Debtors of Love

Thousands of girls, years spanning over three decades tell nostalgic stories, of a love too strong to explain, and too intense it forms a mystery curve. Whilst some are old enough to be mothers or grandmothers to the current girls in school, they hum a song all too familiar to them, ‘they were all in love’. In love with a man, who loved so much and in such great depth, that it made sense for all the girls to want to live their dream. I would never have known this love mystery if I never got the chance to be admitted to a school that he founded in the 70s, and never would many other hundreds of girls.

A group of alumni girls meet, and after the all too familiar giggles, the innuendo of their conversation takes the form of ‘Bro’. A man we loved and still do, even in his death. To the girl whose performance was rewarded with a full scholarship, and credits a part of her life to that love…..To the girl who performed so well in school but her single mom would not manage to pay for her high school education, but she went through school. To the girl sat by the school gate headed home to fetch a balance of her school fees, and as her eyes dart sideways with that tell-tale uncertainty that she will come back to class, and the mighty bro, drives into the school compound JUST IN TIME to tell her “pack your bags and go back to class”. And as she walks, she feels like the redeemer said ‘your burden is no more’.

The JUST IN TIME love, that John Koczka of the sacred heart brothers had redeemed many. Not because of the unfortunate cases of girls from less income households, but because he had this great ability to love all, to love all of us in equal measure…something apart from God, maybe parents can claim to. And whilst there are some parents who love differently, this man loved the same. His way of love set him apart.

Materi Girls Centre…His wife and life as he loved to say…who can forget the many times he would refer to us as his GIRLFRIENDs….who can forget his dedication, love personified. To the envious schools around us, we could be called a holiday camp. Why, there were no rules, except the golden and cardinal one to use ‘common sense’. And it didn’t make sense to no one at the time, why girls at the peak of their teenage trouble and drama would not have had to sign a booklet with elaborate rules. It made sense to bro…because Love trusts…and grows. And when we all his girls look back, we acquire a lovely virtue of using common sense at all times.

Even as we lost him to a battle of long illness last week, and still in denial, we look back and are glad Brother John chose the greatest thing of all…To Love….A choice, a decision, an investment of his entire life, a commitment that he wasn’t sure how the returns would fold out to be like….Remember whilst it’s ok to chase greater gifts…and yet I show you a more excellent way…that of love. And it paid back, a top performing girl school in a most semi-arid region opened,…infrastructure and opportunities,…wings to fly to thousands of girls at that little nursery school, at the Materi Boarding primary school, at the High school and the institute. It’s a sad day, when we heard you are gone….A while back you said your heart condition was as a result of Love…Love for these girls. The love for Materi made you stay even when common sense would have said you fly back home for Medicare…you kept coming back to the school, which was your home. Your love for us made you sick but it has not killed you….you will never be gone forever for you are with us. You gave each of us a piece of your heart, and we remain debtors of your love.

Of all my school experiences, high school was the best. Not just because it was a discovery phase but because you, Bro, made it the best. You were the conduit of love…from God, from yourself and even my own father who would regularly drop a little brown envelope to your office with some pocket money. You were a great daddy to all of us…a VERY BIG DAD, with a VERY BIG HEART and we so love you like to the moon and back.

See Bro, we loved to shout out your name….Friday around lunch hour, when even teachers in the classes would excuse our excitement at the sight of your car cruising the main highway. We loved your gifts, the ball gums for each class, the ‘sweat shirts’ we could get from you at 50bob, the nail polish, polish removed, face powder, the jewellery and how you could put a note on your notice board reminding us to look good when boys were visiting the school. The convenient letter pads and stamps from your office and being our mail man…including delivering hand written love notes from Nkubu boys where you resided (I didn’t get any though). We loved all this but beyond this we loved your heart that had endless depth of love…we loved you because we wanted to, just like you.

And I loved your notice board. It riddled me how you would go to the depths of reading newspapers with your lover in mind…and carefully cut out any interesting pieces thereafter pinning them on your board and all we, your lover needed to do, is rove our eyes on your notice board and consume the beautiful pieces. I would have wanted to get into your mind at those times when we would troop after you waiting to see what’s in store that day, but that is beside the point of love.

And you know how I loved the movie nights…the world didn’t know how consistent a lover you were, to sit through the evening after dinner, watch us dance as you play the music(you really rocked Mr. DJ) and also listen to the ahhhs, omg, and even tears that would follow your careful selection of movies. I remember opting out of the Friday movie dates because my grades were beginning to play me games. Looking back, I wish I stayed through each of them. I believe I still would have turned out as fine as I have in life.

