For The People, a pan-African novel (Ch. 1 Pt. 6)
In the morning I always thought the sun opening was like my eyes opening and the teachers told us that is precisely what it is like. Mammy said it was the eye of Natha looking on the world after being made weary, but the teachers say it's like an eye but not actually an eye. They say it is Amut's machine, and that the sun is attached to something else, and they know that cause of shadows somehow, but their answers sometimes seem true and sometimes seem like they are just saying things to fill places that they don't know. They say the sun opens fastly in the morning but that it slows as the day goes by, so in South Abvua their day is 7 hours and our's is 9 hours, but they have long mornings and evenings, when our's are sudden. I can't imagine having such a short day and such long nights, but their's wouldn't be so cold so it wouldn't be so bad, or maybe they would cause they're farther away from the sun, I'm not sure. But I do know yamm Abvua is especially cold cause of air currents, the teachers say they're because of the machine in the sky too.
In the desert there's a place where the sun never closes, we saw a picture taken from a dune far away and it looks very nice, it's a long line across the desert where it's always day. The teachers say it's so hot in the desert your skin cooks while you're alive, but it also helps preserve things so that's how they keep food on the journey, cause there's nothing out there to eat except white fractus flesh, which is refreshing but tastes weird, I had some a traveller gave me once, I didn't really like it. The sun comes up suddenly too and if you see sunrise it's like a wave across the sky, but I prefer to wake up and it be day cause it's warmer then. Baba said if you were outside at night for an hour without a iferandan you'd die and I believe him cause even with a iferandan it's still cold, and they're the warmest things in the world that I know of. We lost most of our's when it rained that time and they're expensive cause they're made out of wool and goat skin, and they're hard to make so we'd rather have a bicycle. You only need them outside at night anyway.
I get really excited about the bicycle cause I've always wanted to go on an adventure, but even though most people are never hungry here people still do bad things to each other sometimes, and adventures can be dangerous cause although alot of people will be friendly and want to help you, if you meet someone who isn't friendly there's nothing that can stop them doing bad things except you, and that's scary dangerous cause there are lots of strong men in Ingera. We have lots of weapons but they're for farming. We're not fighting people, we make things grow.
It makes me sad that lots of people stay alive by stealing and hurting people. There's more of that in the world than there is peace and harmony, and I bet most of them only do it cause they're hungry. People do awful things when they're hungry. Mammy and the teachers tell me that we're different from the animals but I think there's less differences than they do. People are just reasonable animals, but I can bargain with the chickens for wemillet husks so they're reasonable too.
Mammy and the teachers say I have a soul but I'm not sure what a soul is cause Mammy says all things are souls, and that ancestors are stronger souls giving themselves away to make weaker souls live, and the teachers say Amut is our soul, but I don't believe in either of those things so does that mean I don't have a soul? I don't feel too different so having a soul doesn't seem like anything that great, cause being an ancestor who lives in someone's skin would be boring, and if all souls are Amut then we're all the same and I don't want to be the same, I like being me, not not me. Though cause I don't have a soul if I die then I die forever cause there's no soul to go anywhere, but I won't die cause of a good reason. My reason that I won't die is cause the Capsyts can figure out anything, and they made a steam machine so they can figure out how to make death go away, and if I get lots of 'liquid gold' and naira then I could give that to them and they'd trade it for things they need so they'd invent it faster, and then I wouldn't die. I don't think I could invent something like that but I could definitely help. Life is really long anyway so maybe when I'm old and crinkly like Mammy I'll be happy to die.
I don't want Mammy to die but it must be awful to be old. Mammy can barely do anything at all. Baba told us about Mammy when she was younger and how able-bodied she was. She'd do everything a man could do but better. She had to cause Pappy died younger than Baba is now so I never met him, none of us did. All we know is that he was real mean. Baba and Mammy don't like to talk about him and I understand why cause you have to think about positive things to make life good, thinking about bad things just makes life bad and makes bad normal.
It was very unusual for Mammy to raise her children by herself, but she did it. It's sad though cause uncle Ewo died from the soldiers, and auntie Ikigbe died in childbirth, so we only have auntie Pamo left, she lives on the other side of the village, but she has lots of children so she's always busy. Sometimes we still see her and it is fun at her house but very cramped, I wouldn't want to live there.
I asked Mama why she hadn't had more children after me and she cried. I was sad to see her cry but I'm still happy she hasn't had any more children. Omoba said he wanted to find a wife and settle down, and he talked to Baba about it for a long time one night in bed and everyone else was quiet. I think it was important that they talked about that cause that's Omoba's future and everything he'll do in his life. Having a wife and children would mean you couldn't do anything else, and it would be mean to leave them so it's a very big decision. I don't think I'll want a wife and children for a very long time, I have to see all Abvua first. But then I'd be old and I don't know whether old people can have children. I don't even know if I'd know a lady to be my wife. Tihli is nice but I can't imagine her as a wife. Can you marry your friend?
