I was eleven years old when it started during a sumptuous family dinner. Hot Ekpang Nkukwo, freshly prepared, with enough red oil from a newly processed palm fruit, which gave it the enticing, irresistible, reddish-green hue and flavour. The aroma wafted through the entire vicinity and travelled across the neighbourhoods.
I loved the food.
The periwinkles. The scent leaves. The dried bonga-fish, ibat as it is called in ibibio. It was mouth-watering deliciousness.
Seated around the Ekpang Nkukwo dished into a tray and placed on the traditionally made table from raffia palm—akwañ, we devoured the delicacy unapologetically. The joy and competition, to see who would eat the greater portion of the scenting Ekpang Nkukwo on the tray, a moment I so longed for, but now buried in memory. The repercussion of trying to be someone different.
“Eyen mmi, nso ke ayem ido ke ini iso?” Son, what do you want to be in the future? My father asked me with a deadpan voice, blowing the hot food on the spoon.
“Doctor.”
My response came almost immediately, like I had expected the question.
He froze. He stopped blowing the food. His face contorted in a mask of fury, and his eyes were sunk in as he narrowed his gaze at me.
I smiled with the spoonful of food in my mouth and giggled. The food bubbled and splashed out like a baby.
“At eleven, you’re still behaving like five!” my mom lashed at me with a scornful glare that called me to order.
My father, he hardly smiled. The condescending twist of his face implied nothing short of his mere reactions to surprises.
But therein was the anger and envy that pulled the strings of familiarity beyond its breaking point.
“Ukeme, stop it!”
My mother spanked my back; her voice held a hint of exasperation, noticing her husband’s ferocious countenance. The look in her eyes towards my native doctor father spoke fear.
Then, I stole another glance at the man I had just laughed with. He stared at me with cold, detached eyes, his face turned grim, displaying contours.
I immediately had cold feet; dread overwhelmed my skin with goose bumps.
“Mummy….what is wrong with Eteka?”
“Ukeme, stop asking questions. Go inside now!”
With a shuddering breath, I jacked the tray up on my head and bolted inside.
While in my room, scraping the tray of its remnant, the chatter of their conversation never stopped to perch on my ears.
“Eteka, kuyad esit. Etok ayin ke ado.” Eteka, don’t be angry, he’s just a child. I could hear my mom plead, and my father’s husk.
He inhaled deeply and exhaled like a lion groaning. I stared into the empty tray before me. I had finished devouring its contents.
Since then, Eteka had never mentioned or asked any question related to my career.
Before I resumed my senior secondary class one, my mom asked.
“Ukeme, do you still want to become a medical doctor? Don’t you want to be like your fa….”
“Ke ben mmoñ nsok ñwoñ.” Pointing at me, he asked me to go and get him water to drink.
A few minutes later, I returned with the water.
“Eteka,” I called out, handing him the cup of water.
“Sosongo. ka ke daiya.” He ordered me to go and sleep.
Each time the conversation came up, he’d change the topic or act nonchalant.
And so, the family grew in silence with my mom as the linchpin. Throughout my senior secondary school years, nothing about my career ever got mentioned again.
My father never went to school; he was a native doctor and herbalist. He fed us from the gifts offered by the people, and the money he received from treating their ailments. The whole village knew him as ökök Udöñö – healer.
He claimed he inherited the knowledge from his father, which was passed down from his grandfather.
He couldn’t speak English fluently, just pidgin, which he managed to emulate from his Igbo friends.
A week after writing my WASSCE, my father sat me down. “Eyen mmi, nyem udökkö mkpö.” My son, I want to tell you something. He said to me in a calm, but serious tone. It was the first time in a long while that he ever sat me down to talk.
My heartbeat spiked gradually, and sweat clung to my forehead on a cloudy evening after a heavy downpour.
The anxiety and the dread weren’t something I could contend with.
He took me into his shrine and gave me a seat on an old mortar of clay placed upside down.
I sat facing the iso ekpo, a masquerade mask, that leaned against a small stone, with a small calabash placed in front of it. A small white basin with smoke was also placed beside it, and another small calabash containing cowries and some white marbles was placed in front of the iso ekpo.
