One Morning In The 3rd World. By O.b.i

Ebupa, that's what they call it, or sand fly, that's what google calls it, Nwanneka unconsciously threw her right palm with the swiftness of one half asleep to the bare skin on her left forearm, in a futile effort to kill the ebupa  that was by now long gone. She stirred almost immediately to the right, now facing the big aluminium pot that stood opposite the bamboo bed she shared with her younger ones; Obiajulu, Nkoli and Adaku, just then the sleep vanished from her eyes and she jolted into full consciousness. One would think it was the sharp bite from the ebupa that woke her up, only that this was Olo, where you have to go to the farm and do the usually tedious farm work, go to the stream and fetch the first water for drinking and then for bathing, sweep the ilo, bath the children, make breakfast; which is often garri and soup from the previous night or seldom roasted yam and salted palm oil, and walk 7 miles to Community Secondary School, Olo before 7:45 AM. This was Nwanneka's routine on most mornings, so it was not the bite from the blood sucking ebupa that woke her up by 4:15AM that morning and every other morning. And like every other morning too, she arrived school late, 8:17 AM. But she was not alone in this lateness, almost all the students in C. S. S Olo are perpetual late comers, they all lived in Olo or farther and they all had different variation of Nwanneka's morning. Mr. Ikem, the school's disciplinarian will have none of that, if you came to school later than 7:45 AM then a cutlass was waiting for you at the entrance, you will cut, if he (Mr. Ikem) is in a good mood, about 15 meter square of long overgrown elephant grass or if he was in a bad moodwell, lets just hope he is always in a good mood.

So by 9 AM when the buzz must have died down and I walk into Nwanneka's class and start telling her and her class mates about atoms and electrons and Pauli's exclusion principle, and 15 minutes into my class they tell me they are tired, I beg them for a few more minutes to teach because I understand, I understand that it is not Chemistry that have tired them, in fact it is because they are tired that is why they are seated in a class room. They are tired of the 3rd world and the class room was their exit strategy. They came into the class room to get out of the 3rd world...and I hope it works, I hope I can help them, I hope we have not all been lied to.

The Poet's Prophecy. A Poem By Jesam Eko.

A child will stare out of a window

for a moment

Deciphering the future from a dusky harmattan wind of November

Does he imagine that some wisp

of cloud reveals the handwritings

of things to come?

Or that life is an nsibidi in the palms

of a poet waiting to be translated

into creeds of poetry

And sometimes a girl stands naked

by a mirror

Imagining beauty in a stranger's eyes

Finding a place where fear meets desire.

For what is prophecy but unlettered itching words between the fingers

of a poet

Words he must birth on vivid verses

In stanzas of reechoing admonitions

Baptising minds in rhythmic poetic

processions

Yet it's not so much of what's written

But what's heard and the honor of sacred words

For the words of a poet are mustard

seeds meant for fertile grounds

meant for those gifted in listening

to heed the solemn call for peace

beneath the murmurs of dying refugees

To hear the dying grass bending to

the tempest of unrest

And to chronicle the ones by whose

ink territories were regained.

Glossary

Nsibidi : handwriting originated from the Ekoi people. Neighbours of the Efik

and Ibibio ethnic group in Nigeria.

Jesam Eko is an erudite writer, poet, broadcaster and a passionate environmentalist. He hails from Yakur L.G.A in Cross River state. The University of Portharcourt graduate is an advocate of creativity as a tool to foster national peace and security.

Jesam is currently working on an anthology to be published soon.

