Mother Africas Tears

Can you tell me how the average Oily Lands child is brought up, asked a young sailor sitting on the chair next to Preye.

A baby is born into an Oily Lands family and when the baby is barely six weeks old he will be held by one of the little arms and dipped into the stream several times. As the child approaches two, he is placed by the mother on her neck, stomach or back while she swims around in the river. As the child grows, he watches his neighbors mend their nets and he sees the hunters returning from the forest after the days hunt, with large grasscutters hanging across their shoulders.

The things and activities around the child brings out the feelings of adventure and the child tend to cultivate the adventurous spirit by engaging in a night search for snail with a local lamp and dead leaves are turned with a reliable stick to prevent snake bites. He sees the young men carving canoes from logs transported many miles across the river. He is taught one thing or the other by other parents specialized in their own fields and he learn to respect his Elders, seeing them as his teachers, guardians and people he can look up to, so he regards any Elder he sees the same way.

Evenings are usually spent around the fire; all the families in the compound gather around the fire and listen to stories, possibly passed on by the older generation. The young ones benefit a lot from most of the stories that contain sound morals and teach them to have regards for each other as well as portraying to them the consequences of living a crooked life.

I once visited a relative of mine that is a bishop on the 9th of July, by 10:35am in the pearl base, said Preye. David came out to the balcony through the front door and stood talking to a boy that came to see his daddy, being the bishop of the Anglican Church. The baby in his arms barely a year old, crying and struggling to free himself from David who had stopped playing with the baby and fixed his attention on the boy that wanted a letter from his dad. The babys cry caught Davids attention and he pleaded with the baby who seemed to understand and smiled at him in return.

Another baby, a little dark and bigger than the first found his way to the balcony, placing his hands on the wall for support. Are they twins, the boy asked? It is quite obvious, replied David.

You are wanted inside by the bishop, the bishops wife announced, and ushered the boy into the sitting room. The bishops eyes scanned the boy as the boy looked around the bishops magnificent sitting room whose walls were adorned with souvenirs, numerous awards received by the bishop and some lovely paintings.

As the bishop talked with the boy on his table, his daughter came to the sitting room with two plates in her hand containing garri and egusi soup. David can you please bring Etelle and Kuro, so I can feed them, said the girl who was Davids Elder sister that got married few years back. The task of feeding the children seemed impossible at the initial stage, because as the mom molded a ball of garri, which she dips into the bowl of soup and puts it into the mouth of one, while the other got angry and cried for not being fed before the other. How do you expect me to feed the both of you at the same time, their mom asked, frustrated by the difficult task of feeding them.

Etelle, being the first of the twins dipped his hand into the bowl of soup and smeared it on his moms wrapper; while Kuro scratched his eye with his soup stained hand and got pepper into his eyes in the process. Their mom scream for water and rushed out of the sitting room with Kuro, while Etelle shouted in excitement and stepped into the bowl of soup thereby pouring the soup on the floor.

Kuro returned with his mom, and his granddad the bishop orders his daughter to replace the bowl of soup and ensured the children are properly fed no matter what. Etelle hid himself behind the curtains, while Kuro pushed a stool that tumbled upside down and he screamed in excitement as it fell. As soon as Etelle heard Davids voice calling him, he came out of his hiding.

The bishop handed the letter to the boy who shook the hands of the twins in turn. The boy shook Etelle, who seized his hand and struggled to pull the grown-up boy to himself. The boy was shocked to see a baby trying to pull him close, Pere said.

During meals, the average child is taught never to engage in a conversation else the food slips through the wrong path of the gullet and ends up choking him. The reward for a successful meal completed is a portion of nutritious protein, which is either a chunk of meat or fish. To eat up the meal or fish present in a given dish before finishing the meal is unacceptable and otherwise regarded as greed and low morals because the Oily land believes in saving the best for the last, Pere continued.

In our tradition, strong emphasis is placed on being your brothers keeper which contradicts several others that place emphasis on self-first. Unlike the Oily Lands people, a lot of countries with a more stable economy provide the basic amenities of life for their citizens, which tend to make the individuals independent to a large extent. Since it is a common knowledge that before being independent, you have to be self-sufficient to a large extent, then it becomes obvious that you assume your brother is okay and go about your activities with little or no consideration for your brother.

Since our economy is somehow unstable, everybody depends on each other, one way or the other and without your brother being in the right sort of bracket, financially, morally, socially and otherwise, there is no way he will be in the right frame of mind to be there for you whenever you are down, so you endeavor to be there for him and see that he is okay in every sense, so he can do the same for you whenever you feel low. This outstanding quality of being your brothers keeper makes Oily land quite unique in a world filled with selfishness and the other negative behavior that accompany it.

Our culture teaches us to be hardworking and resourceful, thereby being truly independent as an individual capable of providing for himself and his neighbor, so that if maybe his neighbor goes for fishing or to harvest his crops, his neighbor will do the same. Oily lands are noted for learning by examples, irrespective of good or evil.

An average man of Oily land regards his culture so much because it teaches him how to convert the natural resources in his immediate environment for his benefit and that of his community. With little or no complex technology required, probably with the aid of an axe, a tree would be cut and the log tied to a canoe and the canoe paddled, possibly against the tide for a long distance, which is one of the reason Africans in the Oily Lands area are physically fit. In less than no time a canoe will be carved out of the log.

It takes a man less than a day to build a shelter for himself. He goes out alone to the previous place he identified the raw materials required to build his house and he gathers all the materials needed and heads back to his compound where he works tirelessly till he completes his shelter and out of his good will, he might still decide to check his calabash suspended high up in the palm tree and after lowering the calabash and its content of palm wine with a rope, he carries it home and invites his neighbors and friends for a drinking galore and they all celebrate his newly built home over the calabash of palm wine and each might narrate a story either to make them merry and laugh or to make home a point on the advantages of sound morals.