A HISTORY

My apartment was well furnished i am a connoisseur of arts so i had paints on the wall. I had contracted some Negroes who did the paints. They called them the Street Negroes. They were usually paid after their services. I had had them do the painting works themselves because they were blacks as much as my love for the African color never left me even in the foreign land. They had used three days to get the painting job done and they had also re-coated the paddock fence that Aka my son built around the facility. He was not a carpenter but he knew how to put the hammer and nail to work. These Negroes four of them had taken the measurements of the entire building and gave me a quotation and cost but there was no negotiation on their remuneration. Although i gave them some money before they could start the job and at the end i was excited with their skilled art as they proved they are worthy of another job when there is need. 

One odd thing with the Negroes was that they do not have a mobile for easy communication and even if they had one they do not have it with them at the moment, they knew every faces on the streets and the neighbourhood. Some times i thought how cool they were to get to be talk of the place. Then often get jobs with good pay, but how do you refer them to a folk when  they don't have a mobile. Although they have a hood where they lived so if anyone needed their services you can visit their hood, but it was quite dangerous to go there... These Negroes are armed. If anyone just like me needed their services they have a plug, a street wanderer.  Though they offered skilled services and they are good at their job but rumors came that they were culprit to the burglar that happened in the neighbourhood events after events.

The first day i had met with one of their plugs, a Negro and requested for the painting services, he had asked for my address and we had both scheduled a date which would be convenient to me, he never asked to get my home cell, i was curious and had been cautious between then till the day i got woken from the bed in the early hours by the sound of the door bell that went ringing out loud... I could faint cause i wanted much more sleep at the time. 

It was eight o'clock am in the morning on a Wednesday, a blissful morning. I had reached for the door and saw happy looking faces of black race warmed up, it was them, handsome young men of about same age as my first son Aka, there were five of them. Saw them smiling at me with no cause i became impulsed.

Simple inertia had made me throw away the thoughts about the Negros and their connection with the burglary activities that had happened the previous week and weeks ago. The re-occurrence was frightening and the local police had not apprehended any of them as suspect. That was thoughtful.

Advent the day i took them in the my house for their inspection i was troubled with the thought that bringing in one of these Negro folks could be dangerous and making my house to become vulnerable to one of those recent case.

I had received them at the early hours of the morning when they had come for the house inspection. And after their quotations i had been on my guard. 

Nothing happened days after. I sometimes would wind up the curtain rail to view the outside courtyard monitoring any suspicious movement that could had been parading in the vicinity but there was none. I gave a slight sigh of relieve just for the moment.

I ushered them inside into the living room, offered them each a cup of hot coffee drink; I had coffee reserved for visitors, none of us in the house drank coffee, chocolate drink is best. They had their drink at the sitting room where little Saint sat on one of the Sofas  watching his favorite: A cartoon movie from Disney channel. I went into the kitchen purposely kept the kitchen door ajar probables if there was going to be an odd display that would trigger my little boy to scream and i would come to his rescue. Or perhaps if he had noticed any unusual character he would tell. I was all round having negative thoughts in my head but here are these fellows they all seemed good and upright even though they looked rugged but not tar-tared. They had a low level of attained quality education, they spoke the English language as blacks, in their accent... African English.

They took turns at making jokes for Saint. When i came to serve fruits on the table little Saint was making a gist with 'em Negros... As they were popularly addressed by the Natives. On the show right in my house i equally saw myself as one of them because i knew i never belonged here if not for privilege or what so ever luck. I had a home back  then in a far away land only by the privilege of nature and God and as a woman i had fought to become whom i are this day, enjoying every right and benefit as a first class citizen could have.

I rested my hopes and gave them a chance of trust. They shared some minutes with Saint and i in the living room... we talked for some minutes that had seemed like hours and such moment you would never want to let go and never want the chit chat to ever end, but never forget that every thing comes and ends. The conversation closed when the four rose to their feet and requested i led them to the entire house so that they could begin with the measurement and there they sketched some beautiful arts of Graffiti on the walls, they were such talented and  charming. Charming? I had had so many men to myself, one after another and I had perceived the aroma of a good man, a very good man in bed, of course that was every woman's dream man. The way i looked at one of them from the five i am quite sure he was the type of it in my description of...