When I think of Mundi’s drama, actually the only other person who made the Materi heat and dust bearable, I sort of think he was trying to distract the attention we had on you. Well, we all turned our eyes to him for a different reason, to be spared the wrath and not to be denied our meals. I do remember a drama Friday evening that he had shut the dining hall and ordered the cooks not to serve us dinner and you soothed him. Whatever you said to him rescued us. I sort of have this feeling that you told him…”Mr. Mundi, the more you cause this dinner stalemate with my girls, the more our usual movie date will delay.  Now sir, won’t you let this matter out of the way?” Whatever you said was brief but didn’t look threatening. We had our meals but common sense told us we could not afford to taunt Mundi.

Oh, the patience of driving on that dusty road every day! Not patience, but love. Man, there are those who loved school closing days. For they would have almost free transport to their parent’s doorstep. The Nyahururu girls whom you would drive all the way….and there are particular ones you would also drop at Kutus and others at Eden’s corner (see I remember the names or at least mix them up). It’s because I envied them. So I loved the school opening days instead…(Memeu and Alice K….I remember we used to get free ride to school…we would either wait at the gate). And then we would be so many, this was before Michuki rules probably. You would ask us ‘big’ girls to get into the car first, and then hold the little ’primary school girls on our laps…and then bang…the bags would come in flying—one by one. I think you relished our screams when the bags would land on us…good thing is no girl would be left…And for the four years, this is how I managed to be among the first girls to report to school.

You always said you wanted to raise successful girls and mothers…a strong pillar of society. It was such joy when you addressed us at tin tin restaurant….and the last thing I thought is you would leave us barely 3 years later. You always looked strong,..invincible..almost could defy eternity..You taught us love and we will always hope to love,….selflessly as you did. We can write millions of words to thank you and tell endless stories of your impact in our lives….we will let the seed of love grow,….to a big round tree where the hands of many other people can be spread around it. Rest in peace Papa, we will meet yonder,…at the appointed time.

Thank you for choosing the most excellent way….I cor 12:31

 

Brenda

You saw her and your heart was moved
By love, by compassion, by the great need that lay ahead, and by the challenge in store
She was poor, dirty, unfed, uncared for
She was uneducated with no none to take care of her children when they were ill.

The task was insurmountable
Others looked and quickly walked away like the Pharisee who saw the wounded samaritan man
But you, you said Father I will do it
I will lover her, wash her wounds, pay her bills
I will care for her children and here they will find a place they can call home

And so you built Materi
Brick by brick, tile after tile, tree after tree
In scorching sun in dreaded dust and annoying mosquitoes
You traversed boundaries to make sure Materi was fed and fees paid
You sat with the girls through late nights just to entertain them
Making the treacherous journey to and from Nkubu come rain come high winds
Children found a home in Materi, poor children found a savior in you
Mothers knew you were the miracle they had prayed for
And the community knew that a light had shone in their midst

You let your light shine, you let people see your good works, and they glorified the father in heaven
For sending you, but mostly for your heart of gold, heart of obedience
You would have laid down your life for Materi
And what greater love is there than this.

Your bride is today all grown up
Her children sit in high places business and government
They carry virtue, godliness and hearts of service
They are spirited, free thinkers and inspiring
Many have become leaders and outliers, because they were moulded by Materi in all its uniqueness

Go home free daddy. Your bride will live and love another day
May be she will one day find another suitor
But you will always be her first love.
Go home free daddy, the Father eagerly awaits you
To say well done son. You have been my hands touching the wounded
You have been my feet going places no one was willing to go
You have been my mouth, teaching, discipling
Come home son, for great Is your reward.

Carol Wambui

I had not seen bro shed a tear till the day the alumni came to visit in 2009 and then they sang to him “you raise me up”..

Eunice W

When you chose her,
When you made her your queen..
You did not take her to the city
Right there in the sun scorching land
You built her a paradise….
You gave her your heart
And gave her your life…
You taught her what being loved is
You taught her to be a queen.
You encouraged her to be unique.
To put on her jewellery for example.
She, your wife Materi Girls
Misses you.

Alice K

I remember those moments bro used to give speeches after church service n he would call us MY GIRL FRIENDS. Bro, we will miss u, u r one in a million.

