Ajali

Coming to my rescue

Umunachi community has so many ritual and tradition. It was the time of the year when they all prohibit every palm fruit owner from cutting their ripe fruit or assessing its oil. During this period,the palmfruits are all left to ripe,a day is fixed when it will be cut simultaneously, after which the fruits are sold and the income generated is kept in the community purse. whatever the community needed is taken from the pursue which serves as general income. On the day the the fruit is picked, the youths are called to partake in it. They go to the forest where those fruits are left by the cutters and pick them up. They also carry the frond outside where it is loaded in their local truck to the community centre.

Ajali and his friend Zube together with three others joined this event. At the bush where they are suppose to pick the littered palm fruits, Zube complained of not having enough strength due to the fact that the water he brought with him has finished. Ajali told him to hold on, once they get to a nearby river they can refill their keg. He also told Zube not to thirst anything from the forest because most fruits are not human fruit but that of the spirits. It is the first thing the elders teach the younger ones once they start to age; how they can identify the difference between the human fruits and plants from that of the spirits. Ajali happens to know all these. He warned Zube not to taste anything he is not sure of.