jesameko@gmail.com

Soliloquy. By O.b.i

Michael came home listless again, he had been having a feeling of emptiness for days now. He could not really trace when it started, but he could remember some weeks ago in the middle of his day, he was overcome by an intense feeling of anxiety. It was a different kind of anxiety and It was strange too, not because it was the first time he was having that feeling, but because it was the first time he was feeling anxious and sad. When he was younger what he knew as anxiety had a different meaning and a different feeling, a happy one, it was that feeling when you can't wait to wear your new Christmas cloth or resume a new class with a new school uniform after a long holiday or you were getting a new toy. But this one was different. He probed his mind to find what prompted this feeling and he came up with nothing. In the days that followed he noticed that he was losing his energy, not energy to do stuffs, but energy to live. And then at a point there was paranoia, he felt everybody else was being unfair and selfish and judgmental. For days he dragged through life searching for anything thing to hold on to, any form of happiness, but when he went out he covered everything with a smile and hearty laughter and tones of heavily edited pictures on Instagram and Facebook. The idea that he was suffering from depression had once crossed his mind, but he dispelled it almost as quickly as it came, that can't be possible, he was African he thought to himself, things such as depression, PTSD, Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, Attention Deficit and the likes were unAfrican, it was for those white kids who could not 'man up' as his father will always admonish him whenever he was sad or scared. That evening when he came home and laid on his bed, he felt an intense feeling of floating emptiness in his mind body and soul, he felt crushed, jaded and lifeless. He laid down on his bed and all that came to his mind was 'you know, you can end all this now'

Mental health is increasingly becoming an issue, some will argue that we know more about it now because of social media while some others will say social media has contributed to people becoming increasingly mentally unhealthy, but which ever it is, we all have a collective duty to look out for each other, always keep in touch with friends and family and make sure they are fine, visit the ones you can and call the ones you cant.
We also have a responsibility to correct the general notion about mental health. Being depressed is nothing to be ashamed of, it doesn't mean you are a failure, it doesn't you are a looser...and lastly IT HAPPENS TO EVERYONE!
WorldMentalHealhDay

Black Impression. By O.b.i

Uyi was black, not that she was charcoal black, but her two brothers Odion and Efosa were both light skinned, so it was the first thing you noticed on a Sunday morning when they match out of their one room apartment, lined up according to their age, heading to Church; One black girl in the middle of two light skinned boys. Uyi had first became aware of her skin colour when she was 9, it was Friday and it was a public holiday, so she went with her mother to the market as she had always done during the holidays and on Saturdays when her mum will need to go to bush market to buy corn and dried cassava for her small stall in the Oko daily market.  Uyi and her Mother got to the market late that morning because they had to spend the early hours of the morning fetching water from the community borehole down the road in the cold harmattan breeze of December. The first person that came to stall that morning was her mums latest customers, a lanky tall bachelor who Uyi's mother thought always said more words than necessary and never combed his hair. He came to buy a measure of garri, and when Uyis mother told him that a measure of garri was now 500 naira he exclaimed " ah! Mama Odion no be 350 you sell am for me last week?"
“My brother everything don put money, a bag of garri now na 22 thousand" Uyi's mother explained.
“Everything don yakata for this country" he said, shaking his head from side to side with his hands on his waist “how man pikin go take survive this december?. He paused for a brief moment "Oya just give me half paint" He finally said. After measuring the half paint for the man, Uyi'd mother gestured for Uyi to get her one black nylon from the bunch that was placed under the pan that was filled with Guinea corn. That was when the man noticed Uyi who had been sitting quietly on the wooding stool facing the bucket-hole infested main road and breaking melon seed. He began to speak again, this time, resting his eyes on Uyi "madam na your daughter be this?"
 "yes" Uyi's mother answered "them no go school today so I say make she come help me for market”
 "you yellow but she come kuku black, you waste your colour on top Odion, na girl suppose yellow so that she go fine".
 That night when Uyi got home she picked up her mother's tiny make up mirror which had seen better days and she looked at her reflection, she looked as though she was trying to find out what was wrong with being black, why did anyone think it was wrong for her to be black because she was a girl. That was the beginning of her black girl days. In the bathroom one morning, after Uyi turned 14, she spent a little more time in the bathroom scrubbing her body with the tangled piece of sack she and her mum used to bath, she scrubbed hard, hoping that she could wash off her blackness and watch it flow out of the bathroom like charcoal mixed with soapy water, she wanted to look a bit lighter like Amara, her class mate, whose skin looked the color of fine clay. Perhaps if she succeeded, she thought, Kayode will look more to her direction and loquacious customers who have no comb will not query her mother about her skin color.

