The New Yam Festival

It was the day of the New Yam Festival in the village of Umudike. Me and my two friends, Chike and Mezie had dressed up in the special clothes set aside for this occasion.

We headed for the Village Square where the ceremony was to be held. When we got there,we realized that we had arrived ahead of time. We all sat on a long bench and waited for the ceremony to begin.

Very soon after, the ceremony began. The spokesperson, Mazi Ogbonna, was a very good orator. He greeted all those present and thanked the gods for the bountiful harvest we had experienced and then, the first activity kicked off. The atilogwu dance group came out to perform their dance and acrobatics. It was a very captivating performance. After them, many other groups came out to perform. There were also display of masquerades. In all, we were having a good time so far.

The ceremony ended with refreshments as the young girls began bringing out bowls of ponded yam and bowls of assorted soup filled with meat. There was enough food to go round many times. The women had stayed back in their homes to entertain children who came calling for food as it was a tradition in the village for children to go to houses, sing to get admitted and be given food to eat to their fill.

After we had eaten about three large bowls of pounded yam between us, we left the village square and headed to the first house on our list. I knocked on the door, we rendered the song that had been composed specially for this occasion and we were admitted into the house and given stools to sit on. A large calabash of pounded yam and a steaming bowl of soup were immediately brought to us and we devoured it in record time. A bowl containing bush meat and another containing water were also brought to us. When we were done, we drank the water and washed our hands with the rest, thanked our host and set off for another house.

We repeated the same process with four more houses and were on the way to the fifth when I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my lower abdomen. I hurried to the nearest bush to ease my bowels but nothing was ejected.

I left my friends and quickly headed to our house. I narrated the whole incident to my mother and she went to the backyard, got some leaves, crushed them with salt and gave it to me to chew.

About five minutes later, all héll let loose. I immediately rushed to the lavatory while clutching my stomach and bent down to release the contents of my bowels into the hole. I cleaned myself up when I was done and was about to step out when I felt another bout of pain. I quickly rushed back into the lavatory for another round of exreta. When I finished, my mother got out a mat and told me to lay it down near the entrance to the lavatory and lie down on it incase I needed to ease my bowels again. With pains in my stomach, I laid down on the mat.

The remainder of that day consisted of me rolling in pains and going to the lavatory at short intervals. My younger sister later came to inform me in her sing-song voice, that my friends were facing the same situation in their homes.

I vowed never to consume as much food as I had that day, in my life again. I had learnt my lesson the hard way.