Jane M

RIP brother John. You will be missed by the Materi girls who you loved passionately and did everything to make them who they are today. I promise you that even as you go on with your next life, I will pay it forward by ensuring that at least one girl child goes through high school education. We loved you but God loved you more.

Asunta

I loved closing days coz Bro used to drive us mpaka Nyahururu for only 200 shillings only from school mpaka nyahururu town with his vehicle I can’t recall the number plates whereas guys from Nairobi were taken by the ‘BULL’

Lyniet

Just yesterday I talked to mom and told her that am going to see bro today. And she said that bro loved cards and I should write her name on my card as well. My mom is an alumni and up to his old age, bro always called mom by her name. I was surprised when I went to pick my cert n he was like ”Muthoni’s daughter, give me a hug” that hug n the kiss he planted on me will forever be memorable! oh and when I logged in here, only the R.I.P messages. I called mom and she broke down. Bro was a hero to all of us girls. My heart is pained. But I know that he is together with the saints in a very beautiful place. May your soul rest in peace Brother John

Doreen

It’s still a dark day. Still looks like the sun will never rise again…but the courage U gave us gives us the strength to carry on, accepting things we cannot change. My heart is troubled, but coz U are resting in a peaceful place with our daddy in heaven gives me the reason to celebrate U my hero. RIP bro.John. The entire Materi Community celebrates you

Mukiri

The most caring dad who played mom’s role perfectly.

Junior-Nkubz Alumni

Bro John, what can I say.. the man was God sent and I believe that the world is certainly loosing with the demise of this great man. Obviously those at Materi spent more time with him than the Nkubu High School Old Boys Association (NKOBA) fraternity and we all feel your pain for we too loved him. I have known many of you, the classes of 97- 2002 and I know what great ladies y’all turned out to be and I believe that I am among many when I say he had a great role to play in who we all are today.

It’s a sad day indeed and allow the rest of us to share in your pain. RIP

Lorac

The best memories of bro are
See bro that time you knew ‘kumetumanwa kakitu’
How we would go with my mum to bros him just to ride with him back to school
When he went to US he would come with some sweets for us which were given to every girl
Movies on Friday…
And above all he gave us pen pals and some of us even got sponsors.
RIP dear Bro. we’ll surely miss you

Hilda

Bro John taught me that it is ok to let go and play once in a while…back in high school, we would cap off a week of tireless book crunching by having Friday movies all the way till midnight…and boy we loved it…we looked forward to it. We would save our snacks for Fridays…its the only one day we were allowed to wear home clothes…its the only night where rigid bed time rules weren’t enforced…we would even catch up with our mates over bon fires we light…mark you that wood was sourced from the kitchen pile…its the only time we would gossip about all the teachers and school staff did…all this in high school…he made high school one lovely holiday…I am blessed to have experienced your kindness and immense love in Materi…RIP Brother John Koczka

Kendi

I have seen and experienced Christ in the lives of amazing people like Bro.John Koczka.
I am broken at your departure to be with the Lord and grateful for blessing and touching the lives of so many kenyan girls.
You came to Africa as a teen and in the remotest of Kenya you chose to build an oasis for the girls.
I am not sure that I would have gone through school had it not been for your love. I hated to be thrown out of school for lack of fees. You excempted me(primary) and many other girls. In high school, I dint pay a single coin courtesy of the free scholarship.
This love overwhelmed me and I made a pledge to love as much as I could.
RiP Brother Koczka

 

 

 

 

Book Review-Umwem Akpan’s ‘Say you are one of them’

LUXURIOUS HEARSES

This post is a month late, seeing it is part two review of Umwem Akpan’s book. See part one here

Jubril had been born in the South just like his mother Aisha, a Muslim girl who fell in love with a Christian man. The relationship between Barthromew, a Christian and Aisha had quickly become a community concern and besides the gossip that went by, pressure came from all sides. They proceeded to marry and Jubril was the second child of their marriage.

