THANK YOU FOR THE ABACHA BY UZIEL MICHAEL : FICTION

Thank You for The Abacha

    The trick to making good Abacha is timing. One has to soak the dried tapioca in hot water for a few seconds, just long enough for it to get some moisture. Anything more and the cassava extracts will suck up a lot of water and turn soggy in the pot. So I lifted the sieve containing the Abacha out of the bowl of hot water and placed it on an empty smaller bowl.

  

 I added two handfuls of crayfish to a sizzling mixture of palm oil, onions and pepper. I stirred it with the wooden laden and watched through the soft fog that arose from the pot as the mixture turned brown and start to foam. I must leave the mixture long enough to cook but not get burnt, so I remove one log of firewood from underneath the pot to reduce the heat.

As soon as a strong aroma started to waft up from the pot, I transferred the Abacha from the sieve where I've kept it to strain out the water into the pot. Next came the grounded fresh red and green pepper, salt and Maggi seasoning. With all the ingredients in the pot at the right time, I made good use of the laden, turning the Abacha and everything else this way, and then that way until everything was uniformly colored light yellow.

 














Even though the food was done, I left the pot on the fire hearth for a while longer whilst I fetched a plate and its cover from the corner. I like the taste of Abacha that gets stuck to the bottom of the pot when it's heated too much.

    I was going to use the plate to give some of the Abacha to Nne Ogbogo. She likes my Abacha, just like Mama did. Mama said my Abacha is the tastiest in the whole family, bar none. She used to eat everything, and even lick the plate like a child...

 I mentally shook the thought away. Can't think of her now. I

lifted the pot off the hearth to the ground with my bare hands holding on to the place where handles were meant to be, barely registering the heat. A battered tinker pot that had seen better days, its back was completely black from years of use on firewood but it still served.

    After dousing the fire with water, I dished some Abacha into the plate, and covered both pot and plate. It was then that I heard the scrape of Dunlop slippers against the earth. Someone was coming, close by. I turned to the door. A woman appeared.

    "Ogboo, good afternoon." I chimed, unconsciously wiping sweat off my brows. Ogbogo was dressed in a faded pink polo and a faded yellow patterned wrapper, her head was wrapped in a black head tie. "Maggie,

good afternoon. Kedu kwa nu? How're you?"

    "I'm fine, ma. I was just about to come to your room. I made

Abacha." I stooped down and picked up the plate and handed it to her. She took the plate, and smiled. Her wrinkled face brightened.

"Ewuu, nwanyi oma, good woman. Thank you very much. May God bless you."

"Amen o!" I said.

"You've served me lunch today and saved me the trouble. Let me go and enjoy the meal while it's hot." She said, turning to leave

"Okay, ngwa nu. Nnoo, welcome."

She took a step, and turned. "Maggie, there's something I wanted to talk to you about."

    "Ehn? What is it, ma?" I asked, adjusting my wrapper around my waist.

  "Beatrice was telling me this morning that she told you about her brother's idea to come and marry you, and that your response was unsatisfactory..."
I sighed. That's 'her' way. She was very curious about something
but she'd never ask direct questions about it. She would rather make long statements and then expect you to answer her unasked questions.

"Yes ma. She spoke to me about something like that, that her brother who lives in Enugu harbored intentions to take another wife. That he spoke to her about it and she had immediately thought of me and that she had told him about me. She asked what I thought about the man, the marriage, and I said no."

    For a moment, Ogbogo looked stunned but she recovered quickly enough. "When she told me that, I couldn't believe it. I wanted to confirm it. But to have you echo what she said, it's terribly disheartening." She took several steps into the kitchen and came to stand a short distance in front of me. "Let me ask you, how old did you turn on your last birthday?"

    I can't say that I was surprised with the question. I've lived with this woman all my life and I've come to know her as well as anybody could. This wasn't going to be sweet but it would help if I played along with her. "I'm forty-eight."

