excited at the beautiful sights of these vegetables that they would attempt to sell them. The children usually put in a lot of energy and love into nurturing these plants that they usually grew so beautifully.

I was quite young when Nkiru my big sister and her friend Chioma whose father was a medical doctor and owned a very big hospital in the area decided to become entrepreneurs. Their green vegetables had come out so well and they felt that they needed more for their hard work. They shared the vegetables, tied them up like market sellers, got their trays and hit the streets. They were not up to ten years when they went on this adventure shouting “goo’nu green” (buy green) on the streets.

Mother was driving back home when she sighted the two business girls, it was too late for them to hide for she stopped right in front of them; pulling them by their ears, she bundled the little entrepreneurs and their goods into the car. 

She scolded them and took Chioma home. Nkiru should have known better when she thought that the matter would end just with the scolding. Mother whooped her very well that her love for planting ended that evening.

  To be continued…………………..