They were a model family, a point of reference for intertribal and mixed marriage. In fact, in his homily at the wedding, Father McBride had reminded the congregation that the couple was a symbol of unity in a country where ethnic and religious hate had simmered beneath every national issue…………..perhaps the myriad tribes and religions in the country would be welded together by the love within such marriages………., and the respect accorded in-laws would at least instill tolerance.pg. 174

And one day Aisha, without warning escaped with the children to Khamfi, her father’s original home. The boys grew up in a Muslim-only neighborhood and while Yusuf was interested in knowing his roots, indulging in the snippets of his family history, Jubril became distant. Yusuf became a victim of apostasy, mobbed by the neighbors and stoned to death. Whilst Jubril did not participate in his brother’s death, he had been close enough to hear him pray in tounges as the stones rained on him.

His former friends had held Jubril as a true Muslim for not allowing his family loyalties to come between him and his religion when Yusuf was given his just deserts, and Meta Nadum had rallied around him when he had readily submitted his hand to be chopped off as a punishment for stealing someone’s goat.

It was his friends Luka and Musa, among a chanting mob who stopped him dead in his tracks by declaring him no good Muslim because he could not join the street protest until he took the cows home first.

His defenses by producing the picture of his hero-governor never could hold, they accused him of being an enemy within. If he produced the chopped wrist, they would accuse him of stealing another man’s goat, even if he spoke Hausa with the proper accent, it still didn’t defend him. They insisted he was a southerner, they knew his baptism story as a small baby and before he began explaining the money his friends owed him, they wrestled him to the ground.

Jubril remembered running very fast and being surprised that he could move at all, given his wounds. When he looked back, the ranks of his pursuers had swelled; even those who had left the task of burning him to Lukman and Musa had joined in. They pelted him with rocks, but he did not stop or fall. He heard some gunshots, but he kept going. He went past the pools and up the hill into the savannah. The mob spread out and thrashed the cabbage farms. Jubril ran like a dog; he ran until his vision darkened. He remembered failing; he remembered dizziness beclouding him……..pg. 183

“It was late afternoon. It was before the new democratic government placed a ban on mass transportation of corpses from one end of the country to the other. Jubril had worked so hard to forget the previous two days that his mind was in turmoil as he waited to travel south with the crowd at the motor park on the outskirts of Lupa. He knew that even if people were stacked up like yam or cassava tubers in a basket, most would still be left behind. Fortunately, he had paid for a seat on the only bus left.”

Jubril a fair skinned teenager finds himself caught up in a religious conflict. A Muslim, he had done a good job disguising himself as a Christian fleeing south. Besides, in that time of religious conflict in the country no one would expect a Muslim or northerner to risk travelling with Christians to the south or in the delta.

With Nigeria on a war path, he abandons all the myths he had heard regarding the luxurious buses and all that had mattered is for him to escape to safety. He was from a village that practiced a conservative brand of Islam that made it impossible for him to watch TV or read newspapers.

As they wait at the motor park for the driver who has disappeared to scout for black market fuel, which had become scarce since the war, the languages spoken only emphasized his estrangement from the group. Ibo was mainly spoken and those that spoke English did so with accent peculiar to their tribes – all of them unlike Jubril’s accent. He resolved to speak little as the best way to disguise himself.

A good Samaritan, who had helped him to escape, had written the village in the delta where his father was born. He wished he had made this trip before, during the peaceful times. The mother, years before had insisted against Jubril’s protestations that his father came from an oil producing village in the delta region and that his father’s relatives would always protect him.

The story exposes the folly of what separates, only to be bearable in times of need. Jubril finds himself, for the first time in his life, not infuriated that there were so many women all over the place. And he did not react to them in any particular way, something that would have been impossible only three days before. He would have preferred to trek a thousand miles on foot rather than sit in the same vehicle as a woman.

The angst that had hitherto fretted his soul seems to lift and was replaced by some lightheartedness caused by secretly poking fun at some of his inconveniences. For example some of the women looked funny in their makeup and tight-fitting trousers. He constrained his urge to laugh out loud at these hell destined women, something that would do him in after successfully disguising himself thus far. He would see the lifestyles that challenged him as laughable rather than as sources of irritation and temptation.

His right hand had been amputated at his wrist for stealing. Nobody on the bus knew this, and it was important that Jubril kept this fact hidden. If they found out, they would know he was Muslim, for they had seen people like him before. His plan to run south would unravel. So now, though his elbow kept bumping into other refugees boarding the bus, making him whine with pain, he did not change his posture. He held a black plastic bag containing his few belongings in his left hand.

His seat in the bus had been taken up by Chief Ukongo, who would not badger off after Jubril’s polite request. The young man was to hitherto brace the long journey sitting on the aisle, something that would not long for the position that he stood at belonged to another pregnant woman with a child. In times of crises like this, even the aisle had been portioned and paid for.

