Once Nigerians, now we were "Biafrans of Igbo descent"
On this unforgettable day, also hair day for Bena, not a single federal fighter plane could be heard in the sky; the sun over the town of Akokwa had just set, allowing my family members to gather around the open backyard behind our house.
As a child, you would not know that those times were still times of war. The adults did not explain the inconsistencies, why, in the midst of hunger and anguish, families continued with their daily lives, just as hate coexists with love.
Using a wooden comb, Grandma Elizabeth isolated moles, or strands of hair, on my sister’s scalp, tying the base of each selected strand with black thread. She then gnawed on the unused thread with her strong teeth, stained from chewing tobacco. A gentle breeze stirred the leaves of the orange tree in the middle of the patio under which we sat.
Udoka, my brother, came in with his flock of sheep while I watched the yams roast under a dwarf metal tripod. ‘Done for today,’ he said, going straight to the kitchen and bending down to lift the lids off several bowls in search of food. “Hmhm,” he sighed.
Reacting to two slow faces, my mother said, ‘Soon, the little round yams will be ready soon.’ On the flat-topped wooden stool we sat on, our backs supported like Siamese twins and we took turns yawning.
Centimeters from Bena’s feet, under the orange tree where her grandmother combed her, six two-week-old chicks accompanied their mother as she passed each piece she found to their beaks.
To the left of the orange tree and an arm’s length from the backyard fence was an above-ground water tank made of bricks. Squeezing between the tank and the fence was a papaya tree. Standing next to him and frowning was Papa Idoeh. On top of the tree was my other sister, Ezinne; she was inches away from ripping an unripe papaya. The narrow-stemmed tree swayed to one side with his weight.
“Girls don’t climb trees,” Dad yelled at her. I turned to look up. An oily palm belonging to Aunt Eunice hit me in the face and I blinked.
Idoeh risked my being disciplined to check on her sleeping twin daughters, the youngest of my ten siblings.
In the village of that time, adults did not give reasons to discipline children. Find out, they would say. In retrospect, the blow was a harbinger, the beginning of impending horror.
A sudden sound that was now familiar to all adults and some children had erupted. The sound rose and fell like the ghost of a man who used to hit children over the head with his knuckles.
There they were, swarming in the sky above our house: fighter planes, sent by Gowon, the then head of state of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
‘Don’t run, stay where you are!’ my grandmother yelled. The movement meant a human target and the dropping of a bomb.
On the ground, we transform into statues like termite mounds. High up in the tree, Ezinne froze in place of her.
Killer jets descended to roof level, twisted and circled around the house like rabid kites, their wings rattling louder than an aluminum toolbox.
Bloodshot eyes took in various standing figures until, convinced they were lifeless, the pilots lifted their planes into the clouds, leaving only echoes of terror.
The enemy jets were gone forever, we thawed out, quickly returning to the usual feigned normalcy; frozen to death one minute, only to come back to full life the next.
Under the papaya tree, Ezinne found a decapitated knife with which he cut the fruit into four pieces. Her fingers scooped out numerous slippery black seeds from inside the pods, and she handed one part to me and the other to Udoka.
With a new energy, Udoka rose to face an amorous ram hovering over one of his sheep.
Emerging from under Bena’s feet, where Grandma was fixing her hair, the hen and her chicks ran to converge around Ezinne and the black fruit seeds on the sandy ground. Not knowing where the next meal would come from, they pecked furiously.
Returning to the backyard with his left hand cupping his ear for better reception, Idoeh began to say to no one in particular, ‘Listen, listen, everyone listens.’
Since the war began, his hearing acuity had improved to match that of an owl, picking up sounds no one else could hear. It was an adaptation that many men developed to get a head start on enemy aircraft, as well as to hear the footsteps of soldiers when they came to force conscription into the Biafran army.
Now his ears were picking up a new sound. The noise increased in intensity, first resembling the sounds of angry mosquitoes, then hungry houseflies, and finally angry bees.
Enemy planes! she yelled her. Those killer pilots aren’t dumb. They knew we were human. The townspeople don’t get lucky twice in one day.
Stampeding through the backyard and opening the backyard gate, we pass through cassava, yam, and corn farms toward Ohiamgbede, the dense forest of Mgbede.