Fate versus Faith

My name is Julia. I was born in the ancient city of Benin present day Edo state . I was born into a complex family. My mother Augustine had three children Agnes, Lucky and Vivian from two previous marriages while my father Sunnyboy as people liked to call him had two boys Kelvin and Kester from two different women. Me, being the first child of her parents together, was greatly loved by my father because I am his first daughter. My mother equally loved me greatly too as my birth presence secured her position in my father’s house. My mother is from a polygamous home with plenty of siblings. She has not really been lucky with marriages. Her first husband was insecure because she was very fair, had a fine shape and didn’t look like she had had any kids even after giving birth to a boy and girl for him. He used to beat her anytime she stays too long at the market where she went to buy foodstuffs or the tap where she goes to fetch water. He beat her up one day until she fainted. Concerned neighbors sent messages to her brothers telling them their Inlaw will kill their sister one day if they don’t save her from him. Her brothers came to Benin in a Peugeot car saw the state of their sister. Without asking for any explanation, beat him up, forced him inside their car, took him back to the village where they handed him over to the police. They came back again to pack my mother’s things from the house and refunded her bride price. That was the end of her first marriage. Her second marriage was uneventful at least he wasn’t abusive. She had her first baby and had difficulty birthing her. When she had her second baby and the baby was confirmed a still born, the man ran away from the hospital leaving her and the deceased baby. That is how her second marriage ended. My father is an environmental health officer the one people used to call Ikoiko back in the days. He has never been married. His first son was from a women who was older than him. His family accused her of witchcraft and drove her out of his house. She left with her son because she was desperately in need of a child. The second woman abandoned her two children with him unfortunately the girl died so his mother raised his second son as her own. My father met my mother through my grandfather who was his friend. Older friend sort of. Immediately he saw her he told my grand father that’s his wife and one thing led to the other they started having an affair and I was born. When I was born, my father was very happy he named me Julia after his favorite actress Julia Roberts. My mother was full time house wife whose primary responsibility was to take care of me and my older siblings. In 1991, when Delta and Edo states were divided, my family relocated to Delta State where my father is from. He was transferred to Okpe local government area in Delta state. That’s how we came to live in Chief Okoro’s compound a twin building with a three bedroom flat in front and eight single rooms inside the compound of each building. There was an Almond tree popularly called ebelebo inside the compound. There was mango tree a barren mango tree that doesn’t bear fruits, there was a big cashew tree, and a tangerine tree at the back of the compound. Me and my parents occupied four single rooms, a medical doctor his three children occupied the front flat of our compound, a licensing officer occupied two rooms and a single mother occupied the last two rooms in their side of the building. There were four kitchens, four toilets fully equipped with water cistern, and four bathrooms with metal taps and metal shower poles and rose inside.The second building had gigolo his wife and his four kids; Tuness his daughter, TJ his first son who is 2yrs older than Julia, Favour his last daughter and Javier his second son and third child in two single rooms. The second two rooms had Mr Patrick and his wife with their only son Kelvin. The flat had Mr Uche, his wife Uzor and their three children Kendra (the eldest who is in the university), Okechukwu their son and Alex the last child who is about the same age with Julia. The remaining four rooms was occupied by two sisters who were single mothers with three kids each. JITE, Julie, Jude were the older sister Kevwe’s children, Martina and Matilda were the younger sister’s twins while Martins was her only son. The compound directly opposite their own has a lot of The community is serene in a suburb of Warri. It’s peaceful with little or no record of crime except for a few isolated cases of petty thieves, and burglars who come to steal clothes and jewel ties when the house owners are away. It was a normal thing to find children playing outside at night under the moonlight while parents spread mats to lounge outside and take fresh air. The only thing we were afraid of was mosquitoes and ghosts. At that time people used to die from malaria a lot and though the government hospital was not far from us, my parents didn’t like taking us there as you have to wait for long hours to get a doctor. Then their drugs were expensive and their services well like every other government service in Nigeria today wasn’t so good. My parents preferred to go to a private hospital at Airport road Warri. JHAN’s clinic and maternity. When they are not taking us to the hospital they give us a chloroquine syrup which was extremely bitter and used to make me itch all over. Then