Great perseverance, when such a sacrilegious word like Muslim or Islam in mentioned in the bus, and people would begin to search their neighbor’s faces, and Jubril feared that from their dangerous stares they could tell he was a fraud. He kept waiting for someone to pull his arm out of his pockets and the blows to start raining on him.

Unfortunately his mind revolted at his attempts to suppress his thoughts, and when not dwelling on his present circumstances, his mind travelled back to a past event that was tangled up in his flight from Khamfi.

Like his multi-religious, multi-ethnic country, Jubril’s life story was more complicated than what one tribe or religion could claim. He had lived all his life in Khamfi and was at home with his mother’s people, the Hausa-Fulani’s. He had always seen himself as a Muslim and a northerner. Looking at his skin color, he had no problem believing he would fit in where he was going. There were many on the bus, who were fairer than he was. He could have been from any ethnic group in the country. What worried him was that he did not know enough about Christianity to survive in this crowd. It seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. So many times, he cleared his throat and grabbed his Marian medal with his fingers and stroked it, his whole attention focused on it, as if the Muslim in him now shared the same catholic adoration he had considered idolatrous in Khamfi. Though Mary was accorded a lot of respect in his religion, he had always thought the Catholics went too far by making thousands of sacramental about her and setting up shrines. The advice of Mallam Abdullahi, the man who gave Jubril the medal, flashed across his mind: don’t feel too bad wearing the medal, as Maryam in the Koran was the mother of prophet Isa, Jesus. Though Jubril would rather not have been wearing the medal, this theology was good enough for him—and, besides, his rescuer had assured him that all Christians who saw him wearing it would think he was a catholic and let him be. Page 172

You will also find the pidgin spoken evoking some laughter, for example, the following lines:

When Emeka is smarting from the eviction of the sick man, and coaxes Jubril to tell the old man off for occupying his seat, Ijeoma, she of fighting with Tega over the luggage space earlier in the story says,

Abeg, no halass de boy,” “cally your anger go meet de porice. No be dis boy lemove de sick man from dis bus”

The tension in the bus was evoking sporadic arguments within the bus.

So the Chief who stole Jubril’s seat, wants to guard his honour even in crisis, so when he invites Jubril to sit on the floor near him, someone challenges the old man for asking the boy to sit at his buttocks. He revolts and refuses to be addressed improperly.

“I sure you want all of us to call you shief,” Tega said. “shief dis, shief dat…Too many shiefs for dis country. I go buy my Resource Control hat too!”

The humour and bile seems served in same portions:

“Look am not even supposed to be in this bus with you,” the chief said

Look, l’m not one of you!”

“Den leave de Luxurious Bus,” Tega said from her seat, “who you be? Abasha man? Babangida boy?”

“As our people say, before the discovery of peanuts, people were not eating pebbles….keep your Christianity to yourself!”

“No confuse us wid proverb,” Tega continued. “Maybe you be pagan…..wizard!” a few people laughed at her comments.

“Pagan, eh?” the chief said. ”how dare you call my traditional religion paganism!”

“But Chief, you dey play poritics wid dis ting.” Ijeoma said. “Just reave de seat.”

“if you be no Christian, wetin else remain?”Tega said.

“He is suffering from political correctness,”Emeka said, speaking for the first time since the police changed the TV channel.

“Let me tell you, “the chief said, “before the harvest of alligator pepper, the medicine man was already carrying his bag, not the other way round…..The religion of my ancestors is far older than yours in this country. This land belongs to us.”

….This was not the time to think about lslam and Christianity or God too much, he thought. It was a time just to be a human being and to celebrate that. What mattered now was how to get people to lay down their weapons and biases, how to live together.

…”As our people say,”he continued, “the world is full of gods, but the most important ones are called by their names. And also, do not forget: no matter how small an idol is, it is good to carry it with two hands” I chuckled at this, because it felt that he was mocking Jubril’s juju which he had accused him of hiding in the pocket.

And this Chief Ukongo, not wasted any moment to parade his royaleship, by hailing the people to unite around royal chiefs like the northerners are united around their emirs, goes on to narrate his boast of the military government under general babangida, only to be interjected by Monica.

“Na lie o…l understand dis one, “she insisted.”Dat general like power too much o. if no change handover date many times, if he no cancel our 1993 elections, Abacha no for become our leader…Na de same people. Locust years. De man dey use you. He no share power wid you, abeg.”