He wrapped ayei — fresh, young, yellow palm leaves around it. Opposite that was a mirror with more ayei wrapped around its frame.
My father stood in front of the iso ekpo and performed incantations, with ayei between his gritted teeth, swinging and shaking. He took water from one of the white basins and sprinkled it in a circle around the whole place.
Just then, tinnitus set in as he completed the cycle.
I couldn’t hear anything outside anymore. The effect lasted for about two minutes. By then, he had taken a seat before me. He watched me as I tried to shake off the tinnitus. Finally, it wore off. I straightened my face, and our eyes locked, but I dropped them gently down to his chest.
He looked turgid after the incantations, like he had just come from the gym.
My face spelt out curiosity, widened eye, then a spasm ran through me that gave me a gentle backward jerk, which he acknowledged with a smile.
“My son,” his voice jolted me back to reality.
“You see this thing I do, my father teach me. Now, after you finish school, I want make you learn am.” He said in pidgin.
I smiled, amusement dangling in my eyes at his pidgin and his lit-up face. A faint smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
Then my smile dissipated. “Eteka, I don’t want to be Abia Ibok. I want to be a medical doctor,” I blurted irrevocably, not minding the backlash.
His face stiffened with a clenched jaw, and his nostrils flared. His eyeballs shrank with dull wrinkles lining his forehead.
With a raspy breath, he took a long sip of his ogogoro and gave out a forceful exhale.
“Ukeme!” his voice rose slightly. “I teach you this thing, for your own good. So you can have money. See the money I have now? It is because of this work I do.” He tried to convince me, but not even his anger could threaten my conviction. I remained resistant to his offer.
Resolute, I clung to my motivation of becoming a medical Doctor. My father claimed to have had money, but his riches were nothing compared to what I wanted. I wanted to live a better life, have a better house and family, and enough money to take care of them. An encounter I once had provided me with the confidence that I could achieve it.
Back in school, on a Monday morning orientation, some group of medical professionals had trooped in with a fleet of black Rolls-Royces. All looking plush and resplendent in their well-tailored suits.
They strode with confidence that carried wealth with an ease that never had to be proven. Every student stared in admiration, and the whole hall rallied in murmur, adoring their outfits. Upon addressing the students, scholarships were offered to the top 10 students who wanted to further their education as medical doctors. I was among the ten.
I shared the news with my mom, and she applauded my effort but advised that Eteka be kept clueless until I was ready to start university. So, my father’s offer to be a kin to the family’s legacy was nothing short of an obstruction to achieving my dreams, and I wasn’t ready to give up on them.
With my mom on my side, I was resolute and firm on my decision. My father never took an apprentice; he believed the power to heal dwelled in the bloodline, that only true descendants of Nnung Eteka, as our family was popularly called, could understand and wield the power.
I wasn’t just the only son, but his last hope of inheritance. So, rejecting the family’s legacy was like a disgrace to the family’s name.
In Ifa Edere village, family names were regarded with so much respect, and each family had their own legacy, of which mine was the power of a native doctor and a healer.
After my decision to reject his offer, he sat quietly for a moment as bitterness cloaked his heart, feeling the sting of rejection cut deep through his veins. The look in his eyes was that of a renewed disgust.
Eteka rose with rage. He stood straight, fidgeting. His eyes widened, and he started chanting incantations gently. Then, his voice scaled up into a crescendo as he moved with energy from one corner of the shrine to another.
I felt the temperature of the shrine drop, the tinnitus returned, and goose bumps flooded my skin. Terrified, I dashed out through the door covered with a thin, red linen. My heart pounded so heavily that the thud echoed in my ears.
The following morning, news had spread.
Abomination! Ukeme has disgraced his family’s legacy. Rumours had it that I’d be cast out. My father went out seeking advice from his fellow elders, while my mother only watched in silence, praying. She’d rather not be seen closer to me, else she would be accused of orchestrating the whole scene.
His food got cold, sitting on the table in the middle of the living room, waiting for him. My mother started worrying.