Marrying people sounds strange, and I like the party bit but I want to be free when I'm grown up. I would love my wife and children but adventuring is dangerous and I wouldn't want them to be in danger or worry about me. I think danger is scary but the world is so big and there's so many different things in it that I want to see so I have to do dangerous things to see them. I'm brave now but there's lots of dangers that I can't beat, so when I'm older I'll be stronger and faster to beat the danger and see the wonderful things.
The ground is soft after the rain but already I can see shoots growing out. Beckerweed grows very fastly at the start of the wet season, a whole plant can grow in two days so we let the chickens eat the shoots cause the grown-up plant tastes like burning and it gives you a tum ache. I like splashing around in the mud and the sea stays at high tide for a little while each day so I can wash and it's not so dangerous cause as the tide goes out it throws living land things out too eventually, but always swallows not living things. Once I got carried out by the tide for miles before falling out and had to walk back, but it was a nice day and the ground was soft so I didn't get hurt too bad. Mama was very mad at me but I said I was sorry and I don't go out very far in the sea now.
It rains almost every day at the beginning of the wet season and it's very hard to take the chickens out and then put them back and then make sure the shoots from our crops don't get drown. The beginning of the wet season is the most hectic time cause you don't know what will happen. In the dry season it's not as bad cause you just have to survive and nothing can really go wrong except a duststorm, and there hasn't been a big one since I was a baby, but in the wet season you never know how much it will rain so you don't know how much to prepare, so we just roll buton fibres and put them in all the gaps in case there's a flood and cause we're so close to the sea a flood doesn't last long, but it can make alot of mischief so we do it anyway.
Tending to the plants is hard, and me and Mama are the best at it cause they're so little and need to be treated very delicately until they're grown. Me and Mama cut trenches around the crops cause the teachers say this is irrigation and it's how they grow food in Capsy and Imagy cause it's alot hotter and drier there, but there are green bits too past the Atlast mountains. This is the first year we've done irrigation and I bet it will work a treat too. I'm excited for this year's crop cause we've done things that I learned in school, so if our crop is better we won't need any more food than normal so it means we have more food to sell, and I'm sure this year we'll have enough for a bicycle which means we can take more food at a time and maybe we'll build more on the house. I get very excited about things sometimes and Omoba and Arino get mad at me cause I talk alot about all the things I'm excited for, and even Mama and Baba get angry at me cause of that sometimes. I can copy how Baba says 'Give it a rest son.' exactly, but it means we talk about lots of things that we wouldn't talk about if I hadn't mentioned them so they know that it's good even if they get mad sometimes, and I know that so I don't feel bad when they get mad at me unless I've done something wrong, then I know I did a bad thing even if sometimes I lie and pretend I didn't, but I think everybody does that.
When I lie in bed at night after a rain and there's no wind sometimes I think I hear the plants growing, and Mammy says you should talk to the plants cause plants can hear even if they can't reply.
Sometimes when I'm in bed and Omoba isn't here I can hear Mama and Baba do sex in bed, and it is strange but it makes Baba and Mama happy and love each other so I think it's okay. Only I don't really want to be there when they do it cause I'm trying to sleep. I wouldn't do sex in bed if my children were in the room, but I would only want a family if I had a big warm house so I could do sex anywhere, even not in a bed. I don't really understand sex in bed but if it's good enough for Mama and Baba then it's good enough for me.
Sex in bed is how babies are made but babies smell.
Once I saw a poo on the beach. A stranger told me about Liber where the ground is always wet and they have a different money but they never have enough of it. He said that there were too many people in Liber, and even with the buton trees people still went hungry cause they cut them down for firewood and now it was a barren land. He said Liber was growing and I thought Liber sounded like Onco, but he said that was ridiculous. Liber doesn't seem like a nice place and I don't understand why they cut down the buton trees or why they had so many babies, cause now they can't feed them. I bet there's lots of people who poo on the beach there.
He said in Liber they set fire to a thing called chufih and there isn't any chufih in Ingera. I think the man was from Liber cause he didn't speak Ingeran too good and it seems like lots of people are running away from Liber, which is sad cause they'll go to Ordinary Coast, and apparently the whole country grows buton trees there so they'll have even more babies and Ordinary Coast will become like Liber. I hope the people from Ordinary Coast manage to fight the people from Liber cause sometimes you have to fight to defend yourself, even from people who aren't that bad.
Boys have attacked me before and I wasn't very good at defending myself, but one day I will be cause I'll be confident. I'm embarrassed when people pick on me but I have a big mouth so when I feel okay I can tell them off right, I'm just not a very good fighter cause I'm smaller than most boys, but I can run fast so if I feel it's dangerous then I can run away. I had to run away one time a drunk man attacked me with a stick but he was a slow runner and I never saw him again. Most times I don't run away cause the boys call me a gayperson, and gaypeople have men for wives so that doesn't sound like something I would want to be, but if other people want to be gaypeople then as long as they don't try to marry me I don't care.