    She looked at me for a long time. "Margaret. Margaret. Margaret. You're forty-eight years old. That's a year older than my last daughter, your step sister. She came to see me a week ago, you saw her, eh?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Her husband drove her and their three young boys here in their new car. The last boy just gained admission into 'mahadum', the university. Margaret, why have you

decided to destroy yourself like this? The very few unfortunate women who find themselves in your position would jump at the opportunity that just presented itself. They'll thank Beatrice for thinking of them in this good thing and they'll throw themselves at this man and make sure they get married as soon as possible. What is wrong withyou? Obu goduru na obu ogwu ka emere gi ihe a, I ma lee ya? Even if this was a charm, wouldn't you break it? Why do you want to yoke Yourself to your father's house like this?"

    I sighed again, and folded my arms across my stomach. "Ogbogo, what is this? Why do you choose to spoil a perfectly good afternoon? I don't want to marry, period. I won't give myself away to any man, much less become someone's second wife. I don't need a man to be fulfilled. I don't need to take on another person's surname because the society expects me to. I'm happy with my decision and my life as it is, and that's a lot more to be said for some of the women you compare me with. Onyinye your eldest daughter

had a long range of issues with her husband until she developed High Blood Pressure. Your first granddaughter who got married barely two

years ago has run out of her home. The story is the same for a lot of women out there. I won't take that. I would rather remain happily single than embrace a man to acquire a social status and then die in unhappiness. If I die tomorrow, I'll be buried in this compound. It's my father's compound, nobody will chase me out. She shook her head. "I always said it that it was the white men that turned your head. Too much education is bad for us women. Oso nwanyi gwo nta, gwo imo, oke ya bu na eku. You girls forget that whatever you read, whatever qualification you get, your place is still in the kitchen, at the hearth. Everything else is secondary. If you don't answer "Mrs." somebody, you existence here, is a big 'BUT'. You don't want to belong to any man, eh? Come and sit here with me. I kpoo go. You've become stale. Ada juzi gi ka I kpobara akpoba, ka I na ere ere. No one man will look at you twice. And you're boasting with it, eh? Let’s give you a chieftaincy title for it, eh?"

    She paused for a moment, maybe expecting a comeback from me. I was prompted to do just that, to argue the validity of my decision to remain a spinster. But after years of practice, I had grown tired. Our people have been conditioned to accept a particular system of social customs. Anything contrary attracts criticism, especially in rural town such as mine. Individualism is shunned and conformity is

embraced. I've seen it for years, and I've come to see it in new light at the community secondary school where I teach. Fathers refuse to paytheir daughters' tuition, claiming that it's a waste of resources on Something another man would come to cart away. They prefer to spend it on their sons whom they perceive to be more profitable investments.

Young girls get married even before they write their SSCE's because that's what they're led to do. Women stay in abusive marriages because the society expects them to suffer through it. It is all pathetic.

    Apparently bored with my silence, Ogbogo continued, "But I blame Ogbori for that. She should have set you right. Make you understand. That's what good mothers do. It's what mothers should do..."

    "Don't bring my mother into this!"

    "Why not? She has a lot to do with it? Don't you know that you're part of what sent her to an early grave? Ogbori was a young woman, barely seventy yet, barely older than me. The death of your brother might have had a hand in the deed, but the burden of how she had failed with you was what really killed her slowly. If you had heeded everybody's advice and married Ogbu Nwachifu, she would have lived the rest of her life in relative joy and fulfilment..."   I couldn't take it anymore. I put my arms at my sides and screamed.

"Just stop, you evil witch! Get out."
How dare she bring my mother into this? My dear mother. She had been the only one to eventually understand. Before her death a year ago, she had been my best friend, confidant, and my rock.  She scoffed. "You can scream all you want and call me names. But God knows that I'm doing the right thing, the motherly thing." Then, mercifully, she turned to leave. She took a few steps before she called back, "Thank you for the Abacha o. I'm going to need it toreplenish my strength."

    I curled my fingers to keep them from reaching for her throat and groaned with the strain of the effort. As soon as she was out of sight, I backed to the blackened clay wall and slumped to the floor. I brought my knees up and buried my face in the hollow space I created by encircling my arms around the knees.

    Then I cried. My whole body shaking and buckling with the sounds that escaped me, I wept.

BY Uziel Michael