"a man that can handle and succumb the woman, swinging her into her mode and tone with more and much more desire."

There he came and handed me the quotation and i took it from him with a smile, he was young, i loved  men younger than i am ever since my Kuma left this planet to another, it has always been younger men in dealing with my pleasures.

When they were done with the sketch we annexed at the sitting room where i had left the other one who was the plug he was with Saint. I was evenly courageous in my little boy Saint. He may be a juvenile but he was intelligent and smart and was capable of detecting any foul plays before it went extremely out of hand. He was tacit with strangers unlike tenders of his own age who could ask so much from strangers, no, my little Saint was a study of habits.

He was gentle but playful and responsive to his facility just like a Rottweiler. There had been reports from his school when he had suspected men on uniform in disguise of the school plumb maintenance team mean while they were on a mission of juvenile abduction. The men had penetrated through the school gate and had successfully gained access through the school security channel,  they had provided a fake identification profile on the identity card and driven into the school premises in search for victims, there was no mark. The men in uniform three of them came to the children unnoticed and tried to lure these kids to play with them and offered to drive them in their vehicle. A white Mitsubishi express model. Their mission had turned out unsuccessful with the boys. One of them successfully lured one of the girls to come.

"i will take you to daddy...Daddy." He said

"Daddy???" The little lass replied.

She went to him reluctantly and he was making gestures of grabbing her forcefully  on the playground during their play hours. Unfortunately for them little Saint had seen them earlier from the time of their arrival when no one took notice of them...but he did.

From what he had told his teachers he said he had been watching them from the time they had wanted to play football with boys on the field but it proved to be unsuccessful as the boys refute the strangers from then he kept on a warning stance as he observed the vicinity and was waiting patiently fro another wrong move to be the best time to raise the alarm just as he as they grabbed the girl and covered her mouth before they made way to their parking lot.

Upon several reports two from the school which he attended and one at home from one the neighbors who loved opposite my house, he had been a hero after that day...my little hero. Some time at the neighbourhood three months ago at December last year, it was the festive season, a time for feasting and harmony and warnings going about repeated occurrences of robbery and home burglary he had helped the local cobbers to cob a suspected burglar who tried to break into the house opposite my house. The criminal was caught up with the law in the jury, tried and pleaded guilty and was sentenced. He was given a twenty six weeks in jail just like the rest of them for home burglary except for the case of one of them who was involved in adoption he gained a comfortable life imprisonment. He had driven carelessly in the school premises causing may-hen in the school, had the students destabilized and disrupted the school curriculum for the day... Children running helter-skelter in search for safe house.

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He handed the notes to me containing list of items they would be needing each one with its quantity and cost. And after the costing i paid them an advance of seventy five percent of the total money. They were happy that they had their money before they had started to get the job done and they came back the next day and begun the job. 

My bedroom was coasted of my desired hue acrylic snow white and thinner brown, they drew fine arts on the wall, the four corner walls, i do not know which one of them did the arts but i had told them what i wanted and it was done even more beautiful than i had expected. I guess i had got the value for what i paid them for. 

On all sides of the walls was a painting of  African cultural arts..it made me whole of whom i am, an African woman and an African mother. on one side of the wall, from the door if you'd looked at the right hand side there was a painting of  black African man engaged in fishing. Which ever one of them that drew this portrait must have been to Namibia, Mauritius or maybe Mauritania in Africa because those were the best suppliers of fishes. I loved it

