The Hammer Boys.

The story starts with Ogo receiving strokes of cane from his uncle Mr Jude, Jude is the maternal uncle to the boys.we didn't eat our school fees uncle! the boys screams as they boy recieve the beating of their lives.coming back from school that hot afternoon, obi began searching his pocket to remove 40 naira that was given to him by his grandmother in the morning, one could see the seriousness on his face as he reminisce on the punishment that awaits, Aunty Uju walks in to see the boys rearranging the house in confusion, what is it? she asked but no one responded, obi are you not the person I am asking something?, it's the money obi responded with tears in his eyes at this moment, which money kwa ahhh, I hope you have not lost the fees because you are dead, At these moment, Uncle Jude and Granny had heard the loud voice and both rushed out like they saw rats eating the rice in the kitchen. what is going on? Granny asked , it's these children again Uju responded back.That was all we could remember as they started shouting and accusing us of eating the money, Uncle Jude went to the "Uko", "Uko" is the native prepared platform where food is preserved. so he lighted the fire and offed it so that only the smoke can go up, they tied my hands and feet, pounded the pepper and rubbed it all over my body, it was God that saved my eyes from picking it in, I cried but help was far that night, one can imagine what my brother was going through waiting for his turn. I was put on the "Uko" to dry up the pepper, I cried and cried until I stopped crying, I was brought down and flogged severally, then it was Ogo's turn, he went through the same and when they were through with us that night, I totally forgot the colour of the naira I was accused of eating lol. we both cried until we slept off.As of this time, Mumsy was in Abuja working as a cleaner in a hotel in Crystal palace. That night was unforgettable. At that time, we couldn't read and write, I was 5 years old but naive and backward in my mind because of the situation we were in. I can swear that poverty knew our names then, we were living in mud house, no television, no foams to sleep on, only one radio for the entire family to share, no electricity. The first time we saw electricity was when we packed to enugu state, in a town called Amechi, it was Uncle Orji that brought us out of the Bush we were living in then to Enugu state, in case you are wondering who uncle Orji is, that was my mother's elder brother, he is late now, Bro Orji as we fondly called him was the messiah God used to bring is out of darkness. The first day we got to Enugu, nepa brought light, we shouted up nepa!!!, there was so much excitement in the house, because where we were coming from had no such, I can remember i was pointing at the electric bulb and shouting "aunty see sun o!" it was aunty Ezi that told me it is not sun but electricity. Aunty Ezi is my mother's immediate younger sister, I like her, but she is very stubborn and tough. Ahhhh Ezi can flog, hmmm, it was her that thought me how to read and write, she flogged me until I started reading both the one the author didn't write.Growing up was rough in that house. like everywhere kids, we loved seeing movies alot, but we had no television in our house, Ogo and I would go to our neighbor house to watch any of the local movies, but the challenge is anytime the movie is getting interesting or about to end, our neighbors Madam Ada would close their cotton at use and tell us to go home, we would go home in sadness, but we always make sure we finished the rest of the movies in our heads.One day, Uncle Orji came back home and brought out a carton and when Bro Obi started opening it, it was a T.V!!!, the joy in the house that day was more louder than the day we saw a radio. We all shared so much joy that day, anybody who saw us would think we just won a lottery not knowing it was a television. The challenge now was that at that time, television channels closes by 12 noon and opens by 2:00pm in nigeria, so when we watch and it gets to closing time, we always go sad until they open by 2pm. We lived at Amechi Awkunanaw for 5 yrs then left to meet with Mumsy at Abuja in 2001. When we got there, we couldn't leave our room, visitors would come to see our mother and also to greet us but we were too shy to come out because we couldn't speak English fluently. it was only our native dialet we could speak, so we stayed like this until one day, Aunty Martha, one of Mumsy's friends had pity on us and spoke to us, encouraged us to be free, she then gave us some movies to see, in order to boost our spoken English, she gave us "Jesus of Nazareth part 1-4, she also gave us Isakkaba part 1-4 as well, i loved that movie alot. These movies helped us until our oral English started becoming stronger and also our morale. We stayed with Mumsy until we finished our secondary school and all these while we haven't met our Father.