Grass and the Forces (Part 1): Grass Beneath the Forces

By Mandu Ukpe

Mandu Ukpe's Authobiography. GRASS BENEATH THE FORCES (part1) is true history surrounding Mandu's life from birth to early adulthood. It is full of fun to amuse the reader and helps one learn some vital lessons of life. The last chapters in the Book are not true incidents, but purely fun that we used to feature on my Charity website, as part of the Services we offered then to the public. The physical fun actually brings out spiritual meaning to benefit the reader too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483530284

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CHAPTER 1

a) Who, had the grass grown, or how did the grass come to be?

b) Which area was the grass found, and what was the feeling of those that discover the grass?

`She is pregnant again`, father spread the joyful news to close relatives, after already witnessing same condition on his wife twice. The firstborn child of my father was a female, and the second-born was a male child. I came in-between the two, and this time, the delivery was done in a civilised and modern way-in the hospital, and not through native midwife. So, one would have thought I would be going through modern and more sophisticated life than my older siblings. Well, as often been said, the beginning does not determine the ending. Mr/Mrs Uyom and Alice Peter Udofia, in a small village of Oboetok, in the then South Eastern State of Nigeria, had a new baby girl and called her name, Mandu. My father named-saked me after his late mother as the custom of the place is. So I was given a local name, `Eka` (meaning mother). It was a beautiful family, neatly joined together with the extended family, made up of my father’s brothers and sisters. Each of the brothers had his own large family and this produced many cousins, uncles, aunties and their houses were within the same radius and unit. We all played together as young ones and there seemed to be no notice of who was a boy or girl, as we would sometimes put mat on the floor after a new moon games in the night, and slept together as brothers and sisters. There was great unity and happiness within the joint large five families!

My mother used to tell me at that early stage that I would be `something` in the world. She said she was sitting in the front of my father’s house one day and a strange-looking man paid a visit to the house. She said the man said he was a Prophet of God, and that he was sent to tell my mother that one of her children would be very popular and well-placed. My mother said the man further said that she would have another child who also would be well-placed in life, but would not be as popular as the other child. The man also gave her a warning about the child who would be popular(me), `make sure you do not take this child to native doctor for any devilish administration, even when she may be sick to death, take her to Church for prayer`, the man had warned my mother concerning me. The question that ever existed within the home then was, `WHO WOULD BE THIS WIDE-WORLD CHILD OF THE FAMILY`? `WHO WOULD BE THE SECOND OF THEM`? The watch began and lasted for a few years after the prophesy had been given, but died down later as no child in the family had signs enough to justify the fulfilment of the prophesy, though from time to time, finger was pointed at MANDU AS THE CHILD WITH UNIQUE VALUES TO SUGGEST THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHESY. That would stir-up a fine feeling in me, and made me anxious to see what I would be, yet year-in-year-out , nothing spectacular happened to me to confirm this, rather, some years would even bring me lower and humbler life-condition.

As the `GRASS` grew up in a family where the father was a School Teacher, and the demand from the Local Education Authority was that Teachers in the State could be moved from one village to the other to perform their roles on a short or long term contract, I witnessed the beginning of the strain this had on the family. I was about four years old in one of the Stations that my father had to live and served for more than two years before moved again to another Station. At such stations, my siblings and I would stand out tall and be seen as favourable children by both the villagers and the pupils in such school because of the general respect that was given to Teachers and their house-hold, then in the State. All the serving Teachers of the school had to live in the Teachers’ Quarters (small houses built around the school main building). Life was fun there with Teacher’s children and servants playing around the school compound during their spare-times. Life was fun too with Teachers bringing out their tables in front of their houses, which was joint one with the other, to work on their next day’s `Note of Lesson`, which had to be submitted later that evening to the School Head Teacher(Headmaster as it is called in the area) for approval. The teachers also might have to mark homework they collected from their pupils that afternoon during the day’s class activities. I enjoyed this lifestyle along with my siblings up to about age seven before my parents decided between them that my mother should not be joining my father to stay with the family during my father’s future transfers to other Stations. My family had always been served by some house mates, sometime three at any given time. But at the peak of this decision that my mother stayed at home during my father’s transfer to another school, one of us children was still to stay behind with my mother in our family home to keep her company, alongside the house-mate we had then. By this time, my junior brother had just been born, after the death of my immediate junior sister a couple of years past. So, the ball fell on my court to be with mother at home, the decision which I so much hated. But who was I, or any other child then to say `no` to the parent’s decisions over them in matters like this? I THEN LIVED WITH MY MOTHER FOR ABOUT THREE YEARS BEFORE I JOINED MY FATHER AGAIN IN HIS CURRENT STATION. Oh! Life in the home with my mother, newborn brother and our house-help was not enjoyable. I was attending my village primary School, walking about two miles each day to and fro the School. As other pupils were serving my father in his Station with firewood(for cooking), planting his garden, fetching water in the local stream for him, and cleaning his house once a week, so was I doing to another teacher in my home school too. Nobody considered that I was also a Teacher’s child and gave me an exemption from those activities. I had to fulfil them as long as my father was not serving in the same school. All those benefits and more were still enjoyed by my older siblings except me, in addition to being my baby-brother sitter sometimes. Some of the Stations my father was posted to, were in much developed villages than my village. Sometimes, the posting was even to a semi township. But for me, I seemed to become an established village girl and stayed that way for a long time.

