AMAKA’S FIRST JOURNEY TO THE VILLAGE: By George Cardinal

Once upon a time, there was a girl whose name was Amaka. Throughout her twenty five years of age, she never visited nor travelled to any part of the eastern region nor her own village for the first time. Her parents used to tell her that she hails from a village called Okolochi, a small community located in the north-east region of the capital city of Imo state. Her parents had lived in Maiduguri the capital of borno state as petty traders And general supplier of goods and services to various companies ,  Amaka schooled in the same city through HER primary, secondary and university days . At first sight nobody would recognize Amaka as an Igbo girl because she not only spoke Hausa fluently; she also dressed and kept Hausa’s as friends. Her parents had grown old and retired back to the village practicing farming as a means of livelihood.  One day a young man proposed marriage to Amaka and demanded to meet with her parents. As a Nigerian girl from the East, it was part of the tradition and culture that any suitor seeking the hand of an Igbo girl in marriage must be prepared to travel to the girl’s homestead where marriage rights would be conducted before the entire village. Amaka had no other choice than to embark on this all important journey to the village to inform her parents about the good news of her getting married. It was on a Saturday. Amaka woke up as early as four o’clock, prepared and headed to the central motor park where she boarded a bus to owerri .There was no traffic, no vehicular break down, no molestation of any kind until she got to owerri by 7pm in the evening. At first Amaka was lost and fear was written all over her but as a matured educated girl she comported herself in a way a person of her status would and should. Her father had arranged for her a designated spot where some family members were on hand to pick her, on their way to the village She confessed that she may have found it very difficult, if not impossible to make the trip that night to the village, but they safely arrived to the warm embrace of the entire family and everybody was happy.

THE END.