From the right hand side to the next is the west side of the room, was a painting of a typical African woman and the artist had left her uncovered, wearing on her birth dress. Any time i looked at the art for a moment i would see the image of mother Africa calling upon her children dispersed all over the universe to return home alive and not in corpse. The art melted my heart, i loved it more, passionately. The image reminds me of a refined woman who had been suffered of rape and abuses and left to die a miserable death but yet death had left her too and turned its back on her. Death had even left her to the tormenting and torturing hands of suffering...more like a beautiful outcast in the movies  that the society would reject who would one day be the most wanted,  the queen to the land because even though the peoples of the land reject you the land itself would not reject you. I took another look at the portrait, i saw her in her nakedness with her bright gloaming brown skin, her  breast nipples standing to its feet, there lies the gushing pump of the milk of unity that we all fed from. I had these thoughts that as an African where ever you had found yourself always remember that one call from home, it was the the voice call of Mama Africa, calling upon her children that when ever we thirst and hungry we should come back home to suck from the unquenchable flow of her nature breast milk that is ever nourishing and invigorating. Why allow strangers suck from your mother's breast, wicked, evil and greedy children of hers had sold out their mother's fine milk to aliens...The aliens from the home they called paradise. That portrait conveyed so many meanings and resuscitated some memories back to my brain. It was a led lamp showing me the way, through certain revelations i had in my thoughts, flashbacks and trance. Mama Africa was raped and she suffered during her months of pregnancy with no one to care for her, she had survived only by the grace of her chi and her woman strength...which men call us weak vessels. Ha ha!!! finally when she was delivered of her babies, they were taken away from her to a far away paradise where some of them lost their lives and some were claimed. 

Sorrow had befallen upon her but yet she was smiling but not happy in this portrait, the artist must have been inspired because he was an offspring of hers. These smiles were the smiles of victory because she knew that her tears had been received by her chi, and it was time for justice to prevail against all the odds of the time and when that time is truly come nothing swept under the carpet was remained uncovered.

Allow me to show you the rest of the walls, the wall where i had my bed, southern part of the room had a painting of a carved statue, the artist must be a crazy one.... forgive me.

The statue was a man and two women dancing. Dance meant so much to my it had been used in oral traditions as Historians said. Dancing was a cultural pattern of display and cultural hegemony, dancing was used at ceremonies and rituals. 

At a dance the men knew how to dance with their chest, neck, knees like the Sudanese, i loved it when they danced and sometimes their waists. The women is more likely attributed to dancing with her waist and hips.  

The people of my home where i came from danced so much, we danced that our dance moves intoxicated the aliens who came from paradise; we;d bent down low to our heels and romantically swayed our arms in unison and had our waists rotating at a one hundred and eighty degree both sides and do a ninety degree shift on motion allowing the thighs joint the flexibility of the body to the rhythm.

Lastly to the eastern side of the wall were frames of pictures and these pictures were photos of my family. None had a photo of my Aquila as i called him but that was not his original name because he was not christened. I had given the name to name after he passed away, i baptized him in my heart, i was taught that without baptism none of us would enter the kingdom of God. But then i had wondered what type of baptism do they mean latter years the church was now dominating and many events happened. The Catholic church refused the baptism of other churches. I am no prophetess. 

The only picture of my husbands was the photo of Saint's father, he was my last husband, i had Saint for him but he was no where to be found after he had left me for another taste of an African woman...my own sister. As an African woman i had saw all of us to be one from the same race and cultural similarities. But for my sister....oh wait did i just call her my sister....My fake sister. My husband had left me for my fake sister...indeed the world is cruel but i am not bothered because i had moved on. It had been three years ago but within what these years it all seemed it was yesterday because he loved me so much, but i never reciprocated the love. Was that the reason he had left me? Why would i bother to know the reason he had gone, it's been three years already and he's son  six years old, if he knew how old his boy was. I am not bothered i had moved on without him. I sought no legal action against him, i was happy he left, he was like a dreadful nightmare to me. I hated him. I hated any man that cannot hold control of his dick in his under pant.

The photos of my children and i mounted on the wall. The wall had a hanger i had made for hanging my family photo album and i did the arrangement.

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The chocolate made loaves had a unique taste and it tasted better at the bottom loaf. I had the brown rich gummy loaf into my mouth grind with the molars and later allowed the premolars sort it out with the blending. I did not apply spread to the loaf, it was richly fortified with adequate compositions of milk , honey and raisins besides it was chocolate sweet. The smooth blend sailed through the gullet i had to dilute with a drink. The tea i felt was getting reduced temperature and it passed freely through the pathways until i could feel it no more, it had reached the intestine.

