No Condition Is Permanent (eBook)

Childhood experience

As a child, I was very curious. I questioned everything that came my way. Most of my questions were so difficult for adults to answer that some people nicknamed me Lawyer. I also loved my independence and enjoyed school. My independence, though, was often interrupted during the rainy season when most children depended on adults to take them to school.

There are two seasons in Nigeria—rainy and dry. The rainy season starts around May and ends around September. It rains almost every day, except for about two weeks in August during what is commonly referred to as the August break. The dry season is very much the opposite. The dry season starts around October and ends around April. During the rainy season, most of the roads at Atani are flooded as the town is located on the riverbank. Typically, there is water everywhere, and knowing how to swim is not only mandatory but a matter of survival. In fact, it is not uncommon for locals to learn how to swim before they can walk.

We played hide-and-seek at the bottom of the river. We could lay on top of the water effortlessly and not sink. To go to school during the rainy season, we had two options. Adults could take us by boat, or we could swim across the rivers. Yes, we swam across the rivers to school. How? We swam with one hand raised above the water and holding our school uniform and books to prevent them from getting wet. Going to school by boat was the best and most convenient option, except that adults had to take us.

In search of a better alternative, I made my own boat, specifically a wooden kayak (ugbo-ojo in Igbo). I went to the forest, cut a big tree and carved it into a kayak. This was very risky, but I did not know that then. A thing or two can go wrong when a pre-teenager goes to the forest by himself to cut a big tree and makes multiple trips, carving the wood across a span of weeks. The tree could fall on him, and nobody would be around to help. Several poisonous snakes and other dangerous wildlife also posed threats to life. Well, whether it was risky or not, I succeeded in making a kayak. I was very proud of it despite the fact that some people did not think it was the nicest-looking kayak. But it worked, and it provided me a means of transportation to school along with my much-desired independence.

One day, on my way back from school, I had a mishap caused by poor balancing in the kayak, and I fell in the water. I was very upset, and my family did not help matters. As soon as they saw me with my wet clothes, they burst into laughter. I angrily responded by telling them my clothes were only wet and not burnt. They empathized with me but could not help laughing about the whole incident. Sometimes people laugh, not because they don’t care, but because they cannot resist the urge to laugh.

Like most children, I was very proud of my parents. My father, Chief Obinyelugo Ifeachor, was a well-respected chief, a prominent farmer and herbalist (herb doctor). He often helped patients who failed to respond to western medicine. My mother, Princess Theresa Egoyibo Ifeachor, was a produce merchant and moneylender. She was wealthy and helped many people with food and other necessities of life.

My mother came from a royal family at Atani. Her father was His Royal Highness King (igwe of Atani) Nwaogene Chukwuma Odunze I. Her brother, His Royal Highness King Joseph Azubuike Odunze II, became king after their father passed away. Her mother, my grandmother Princess Adaeze Odunze, came from a royal family at Aboh. Her father was His Royal Highness King (obi of Aboh) Oputa I. Her brother, His Royal Highness King Obonwa Oputa II, also became king after their father passed away.

With my family background, it is no wonder that as a child I had an abundance of everything, including money. My ambition was to read up to a university degree level. I never for one second thought this would be difficult. I had two things it takes to earn a degree. My mother was rich, and I was an excellent student. I was naive to think change would never come. I was too young to know anything about the inevitable cycles of life. Life is like traveling from one city to another. You have to pass through several other cities and different scenery before getting to your final destination. Some of the cities are great and you wish to stay there forever; others are not so great and you wish to get out right away. Almighty God controls the itinerary for this life journey. You know change will come, but you don’t know when or how. A common mistake for the rich and famous is thinking change will never come! I had it all and thought I always would. But I was wrong.

During my preteen years, my father used our living room as his outpatient clinic. Every morning, several patients converged waiting for my father to see them. Once in a great while, patients too sick to be seen as outpatients stayed in our house as inpatients until they were cured of their illnesses. Yes, our house was used as a hospital every now and then. My father usually took cases modern medicine had failed to cure—that is, treatment-resistant cases. Most of his patients were not rich. As a result, some of them paid him with chicken. My father was well respected for his medicinal skills. Some of his patients were referred to him from other towns far from Atani. My father was also a well-respected farmer and had one of the biggest farms in the county.

He usually took me to work on the farm when I was not at school. One very sunny day, I went to the farm with my father. I asked his permission to go and have a drink of water. On my way to the farmhouse—not our main residence in town—I saw a bird unable to fly. I was curious as to why it could not fly, since it was not a baby bird. Since I loved having birds as pets, I could not pass on this opportunity. Oblivious to the hidden dangers, I pursued the bird until it entered a heap of dead leaves. I was not going to give up and quickly removed the leaves.

As soon as I removed the leaves, a snake jumped out and curled itself around my leg. I immediately started jumping up and down, hoping the snake would leave me alone. If I had known I was that great at jumping, I would have tried to represent the country in a junior Olympic competition. Miraculously, the snake left without any bite. I quickly ran and called my father. He looked for the snake all over the place, but it was nowhere to be found. The bird was nowhere to be found either. I was glad this ordeal ended without hurting anyone. I was lucky not to be bitten by this potentially poisonous snake. Did the snake swallow the bird and then escape? Your guess is as good as mine.

On another occasion, we stopped to check our fish trap on our way to the farm. The trap had caught a very big fish. My father was bringing the trap up from water when the fish broke loose. My brother, sister and I were laughing whenever our father was not looking in our direction. The fish was a potential meal for the family, but as kids, we did not know any better. Hence we were laughing. It was a very rainy day, and we were all soaked. We were cold to the point of shivering. The only hope we had of warming up was to start a fire with our matches. But the matches were only partially dry.

When we got to the farmhouse, my father undertook the impossible task of making fire with partially dry matches! We had three matches left in the box. My father, fully aware of the difficulty of making fire with partially wet matches, sought divine intervention. He prayed for a while, then tried unsuccessfully with the first matches. He then prayed even harder, asking Almighty God to help him make the fire so we would not starve. Starve? Yes, starve! No mention was made of our shivering. It was obvious that, if everything failed, my father was prepared to warm up by working hard on the farm. Also, food or no food, he probably was prepared to work til his usual time to go home.

This was one special quality about my father. When he decided to do something, he must do it regardless of any obstacle. I must have seen a lot of these examples to make me declare in my teenage years that determination was my motto. My father tried the second match and was again unsuccessful. We laughed whenever he was not looking in our direction. We did not understand total failure to make fire would be tantamount to shivering and starvation.

My father had just one match left. If this match failed, we would stay cold, hungry, weak and tired. But my father strongly believed God would never fail him. He was a man of faith and a believer in miracles. He prayed even harder, and this time Almighty God answered his prayer. We had fire! My brother, sister and I quickly gathered around the fire to warm up, pretending nothing had happened. My father asked us if we had finished laughing. Only then did we know my father was aware of us laughing all along. Of course, his question drew no response. I was not eager to answer. Neither my sister nor my brother was bold enough to give my father any response. We quickly put the whole episode behind us and worked on the farm as planned.

I was very close to my parents and to my maternal grandmother, my only living grandparent. I spent a lot of time with her. My bonding with my grandmother was further cemented when my mother was in the hospital with my sister, Ngozi (Ngozi means blessing in Igbo), my brother’s twin. I had to temporarily live with my grandmother and witnessed firsthand her unshakable faith in Almighty God in action. We prayed first thing in the morning and last thing just before going to bed. In between, we prayed before every meal. My sister was seriously ill, and hospitals in Nigeria were limited....