Blessing

Florence Ndiyah

Description

Fatti Ashi died. Startling her family and community, she comes back to life just a few hours after dying. Blessing chronicles the life of this Fatti Ashi, a young village girl who from the moment she rejoins the land of the living is faced with both obstacles and opportunities consistent with an attempted mergence of two worlds. From a child who is molded with her father�s advice to merge ancestral skull worship and Christianity to an underprivileged teenager who falls in love with the alphabet and finally becoming a woman who desires emotional and financial independence, Fatti Ashi�s life yields misunderstandings and isolation. As a child in the village, her life is a battleground for family rivalry and religious conflict. As a teenage wife in the city, she befriends a sex worker who encourages her to bring meaning into her life rather than simply living to the dictates of others. She takes up the challenge by embarking on adult education and becoming a breadwinner but is taken aback when her husband requests a divorce. In a search for solutions to save her marriage, she entertains traditional religion, Catholicism and Pentecostalism. Disappointment and desperation lead her to take a deeper look at the situation. Is she to stay married simply for convenience? Is she to continue following religious paths laid out by others, clearly not as beneficial to her? Is she to please society to her detriment? The long journey of self-discovery takes her through scandal and humiliation but in the end, she emerges as a confident, admired and happy woman.

Sujets

• Catholicisme
• Fiction
• Christianisme

Informations

• Publié par: Langaa RPCIG
• Date de parution: 25 août 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9789956727872
• Langue: English