it used to make it difficult for me to swallow spit in the morning. God! I loathed it. We used to fetch water From a central tap in the compound. The water was supplied by the government water board and we paid a water bill monthly. Those who didn’t have taps in their compounds got water from the river and some few earth wells. In my house those days we were f*******n from going to the river for any reason as we were told that the river used to kill strangers. There’s and old wife’s tale of how the river goddess used to enjoy taking the lives of young handsome men who dared dip their feet into it. So the river was a no go area for me and my siblings even though everyone in our neighborhood used to go in droves to go wash on Saturdays. The river wasn’t the only thing that was a taboo in my house while growing up. Playing with other children’s in the compound was f*******n. Watching them play from our wooden window could earn us a few strokes of cane. Going to watch Television in people’s houses was an abomination then. So we lived like inmates in my parents house. The only time we were allowed to come out was in the evening when my parents relax outside to take fresh air. Growing up back then, that community had lots of virgin lands and big trees with lots of shrines around. These shrines belonged to the worshippers of the African traditional religion mostly Olukun (that’s the name of their goddess). You used to know the shrines from the kind of sacrifice they used to leave outside. Back then you will see a pavement built from bamboo sticks that had young fruits like bananas. Coconut, a Coca-Cola drink called Fanta, biscuits and sometimes animals like chickens were offered as sacrifice as well. The worshipers used to have different sect like we have in Christianity where you have different churches. Each of these sects have their own feast day where they take sacrifices to the river. They are usually made up of fine women of different ages, in a single file with red and white cloth, beads, native chalks are used to draw patterns on their faces, chest and sometimes hands and feet while and cam wood powder is used to color their palms and feet red. In front of the line you will see a pretty young girl in front carrying a small basin of water. The basin usually have cowries tied to a string around it. They have what we call Sekere( a small calabash that has small beads tied to a string around it. It makes a lot of noise when you touch it and you can use to to make good local music.) They have small hand held bells and they sing on top of their voices as they take their sacrifice to the river. My neighbors and children from other compounds used to run after them so as to steal their sacrifices when they throw them into the river. These children used to struggle to catch the white broilers, packets of Oxford biscuits. Bottles of Fanta, 20 naira and 50 naira notes they used to use for sacrifice. They run ahead of them, hide in the bushes of the river banks because the women will chase them if they see them trying to steal their sacrifice. Back then, it was normal for people to go to church on Sunday and take part in these traditional festivals once in a while. Only few churches were available in our small community at that time. Catholic, Anglican, Assemblies and cornerstone. Did I mention ghosts earlier? Back then, it was a normal thing to see ghosts if we wander out of our compound from 9pm. Yes real ghosts (I’ve never seen the fake ones though). They are tall, very tall, clad in white from head to toes I think they have toes even though I never saw them as their feet never touched the ground. We encountered them repeatedly. The first time we saw them was in 1991 when my dad took me to go pee inside the plantain plantation at the back of our toilet. We thought it was our neighbor Uzor that was trying to scare us with a bedsheet. As young as I was, I remember having goosebumps all over, feeling my head increase in size when the ghost floated into our space. He asked “Uzor what are you doing here at this time of the night? How did you get here? Why are you so tall?” When she didn’t respond, he thought it was a thief so he grabbed me and ran into our compound shouting “thief oh! Thief oh!” Our neighbors jumped up to catch the thief only to realize that it was a ghost. The creature floated through our compound giving everyone goosebumps and making their heads big before floating out again. People scampered for safety. The children who were playing inside the compound ran into any house they could find screaming. Parents ran inside leaving their children sleeping on the straw mats they spread outside. The moon continued shining brightly. Our oil lamps were totally unbothered by the chaos that followed the presence of the ghost. After some time normalcy returned. Our compound children returned to playing Suwe outside as if nothing happened. The older ones played police catch thief. My mom drove us inside but my dad allowed us to go spy the other kids from the veranda. We watched them until we dozed off. I had weird dreams that night where I was being chased by a ghost. I couldn’t run because it was quick sand. I fell and was caught by the ghost. I was screaming and calling my mummy and daddy until my elder brother Lucky woke me up. I was sweating profusely and he brought the kerosene lamp to my face and asked about my dream.