She stole glances through the curtain each time she heard footsteps approaching.
It was past 8 at night when my mother spotted a familiar figure walking haphazardly under the dim moonlight.
“Eteka!” Her voice rang out with urgency as she hurried towards him. She held onto his waist and guarded him home. He was already burning with fever.
She took one of his herbs and gave him a sip. Minutes later, the fever wore off. His water was already set for a bath, then he ate.
The night stretched long with silence. I was completely drowned in thought that sleep was far from my eyes, but the cool, morning breeze lulled me to sleep.
I woke to the clamour of the elders talking and laughing outside the hut. Peeping through the curtain, I saw their faces; some of them I could recognize and some were total strangers. They must have been from the neighbouring villages.
I sat on the mat, torn between thoughts. Before long, I heard my mother’s voice
“Emedioo,” she greeted, and placed something on a small stool before them.
“Eka soñ idem,” they chorused.
“Kase! Eben ye ebikpod.” My mother announced, offering them pears with corn.
“O! Eka, amenam aboho. Sosoño, Abasi udioñ,” the elders thanked her for her generosity.
Just then, my father stepped into the hut with a towel around his waist and water dripping from his hair. He quickly changed into his wrapper before going to join the elders outside.
“Wuo di añwa essien!” He gestured to me to join him outside as he stepped out.
The sound of his calling generated an arrhythmia within me.
As I stepped out, the arrhythmia intensified, hammering against my ribs like it would rip them apart. My father pointed to the centre where he wanted me to stand, and I sprawled in slowly.
“Emesiere oo,” I greeted, bowing my head. The sudden silence that welcomed my greeting hit like a bolt.
Then, my father stood up. “Ibibio isoño!” He hailed.
And they all responded “Iyah!”
He narrated what transpired, and at the end, requested their contribution, saying that my fate lies in their decision.
“Hmmhmmhmm.” One of the elders stood up, clearing his throat.
“Ehmm, Eteka, we have heard you. You did the right thing calling this meeting.
He turned to his fellow elders.
“My elders, we all know that our culture demands that the child must follow in his father’s footsteps.”
They all nodded.
“And, our culture has zero tolerance for desecration of the family’s legacy. From what we’ve heard, it is obvious that Ukeme here has displayed the highest level of disrespect to our culture by choosing a white man’s tradition over our own culture, and we will not sit quietly and watch this slide.”
He paused, took a deep breath, then continued.
“Since he has chosen the white man’s way of life over his own people, the culture says that we should let him go and never return until he is ready to pay due respect to the tradition and assume his responsibility as a true descendant of Nnung Eteka…”
“That’s not all!” another elder chimed in abruptly.
“If he returns without fulfilling the traditional rites, the culture says — prosecution.”
“Gbam!” The others concurred
“The seed of a baobab will always grow into a baobab.” A third elder said, standing to his feet.
“Ukeme, why have you chosen the path of destruction? Oduok ntoñ ke ntoñ akeene — He who throws ash is the one the ash follows. If you want to disgrace your family, you’re disgracing yourself.” The elder reprimanded.
“Do you want to take the responsibility as a descendant of Nnung Eteka or not?”
I stood, bowing my head. My thought a tangled mess of inheritance and ambition. “I want to be a medical doctor,” my voice came out feebly, stifled by the lump in my throat.
“Idoho ke ufok mmi!” Not in my house! My father thundered with a hoarse voice.
“Ben mkpö mfo wuo!.” Pack your things and go!
He stormed inside and came out with my bag, throwing it at me, while everyone watched in silence.
Just then, my mom rushed in, prostrating on the floor.
“Eteka, please forgive him….my son, please don’t go,” she wailed, clinging to my father’s leg, pleading for mercy. But his mind was made up. So was mine.
Something gave me the resilience. I don’t know what, but the confidence was inexplicable.
About the Author
Ofonmbuk James is a native of Ikot Obio Atai Itam in Itu Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State. He is currently pursuing his Pharm-D degree at the University of Uyo. His writing stems from a passion for creating thoughtful and imaginative stories. He has been writing for one year and is working towards publishing his first book before the end of the year.