Little Saint climbed  on the bed after drinking his lukewarm tea, he was filled. Olivera and Fejiro cleared out the table to the washing tub in the kitchen. saint remained in his bed and played with some toys . I asked for their permission to have a quick bath before i began the bed time story they were all waited for.

I briskly walked my way into the bathroom in my apartment for a snappy night bathe. Within seven minutes i was done . It was a fast bathe. I starred at the mirror in the shower room, i was seeing an image of mine, a naked woman, African woman with children who look up to me for a future tomorrow. I had memorized the portrait of Mama Africa drawn on the wall of my bedroom... It had been my idol.

A beautiful black African woman was not to be measured by her curves and the size of her hips which enticed all the men from other parts of our planet. I looked on sternly and was soon out of consciousness; the ebony colored skin color and black hair. Some drops of water from my hair rained down on my body and i held on to my the two soft protruding organs in the upper front of my body....that was my breasts, i had an orange like breasts with nipples which shook when i became very much in the mood for a hot sex ride. 

The drops from my hair made me felt  cold and i was about to shiver of the cold, even my breast became cold, i saw my my breasts produce goose bumps and i felt the cold drive straight into my spine. I had had such experience long time before now , the feeling of ice bolt clamoring in my body system was not much more of what may had seemed unusual. I took my unwoven lengthy hair into my left palm, held it and took a shampoo, poured out some of its content into my right palm and distributed its fluid to my scalp, released the branch on my left palm so that i can use both fist together, and gently i massaged the scalp. I scrubbed with pint of my fingers such that the liquid foamed, within three minutes i was done with the scrub. I washed up completely and rinsed the hair with cold water running from the shower hose. I felt cool, yeah that was the feeling. Then i squeezed the end part of the unraveled hair that had continued to drip.

I came back to the children's room, sat on the extreme end side of  Olivera's bed.  I had five children, and they shared  rooms. Aka and Morrison had one to themselves, while Fejiro and Olivera together with their little brother Saint. The bed was a small one that could contain one person, thirty eight inches by seventy five inches bed size neatly dressed with a blue sheet and the pillow wore a white case. The pillow was made from wool and feathers , it was so soft.

I was dressed up in my pyjamas and had rubbed some oil cream on my body after bath.  The silk navy blue pyjamas had big  colorful buttons with repeated drawing of Pooh the bear.

"Have you ever read one of those stories of Pooh?

Oh! please! do not expect me to tell you such stories tonight.

This night was not a night for such stories." 

I said to my children but to none in particular while i tried to button up the last big button before my chest.

"Any one who hadn't read the story of Mr. Pooh the bear

i should tell you to go to the shelves and dust 'em book of Pooh

and meet your Mr . Bear." 

I continued. While their eyes were fixed gazing on me, all eager from their expressions, for the story i was withholding from each one of them. A story that not even my Aka knew how it begun and a story that brought us together. This night was the right time for them to get to know how they were all borne and brought together to become siblings of the same woman Thelma.

The time now was forty five minutes past the hand of nine 9:45pm, they waiting patiently like the dog who awaits a bone from its owner. At the other hand i was scared of telling this story to my children because i knew how humans could be, this maybe the last time i may have to call them my children... This was a story that was going to tear us apart...

Olivera and Fejiro both had themselves wrapped in the duvet, it was their room we were all assembled. Aka and Morrison both sat at one side of the beds sharing each of the girls' bed. Aka sat on feji's while Morrison sat on his sister's. Fejiro held her palms together and rested her jaw on it. Aka was busy with his android, exploring the internet i guessed. Morrison buried his head into a big novel which undoubtedly he would be able to finish reading tonight.

I was rather feeling warmed again by the humidity conditioner. The window blinds were up i could see passer-byes and took counts of each of them, they seemed cold, it was freezing outside, although they had  jackets on until i had lost count.

I stood up again and reached the window place and brought the blind down... mute filled the air, i coughed to reduce the silence.

" There was a nation...a state...a colony....a country and a continent..."

