When The Sun Was Mine

Capa was a very small village surrounded by seven tall hills known as the Agura Hills. The hills hid the village and separated it from the rest of the world. It was as if our ancestors who first settled in the area were looking for a place secluded and hidden from the world. It wasn't erroneous if anyone described it as an ostracized village. It was so small that all of us in it knew one another. We knew when a new face came to the village. It had no modern facilities. The only place we got water was from the village stream which we called "the Capa Stream". A common myth had it that the seven Agura hills were the transformed figures of the seven men who had first settled in the village. The myth had it that the men, the first ancestors of Capa, had transformed into the hills as a way of protecting and hiding it from intruders. This was a common myth in Capa but nobody could authenticate its veracity. We all just regarded it as the myth that it was. When my father was alive, he used to take me to the Capa Stream to catch some fish which we used to prepare our meals. But sometimes the stream ran dry and empty of any fish. During such times, my father would resort to setting traps in the bush for squirrels and rabbits. I followed him to the stream and to the bush to set traps. That was how I learned to fish and hunt. I started fishing and hunting by myself after my father died. Because I was the only son, I was required to support my mother and sister, even as a teenager. But I enjoyed helping my mother fend for the family; it made me feel like a grown man. About six months after my father died, my mother took ill. No one knew what her illness was or what caused it. There was no hospital in the village. All the villagers relied on the services of a herbalist named Ikolo. But Ikolo could not determine what was wrong with my mother. He gave her many different herbs and concoctions but they didn't help. Her illness kept getting worse by each day. She was just vomitting and stooling until she died. After her death, things became really difficult for my sister and me. Even though I was younger, I had to work harder for us to survive. My sister and I would go to the farm early in the morning and come back in the afternoon. Then I would go to the Capa Stream to catch some fish for our meals. Life in Capa became too difficult. The lands lost their fertility because of too much tilling. My father had inherited only a few plots of farmland from his parents and was not able to acquire any new ones because of his poor status. So, my sister and I had to make do with the few plots available to us. We cultivated yams, cocoyam, potatoes, maize, and vegetables. But the harvest was never enough because we had to cultivate the same lands every year, and we had no means of getting any fertilizer. We only made use of animal dung from goats and sheep but it was never enough still. Capa had only one major road through which people could enter or leave. The road was not tarred. It was very narrow and bumpy. On market days, women and children would trek from the village to other villages just to buy or sell their items. All the houses in Capa were built with mud, except the house of the village chief which was built with cheap bricks and painted white. The white paint on the walls had begun to peel off. However, whenever I passed by the house, I usually touched the brick wall with my bare palms just to feel the difference between the brick walls and mud walls. Touching the walls sometimes flared my hopes of living in a brick house someday. There was no school in Capa. But one of the neighbouring villages had set up a small learning centre for children and teenagers. My father had enrolled me in the learning centre when he was still alive. I usually went there everyday. They taught us how to read and write. That was how I learned to read and write. The learning centre had just one teacher. His name was Mr. Lekia. He was in his mid thirties. He had travelled to the big city of Lagos to study at a tertiary institution. He graduated with a degree in agriculture and rural development. After his graduation, he returned home to contribute to the development of his village. The villagers described him as a miracle and heaven-sent. Mr. Lekia taught us simple arithmetics. He also taught us how to read and write. Sometimes he taught us about agriculture. The best part of his lessons were the times he told us that some of us would become more learned than he was, and that we would do even more than he was doing. I usually felt excited listening to his motivations. Anytime I was at the learning centre, my hope for a better future outside Capa would be lighted by his words. I would imagine myself in a house with brick walls like that of our village chief. The little education I got from the learning centre boosted my hopes. I attended the learning centre for two years before it was closed down. The centre was closed down after Mr. Lekia secured a job in Lagos. Rumour had it that he later relocated to a beautiful country named America, the country where life was lived in its full glamour. Because the learning centre was closed down, no other child in Capa learned how to read and write. But I sometimes tried to teach a few children the letters of the English alphabet and their sounds as Mr. Lekia had taught us, but my efforts were not yielding the desired results because I was not an experienced teacher. Many people always said that Capa was a land either forgotten or abandoned by God; that it was a land where milk and honey would never flow. But the sun still shone on it. It was the land of my birth and the beginning of my story–the beginning of this story of struggles and great friendship that you are reading now.