How We Stay Alive. By O.b.i

Words put together to form phrases, phrases and more words then we have sentences and then a story
Stories; the only proof of our existence. Depending on who you ask, they'll tell you it took a black hole, millions of years and changes, and how those ones adaptable to change became us, became different kinds of us; 4 legs, 3 layers of skin, 2 wings, 1 purpose... Survival

If you ask others, they might tell you of a vacuum and the breath that changed clay to flesh and the the rib that went missing then there was us, two kinds of us and millions of others; 4 legs, 3 layers of skin, 2 wings, 1 purpose... Praise

We can choose which tale to tell, but there will be one truth, we will always tell stories, so let's tell stories about us, about the names we answer to and the air we breath, stories about familiar smiles and family ties, lets tell stories with the words we know and the emotions we have felt. That's how we stay alive, if out stories don't die.

Monsoon Season. By Obi

It is monsoon season Kathmandu, but that does not mean anything to Saro in the humid oil-swamps of Ogoni where potable water is a myth, but it is monsoon season and hopelessness for Bitani in the cold Rohingya refugee camp located in the outskirts of Bangladesh.

And it's hunger season in Rann, where a smile is a luxury that Aisha finds only in the reflection of her face in the watery corn soup that comes once a day. But Kurmi, the Shudra boy don't have that once-a-day smile, its comes whenever the Brahmins empty their bins on the sidewalks of New Dheli and this does not happen daily.

It is no different in the hinterlands of Nima and the alleyway of Cholera stricken Yemen, it is the same where ever you find men. But it is perhaps unimaginable in South Sudan where Jemma finds no use for a smile, she just wants the bombs to stop raining, she wants to fall asleep to the whistle of crickets and not to hysterical laughter of machine gun fire.

In Eastern Gouter, El khabi wakes up to the sounds of drones and huge fumes that shades the beauty of the rising sun and cloud any memory of happiness he ever had.

There are a million more unheard stories of the travails of children in the ruthless streets of war torn cities and the dilapidated homes of poverty ravaged villages, but the silence of the quiet was all it needed to start and that is what have kept it going. We can’t afford to be silent on someone else's battle because we are fighting your own war, the earth is large enough for seven billion winners.


Monsoon (which is a tropical rainy season when the rain last for several months with few interruptions) is used as a metaphor for tears in this piece.

Mona Lisa By O.b.i

Wins and losses on a canvas of dreams with a brush of hope

sometimes it's a silhouette, other times its otherwise

sometimes it looks like the whole figure, other times, nothing meets the eyes

If the path is crooked, then the path is right, Da Vinci would not strike a cord if he drew only straight lines.

But which ever it is; crooked lines or  a beautiful pattern, we steal a smile, because that is what it  is; crooked lines and a beautiful pattern

So what ever the portrait may be, we sneak in what we are,cos we hold the brush and the ink, we decide if its black or white, and we know how these are not opposites, the rain is not the opposite of sunshine, for if it was, then peace would have been the absence of war, but it is not.

We know too, how black, religion, Justice, war and white are just shades in the palette and this too is not wrong or right, it is just what is necessary and when.

If the painting is ever finished before we are done, its only then, we'll know why the brush is mightier than the pen.

Nobody Has It Easy. A Story By O.b.i

2nd of January 2014, the phrase that filled the air was 'happy new year' it came from my neighbours and colleagues at work, some of which I took out time to wish same and occasionally just muffled 'thank you' to those who I knew just said the 'happy new year' for formality, I got to work late that day and found out that most of the occupants of Bupia plaza were still enjoying the new year break except for David the barber, Ray the music producer and that nosy Roty-kunzults ltd secretary, all of whom have never been to the plaza earlier than me for as long as I could remember. Not as if I just decided to go to work late on the first working day of the year, but it was either my alarm wanted to stage me by not ringing or it was the hangover that deafened my ears, I found myself awake and still lying lazily on the bed by 8:58am faced with a dilemma; I either had to start looking for panadol to calm the disorganized orchestras banging in my head or start performing a magic that will get me to  Bupia plaza before 8am  which was impossible. After a nanosecond of thinking I scrambled to my feet and I was at the plaza by 10:02am, about 2 hours late!