I began.

"A place of my own where i called home, where love had once at time existed, here is a place where we toiled the soil to sow seeds to germinate and waited upon a sign in that i knew that is was harvest time; a season of reaping what to eat, played with the fruits and came the mellowing years of another harvest.

We spoke languages similar but apparently only particular to us and that was how we lived and survived together as a clan. 

In my tribe a man can take up as any women as he wished and as long as he could cater for especially in defense of the territory for this reason many men had so many woman if though they were not capable to cater for all of them.

The women at the other hand sought protection and just to be protected they were betrothed many to a man and that was the way they ended up in a man's shelter with certain traditional rites carried out by parents even without the consents of the man and the woman and it was so.

Women who found men like the kind  ones who had no options of eating them up. They had settled and make up a home together, making babies and many more babies. And these offspring were taught how to hunt for their own meat and search food and water in order to survive. They were later taught how to handle the spear and arrow in defence and create attack against wild fauna; wild animals and humans that existed among them…the Barbarians. The Barbarians were humans of different kind, they ate their own and so were not to be associated with.

In our world mankind was a variety of species that grew up with different skills

The heart of a  man in our world was deeply consumed in homo phobia and the hearts of men could be easily contaminated, and this was what brought the evil to our land, and mankind was almost wiped the entirely surface of the land.

Years after years the heart of man grew wild enough to eliminate the love and peace that had once reigned in the land. A decree was made

That man should stop eating its kind else be annihilated.

This decree rose among our homes a communal war between the omnivores mankind who only fed on vegetables and meat and the Barbarians who ate up the omnivores. The Barbarians were the scavengers who saw other kinds as food for their own survival…Predators.

The war had aroused an alarming sense of fright among us because now we no longer have to sleep like babies at night time with both eyes closed. Receiving of strangers was highly prohibited for fear that we may not be able to distinguish between the predator.

When the war had eventually broken out, so many homes were lost and lives destroyed. And gradually the war lead to the extinct of many families, then we had fewer men who could defend and attack for the rest of us against the predator, we lived in the forest camping and moving day by day.

No  home was assured of safety, we all living and survival was for the fittest.

If you must live you have to toil, sow and eat and if you must survive in the land, don’t get captured and eaten.

The predators were in no ways declining in numbers but rather their numbers out numbered the omnivores. They grew more strong and unopposed, they could attack at daylight or night time without warning, the rest of the kinds lived in fear and trembled.

The human eaters was a cause as a result of serious famine which occurred a several locations in our planet, they had lost all their plantations and eaten up all they managed to store, their animals decamped from their homes and horses from their stable in search for survival too. Some of the animals died in their lands and caused the outbreak of diseases. Some animals were killed by other predators which were stronger creatures. The human eaters journeyed along in search for food and would stop at a spot where they found made raffia shelter and as long as you are not their kind, they’d eat you up.

Our kinds came together to plan of ways to survive the outbreak of human eating war. They lived and fought as one. They breed stronger men and sent them forth to hunt down the other kinds who were predators and that was when my kind experience the first form of peace and unity that first existed between man and his kind.

Kinds with similar languages  came together to harmonize and try as much as possible to relate, communicate with one another and where there was bridge of understanding, a systematic method  of signals was used to illustrate. At initial it had been difficult to get to understand what its signal means and what symbol symbolizes to one clan or another.

It took some years before the whole clans was able to fashion a good understanding form of communication. It became a thing of fashionable style in the mode of communication, for example communication was passed orally and with the use of torso for gestures one kind was able to express thoughts and ideas to the rest of the clans.

Observation was raised that these human eaters were entirely different from our kind and they were totally ostracized . No one ever referred to them as our kinds anymore because they seemed entirely different from the way they look, they look big like  giants such that even the dwarf among them was up to six feet. So we called them “Giants.”

It served as a warning to everyone In the homeland, on sight of these creatures everyone would take heed and call out the words ‘Giants…Giants.’ This will get the built men ready for defence and the rest of the people were to be armed with sticks and leaf fronds, stones, pebbles.