“OK, woman, it is not exactly like l was saying. All l was trying to say was that the military respected us. May l talk now, Madame Lawyer?”

“Just make you no lie for dis young man, Chief.”

“Gabriel, the point is, we taught those Sierra Leonean and Liberian rebels a lesson. We lost a lot of soldiers…for a good cause!’

“Chief, how many die for combat?”

“That’s codified information, not for everybody, you know. A lizard may listen to a conversation, but he may not say something.. I mean who are you to want to know how many soldiers died in combat?…”

This chief gives the impression of a typical royalty who can do anything to intimidate his subjects into submission. He is also a good liar…reminds an earlier statement that a chief who can laugh with the others in the bus that hard, could lie too.

“You and l”, he said as he hugged Jubril, ”must show this to the world. Remember, nobody has a monopoly on violence. So don’t go around trying to terrorize the Christians.”

“As our elders say, the ant’s hope of reaching the sacrificial food lies in the folds of the wrapping leaf”…chief’s response to Jubril when he asked him whether he would help him after they reached home.

The ECOMOG soldier, whom the refugees referred to as a madman, refusing to recognize his efforts in fighting in Liberia and Sierra Leone, they also referred to as Chief Ukongo’s fellow idol worshipper, for he has a bigger and more intimidating assorted wreath of talismans than Chief had. When Jubril is at some point lost in flashbacks of when his hand was amputated, they attribute his strange behavior to being hyponotized by the soldier’s charms.

It’s interesting to a reader to see the various shifting of opinions of people when acting in different situations. For example, Jubril is in awe of the soldier remembering what Chief had told him about the sacrifices of ECOMOG soldiers who served the country gallantly, but when one of the soldiers is actually standing in front of them, the Chief takes to indifference feigning insult to his chieftancy. Even the refugees laugh that to his claims of retiring to a good conscience and dignigty. This is laughable, reasoned against a belief that all soliders are thieves. In fact one of the refugeesguffaws and wonders why all soldiers from her place are stupid—not using their chance well.

“Soldierman, you go eat conscience and drink dignity, abi? Your wife and children go dey happy well well to receive you from Sierra Leone empty-handed.”

“No problem,” the soldier said.

“No wahala, huh?” she taunted him. “ We no tell you before? You be madman…Na only crazeman who go reach colonel for army and no steal money for dis country.”

The soldier on the other hand finds the refugees to be the mad people. Other than obsess with oil, he is going home to farm as his ancestors did before oil was discovered in his village. Except that Monica one of the refugees reminds him that the oil companies have polluted every grain of sand, to which he says he will do fishing. This too is vain, as as the rivers have been destroyed.

The dialogue evokes a conversation amongst refugees who start talking about the pollution of the delta, and about how they must make sure all the oil companies moved away from the area.

The earlier bitterness of the refugees seem to stop as some laugh their way into sleep. They find it ridiculous that even if the soliderman would not have stolen the oil money, he could have at least bid for an explotation licesnse, after all, expertise is not as much needed as money. He reminds them that coming from a minority tribe stacked his odds of becoming a general despite serving his country for 32 years. The refugees wonder whether his not being a general meant that he had not received the billons of dollars pumped into ECOMOG to which chief barks that the generals should be left out that matter, and instead, a probe should be done on madmen like the soldierman.

In an interesting way, Chief escapes flogging by the soldierman who resorts to an erratic behavior of shoving the refugees on the isle, and jumped over the heads.

“Dis no be de savannah of Sierra Leonne o!” a refugee said.

“You think we dey urban warfare for Liberia?”

It’s ridiculous that the Chief seems silent until the chieftancy or the national governemt is mentioned adversely.

For example, when the soldier compains of his arrears not paid by the government, after 6 years fighting for his fatherland…the fury of chief only seems to be provoked by the fact that the solider says no stupid chief fights for people in a true democracy.

He of the earlier talismans and claims that he ascribes to the ATR, also announces to the refugees that the solider’s worship is not the true religion of their ancestors—whatever the juju he had brought back from his travels.

It’s unbelievable to the soldier, and even to the reader, that after suffering too much for the freedom of his country, that the refugees would want to eject him from the bus on the account of religion.