At about ten years of age, I joined my father, by that time, my older sister and brother had left for Secondary School Boarding-houses as they advanced in their educational system. Life did not offer much fun to me although I was where I wanted to be then. This was because all the family members were not in the school compound as per my last experience when I had the opportunity to stay with the whole family(including my mother) when I was much younger. During such times, I used to be treated as the baby of the home, with less or no responsibilities. In this particular Station, I was in- charge of the domestic work around my father although the house-help that lived with him then, was my senior. Every weekend, Friday, we all had to travel about 6miles to our village to be with the rest at home, and to attend our local Church where my father was one of the preachers and I was in the choir. Those journeys , on foot were the worst exercises I experienced during my brought-up years. So, the Grass’s first FORCE was the strenuous weekly travels to own village. It was only my father that would ride on a bicycle to and fro.

In the educational field here in this Station, the School Authority tested me and decided that I must skip the next academic Class level I was due to go in. Their reason was that I was too bright for the next class- level and that I would be confusing other pupils in that class if I was allowed to be with them. So I was promoted to a higher class. But funny enough, even in that higher class, I took first position throughout the three Terms’ examination Results! At the end of the third Term examination-result’s Report, which normally was read out in the Assembly where all classes in the School gather with all the Teachers in the school, I was called out to the front of all that assembled, and was told to punish all male pupils in the class I was because they did not work hard enough but `gave a woman chance to beat them throughout the three Terms’ Examinations`. `Mandu come out here`, the Head-teacher called me out in front of the hundreds of pupil and teachers. I want all the boys that are in the same class with Mandu to come out here, he said in our vernacular again. When the boys came out, the head teacher gave me a stick to thrash each of the boys three times on their buttocks. I was a shy girl and with the fear of offending these big boys, some of them two times my age (who were same class with me because our educational system then, did not depend on the age of a child, but on the financial ability of the parents to send the child to school), I hesitated to flock the boys. The head teacher threatened to take the stick from me and beat me instead, for an example, because I mildly thrash the first boy. I did the work well to the head-teacher’s satisfaction after the threat!

Despite all what the teachers in the school (including my father) claimed I had during my time there in the school, I did not enjoy my classes. A very strict former army officer who became my final class teacher in primary school level, came up with very strict disciplinary measures that he soon became a `terror` to all the pupils and some close colleagues of his too. A pupil would be calling for himself, a bitter smacking if he failed to answer a question in the class that this teacher randomly would pick him to answer. Once, he threw a question to the whole class, a question he did not think any of us could answer. When nobody had the answer right, I attempted with an answer I was not sure would be correct. But I got it right! `Mandu, that was a good guess`, he said, `there is no way you would have known the correct answer`, he added. He was right, but if he so knew that the question was above the class level, what was the fun of asking in the first place? I wondered, but that was the character of this outstanding teacher. This was a teacher, an in-law to my father and also my uncle distant-uncle because he was mildly related to my mother. Living in the School compound with us and with other teachers, he would come to our house most of the evenings after school activities. He had the liberty of coming straight into our kitchen and would open the pot I was cooking with, to see what I was cooking. I found that a privilege and fun, though. But after that, meet him with me when it was class time, I would have no exemption from his class punishment. One time, he even overstepped his boundary, and my father fell-out with him very bitterly. The Grass was under a FORCE here too, though the situation was short-lived.

This teacher was so concerned that he would not have a 100% pass for his class during the final West African School Leaving Examination, that he introduced some measures to overcome his fears. These included: 1 hour tuition for his class every morning before the official school time for that day; he organized a FASTING AND PRAYER DAY for the class and warned that nobody eat and came to the school that day, but that everybody should pray and be in the spirit of prayer until after school. He nearly succeeded if one stubborn boy did not break the rule and was discovered that he ate before he came to the school that morning. The teacher had a way he threatened the whole class to speak the truth. He almost achieved his goal too, because his class had a 98% pass during the West African School Leaving Examination! That emphasized to me, the value of prayer practices that was already adopted into our family’s life each night as we used to meet together to pray to God before we went to bed. This was expected of a father who was also a part-time preacher