It dawned on the clans that these predators became more aggressive on the sight or smell of blood. It made them become extra stronger and hungry with no limits to quench. This is a war between monsters and it was not looking safe for the omnivores clans.

It was a die hard survival where the cost of living was not worth living for the very thought that one day you may have to be eaten up was mare. It was difficult to live.

Things begun to take a better look when the clans had agreed to come together to form a larger village and now languages and cultural activities were inter-changeably show cased in form of exhibition during ceremonies.

Languages was no longer the barrier to live together as one, the fear of living apart was more dangerous then the difficulty of understanding each other.

The new borne were raised by everyone and things began to prove effective over time when the new borne were able to translate languages between clans and a better understanding was achieved.

Sooner than expected the old ways of living were recreated once again. There in their new habitat, a new land, new family and more wives, farming, hunting and gathering wild fruits were the first things a growing child would learn.

As years passed by there were no stories of these predators, no attacks were made and it was believed that they were no longer on the planet and nobody could tell of their whereabouts. The learning of signs and symbols and individual clan’s dialect begun flourishing. Things had changed now because no one in the village talked about these human eaters anymore.

Development came in when some new borne were born with special abilities, of which some could communicate by making sounds which was similar to the meaning of a language in a clan. Events now changed and became prosperous as learning of ones language became essential and if not so mandatory. Sounds were introduced to improvise learning symbols and signs. New borne in the village displayed remarkable abilities ever seen, some could make sounds like the creatures caught for meat, they could imitate. These borne with such abilities were used as agents in a hunting for games, when they made sounds of a particular animal it would lure some other animals out from their hidings. Sounds became a technique for traps, and eased hunting of games thereafter.

Understanding was held at a high esteem, and to achieve this clans traded their women to the men in order to increase the population. Just as the density became high cause the village land mark to extend its stretched at all angles until where they were able to get fresh water. Everyone lived happily. No news anymore on the extinction of a whole family or the death of an entire clan.

Everyone believed that the revolts made against the Giants had caused them to extinction and that their kinds has been annihilated…

Battles had been fought between the  kinds  the Giants but now it seemed that they had been wiped off from the surface of our planet basically because of killings and starvation, since the clans had harmonized to a big village out of sight, fact is the human eaters would have starved of human flesh to feed on, this was the faith of everyone in the village… But were wrong.

The history of the predators was orally transmitted to the new borne , a story told at night meal gathering just as I tell you stories before bedtime.

I said to my children.

All the new borne would gather round at moon light and there  in their middle was a old figure, one who was best at telling stories, it had been a gift passed on from generation to generations, the talent of story telling and that old figure was your great great great grand father. Papa Kabahka.

“ One thing we never knew was that we were gradually building an empire but that empire was a disaster and a schism to mankind, to all the clans, to the village.” These were the very words of Papa Kabahka.

May be it was an atonement for the serial killings which had taken place many centuries ago but while they had tried on building of restoring peace the foundation was dilapidated many times and all work for reconstruction for a better society was dissever.

“Don’t blame yourselves for the anarchy you encounter my children, but put the blames upon us because we had caused you a future doom.” The very eye watering words of Papa Mmbaku… Your great great grand father. He was a slave who had later  became a warrior.

Little Saint smiled. From his facial expression I could tell he already knew where his abilities came from and these story is meant for each one of them to understand where they came from. The blood line runs through and it had been dominant.

There were no more giants  and no slayers but I had loved to see one someday. The stories I have been told from oral tradition on giants and those books  Jack and the Beanstalk I  read and  had wished I had seen what they looked like if they actually existed like my fore parents told the history.

I appreciate the fact that my listeners were all paying attention to the story I was sharing. This was not just a story it was the history of where I came from. I tapped a feeling from their stare exactly what I had expected of them.

Saint maintained a moist eyes with his eyes wipe opened looked undigested with the history , craving more. I felt he could be in tears if I had continued on because he was seemingly lost in the story, I pray he should not let it out just now because this was only a tip of the ice berg. This was a history that had been passed on generation  to  generation and here I was doing the same passing it unto my children.