Extrait

Blessing

Florence Ndiyah
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG Langaa Research Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon Langaagrp gmail.com www.langaa-rpcig.net
Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective orders africanbookscollective.com www.africanbookcollective.com
ISBN: 9956-717-23-1
Florence Ndiyah 2011
DISCLAIMER All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Langaa RPCIG.
Dedication
To my late father John Yuh N.
Appreciation
My deep gratitude goes to those who supported me financially and morally while I experimented with writing, especially Prof./Mrs. Ngundam. I am equally indebted to those who painstakingly read over the manuscript and offered invaluable advice: Mr. Julius Ngallah, Dr. Brenda Kombo, Ms. Aissatou Ngong. I also remember those who have always encouraged my writing endeavours, particularly Mrs. Fri Bime. Thanks to you all and to all those who contributed in one way or another towards the publication of this novel.
Contents
PART I
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
PART II
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Glossary
PART I
1
T hieves love the night because it protects them. What protects the night when it decides to steal? What gives it permission to act with such impunity? How could it steal so easily and pass so undetected? How could it mock them so? Why had it decided to make such a fool of them, drowning them in sleep while it operated silently? How could it have so betrayed the trust they had in it? The family wished they could understand just why the night had resolved to stealing so much from them. They wished it could explain why it had decided to sink the wick into the candle wax, condemning it to everlasting darkness. They wanted to know what could have made it decide to transform a few hours of rest for the body into a trip for a soul. Certainly not the slight fever the child had gone to bed with. What could the night have done to her to make her close her eyes to the approaching light of day? What could it have promised her to make her follow it to the place where it goes? The child had gone with the night. She had followed it to the place where it goes. She had accompanied it on the journey, conscious it will return the following evening without her. Like the trail of smoke rising and fading from a blown candle flame, her soul had risen to follow the night.
The family woke only to realize the child had followed the night to the place where it goes. They could almost see her disappearing with the last traces of night. They thought of giving chase but how could they? Daylight was approaching too fast, concealing the traces of the fading darkness. Standing in the yard, looking over the hills, they watched helplessly as part of them vanished. They knew they could not get back what the night had stolen from them. They yelled. They yelled at the night for being so cruel and heartless. They grieved at the loss of part of them. Scattered about the compound, their eyes cast skyward, arms akimbo, they mourned. The men sighed. The women wailed. Powerless, helpless, they grieved. Soon the neighbours joined in. Soon the whole village was grieving.
When the village grieved, the village grieved. Not one compound, not one soul was exempted. It was the job of the village crier to make sure the news got to every inhabitant of the village. A wooden baton in hand, he went around the village, beating the two iron cones of a gong, Dong Ding Dong. Dong Ding Dong. The domineering sound of the church bells calling Catholic converts to morning Mass only urged him to beat harder and louder. The village crier marched around Mumba quarter beating his gong to the tune of death, the death of a child. Dong Ding Dong. Dong Ding Dong. The rhythm of the beating gave out the simple message: Another skull lost forever .
The very early risers, already on the way to their farms, dropped their hoes and stared after the bearer of the shocking message. Children did not die. Death was a thing experienced only by the old. It was a privilege, a reward for a long life. Only after a successful life on earth was a person raised to the rank of ancestor. Children just did not die. They lived. A child who died was a child who chose not to live.
Disbelief followed the village crier as he made the round of the village. His efforts were soon visible in the growing crowd that slowly assembled in the Fopou compound. Many came with questions: why had a child died? Others came with sympathy. The women. The mothers. Some wailed openly. Some cuddled other wailing women.
Some shook their heads so hard and so often their lightly knotted headscarves dropped to the ground in protest. Some just sat still, staring at the disbelief all around, immobilized by its intensity. The stronger women quickly pushed aside the grief and went from one kitchen to the other, seeing to the cooking arrangements.
The men hung about in small groups of two, threes and fives, preoccupied with village customs and beliefs about the dead. The head of an ancestrally departed was left in the grave only long enough for it to get rid of its flesh, after which it was exhumed, restored to life and handed over to the deceased s successor. The spirit of the deceased, embodied in the skull, then acted as a mediator - springing the people s petitions to the gods and showering the gods blessings and curses on the people. While one school of thought held that it was forbidden to restore life to children s skulls because their premature departure was evidence of their dislike for the land, another countered that children were not wise enough to intervene on behalf of grown-ups, insisting that poor comprehension was not a good trait for a broker, especially one whose job was to mediate between two worlds, between two kinds of entities, between the gods and men.
Had it been the death of an adult, everyone would have agreed that the customs were being respected: the women seeing to the food and the men, discussing culture and related issues in small groups. Yet this was the death of a child. Such preparations and discussions were permitted only after the burial, which had to take place within the hour following death. However, the little girl had been dead for close to two hours and she still had not been buried. Her body was still stretched out on the hay mattress, wrapped in her mother s best cloth. Such was the last sign of honour to a child who will never grow old enough to know elegance.
I have spoken, Temkeu. This child has gone to visit the ancestors, and you know that she is not coming back. We will never see her again. We will never see her skull. Mefo stood at one corner of the circular thatched hut. She appeared shorter without her headscarf. Of all women, a Mefo always had to cover her hair. This Mefo was a renowned traditionalist. This Mefo was also the child s grandmother. Temkeu, we need to put the child into her new home.
It seemed as if there were several Temkeus in the hut, and that Temkeu Fopou, the child s father and Mefo s son was certainly not the one being addressed; he just sat at the corner of the hut, staring at the wall with blank eyes.
Tired of trying to reason with him, Mefo accused her son of betraying his manhood by disrespecting the gods decree to immediately unite departed children with the earth. The people came to help you carry your pain she said but you are driving them back to their farms. You sit there making as if you are the first to hold or taste pain. What pain even? As she spoke, she picked up her headscarf from the floor and twisted and knotted it over her head. You will fool me only after you have fooled every person in this village! Mefo stared at her son with a stabbing expression. You think I do not know why you are clinging to that body? I know, Temkeu! I know. I like the way our people put it. They say that when a river starts swallowing a man, the man hangs on to anything, even grass which is being carried away by the same river.
The picture she gave was one of an old woman who loved the sound of her voice. She was about start another round of monologuising when one of the elderly women walked into the hut, caught Mefo s wrist in her fist and started towing her away. You know you suffer from chronic headache attacks, Mefo. If you talk too much your sickness may start again.
Mefo would not leave without a final warning: If I come back and find that body still lying there, she said to Temkeu, one of us, you or me, is going to take its place in that hole. One disaster is enough! I will not sit here and allow you to call the anger of the gods on this village. I will not allow you make the gods blacken another day with death. No! One disaster is enough!
A sixty-seven-year-old woman, Mefo bore the title of Queen Mother more gracefully than most youths, the future. The royal title was conferred on a chosen female member of the Fon s family, and it came with privileges usually not accorded to other women, especially not to single women. When Mefo approached, women bowed, men threw greetings. In a land where women needed permission to speak even among their gender, Mefo had a voice, a voice louder than that of most men. Elders and titleholders often sought her opinion.
Though many relatives and friends secretly discussed her obvious disgust for her only child, few wanted to walk about with the heavy weight of the legendary feud; fewer wanted to burn their fingers, not when the adopted enemy was to be Temkeu Fopou, a man who had proved he cou