After I dusted and cleaned my confines, I was ready to attend to the customers who came in after very long intervals, the day was a bit uneventful to my advantage, I had time to think about how I happened to consume that large quantity of alcohol knowing  fully well that the next day was a working day. I was still lost in wondering contemplation when I heard a pleasant female voice  said ''hello'' I looked up and the face I saw rang a bell, not until she said she was looking for Michael(my colleague) I thought she was one of the girls from the previous day.

She narrated that she gave Michael a work to do for Her the week before and He told Her it was going to be ready by Monday, but due to some reasons best known to her she was not able to make it on Monday so She had come to see if she could get it, I explained to her that Michael's shift starts by 3pm and she had to wait for about 2 hours since it was just pass 1, she agreed to wait, probably because the work she gave Michael to do for her was more important than the things she kept saying she needed to do at home. She had this gorgeous smile which complimented her fair face and the long dark hair that stylishly flowed down her shoulders, I offered her a sit after She called my attention to the fact that my eyes where soon going to bore holes on her face. She sat on the chair which was slightly to my right and began to wait for Michael while scrolling through her phone, normally I would have started a discussion which will end with ''can I have your number?'' But on this occasion I had a big problem or so I thought, My problem was not remembering what happened the previous day, couldn’t remember how and when I got home, and why I slept with my shoes, wrist watch and belt on, I was just about to pick up my phone and call Joseph to know if he could give me any clue as to how the previous day ended when I heard the lady whose name I later learnt was Joy said ''...so is this how boring this place gets during festive seasons?'' (if only she knew the kind of thinking that was going on in my head) I raised my head to look to her direction and said with a forced smile''...yea, it might be boring for you but it’s not boring inside my head''

She giggled and told me how it was nice of me not letting my mind be the idle mind that would become the devils workshop, obviously she didn't understand what I meant and I didn't bother to explain, it kept the conversation going. After our about 2 hours of chatting which was cut short when Michael arrived, it dawned on me that what I thought was a problem to me was not worthy to be called a problem compared to what she had faced and was facing.

She started by telling me how she was happy for me that my looks and accent didn't tell that I was from the eastern part of the country, she talked about how dubious and aggressive some eastern fellows could be and I couldn't agree less, my unpleasant upper iweka experience was still fresh in my head. She told that she was born and brought up in Jos and only left Jos to Benin in February of 2011 when she got admitted into University of Benin to study Law and She had been in Benin ever since, and that she just came back around November 2013 for the first time since leaving for school.

I couldn't help but wonder what she was doing in Benin during all the breaks between semesters and especially the ASUU strike, then my curiosity led me to ask her why She had spend such a long time in Benin without coming home to see Her folks, that was when she told me what I never expected Her to tell someone she just met, She told me that she messed up, that she made a very careless mistake in her first year, I was expecting the mistake to be a couple of carry overs or  at worst, an extra year. I had to swallow back my heart and catch my breath when She told me that She got pregnant towards the end of Her first year.

I was disturbed, not because I have never seen an undergraduate get pregnant but because this particular undergraduate I was planning to chyke who I was sure was not more than 20 years of age had a 10 months old boy at home.

She narrated to me her Ordeal, how she was pregnant for nine months without any of her family members knowing, coming up with excuses for not coming home for 3 years, She further told me about how sure she was that She was going to die, but had a hard time deciding which means of death was best for her, she was either to let the stigma of being a pregnant teenager kill her or high blood pressure from too much thinking or even just let her Dad do the killing, another option she considered was taking her own life. Although she didn't spare me the details of how she was able to cater for the child, her self and her academics at the same time, but one can only imagine what she went through.

When she left after collecting her completed work from Michael, I thought about how she had gone through the whole stuff and still retained that brilliant smile and beauty that lit up the whole room, that was when I saw the truth in the saying that ''those who smile more have experienced the most pain''.

...the conversation didn't end with 'can I have your number', but it ended with me knowing that

'Nobody has it easy, everybody has issues, you never know what people are going through  so pause before you start judging, criticizing and mocking others, everybody is fighting their own unique war'