“Let me tell all of jou in this bus, none of these white countries, which brought us christinaity and democracy, came to die for the Liberians. Did any of these Arab countries peddling militant Islam in Africa send troops to Sierra Leone? I say jou all are mad, to kill each other for two foreign reliyions. We wretched ECOMOG soldiers went out there to die for democracy while the lttle democracy in this country is being scuttled by yenerals and politicians and chiefs…rogues.

Whilst the soldierman’s address brings up important things to reflect, the chief’s thinking seems way set. Perhaps because there is a challenge to his way of thinking. He tells the soldier that making sense doesn’t depend on how many places he has visited. “ As our people say, if winning a race depended on one’s number of legs, the millipede would beat the dog hands down…” Whilst the refugees see this as wisdom, and in deed proverbial or idiomatic wisdom, the chief seems to use this to feign some mystique around him, perhaps to win the loyalty of his unwilling subjects-the refugees. Is it not what African leaders are wont to do. Chuckling away and fanning imaginary sweat in gatherings when they perceive to have said something important to the adoration of their people. A people tied to misfortunes that the only way to feel secure is to rally around these feel important people, who in turn skirt their eyes around their kingdom like some sort of parlour?

This same chief who ascribes to the traditional religion later is awed when the madness of the solider is calmed by the sprinkling of holy water by Madam Aniema. I guess it’s this quick shifting of attitudes that made Africans so gullible.

“Your holy water is as powerful as what those bearded Irishmen sprinkled on our ancestors to make them instant catholics. Then the church didn’t waste time dipping you inti a river before you got the Sprit…

“Just three drops of water and you knew Latin like the Pope,” the chief said

Even the chief offers to speak to Rome to make the madam a priest, to which he is reminded the catholic church doesn’t ordain women. When the outsiders interject with an opinion that there should be an execption to Aniema, they are quickly reminded to mind their own business.

Well, the madness returned quickly after,and more strongly at that despite the attempts to tame it earlier. Ridiculous that the chief insitist in voting to eject soldierman out, as opposed to showing tickets since he had Jubril’s ticket. The refugees, just like Chief were switching sides and it was proving difficult for Jubril to be comfortable.

Jubril is converted to Christianity, after Emeka possessed by some inhausted powers, descend on him claiming that he was an enemy. His marian medal is thrown away to the detriment of the catholics. Emeka takes off into the savannah, haunted by the inexhaustible spirit powers. When he sobers later to the realization that he has to board the second bus with the other refugees, he is shocked that the bus is full of dead bodies. Women, children and men, with blood everywhere as if someone had gassed the bus. Even the refugees after what they had seen seem to forsake the aura and mystery of the world of the spirit, and are not in the mood to listen to his spirit story to be allowed to board the first bus again.

The gullibility of people when faced with misfortune is evident. Chief opines that his country needs the hottest kind of the spirit to be cleansed, for when a ghost cat is stealing from your house you also buy a ghost cat not an ordinary cat..

The sad situation is that Jubril is not spared by the refugees. When the news stream on the TV, the madness of retaliatory attacks in the South, the mass number of corpses from the south etc, the refugees lose their mind. For people like him who could not belong in Khamfi and was haunted by how quickly Luka and the mob had flushed him, his future was still uncertain as the same madness had spread to the south. He had never thought that people in the south were capable of such violence and no one had told him that there were northerners in the south whose lives could be in danger.When he saw images of a mosque razed down he wept, in convulsions even though he himself had set churches on fire before. He took out his right hand to wipe a tear, and it was too late trying to put it back in the pocket. All Christianity, all form of reason desert the refugees as they impound on the boy, his pleas that “I come prom soud, but I be prom nord,” not saving him. He attempts to convey the mangled story of his religious identity, which is useless in the ovious murderous looks of the refugees.

“These were not the stares of catholics, or born-agains or ancestral worshippers. His conversion meant nothing to them. Their stares reminded them of his fundamentalist muslim friends, Musa and Lukman.

It’s breaking that Jubril dies being jeered at his Christo-muslim identity, which could not be embraced by either the northerners or southerners. He dies embracing his god of Islam who had at least been with him until that point of his flight.whilst chief washes his hands off the boy, he doesn’t use his supposed royal authority to save a citizen. Expected, since as an ancestral worshipper, he is an outside to the two foreign religions. It is the soldierman who tears at the kangaroo court, to no avail, attempting to save a citizen, before the refugees dragged him and Jubril and slit their throats.