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Let me speak .......... let me utter my voice. Let me speak as a woman
Let me speak, about the breath taking allure, effervescence, sheer ambience of a city called Jos.
I speak the breath taking awesomeness of Jos..... I speak as a woman.
Beautifully laced with some of the finest flora and fauna in the land, Jos remains one of the most alluring, geographic and touristic destinations in Nigeria. With a temperate weather to die for, fruits and fresh vegetables always in season, Jos remains one of my favourite cities in the country.
I have discussed severally with my friends in Jos that as soon as God blesses me with some funds I shall build a country home in Jos where I can take friends and family for a holiday, where I can write in safety and harmony, mingling with nature at its best.
I have not been to Obudu, I hear its as beautiful, but I know Jos and I have eaten of its fruits, drank of its spring water, enjoyed its hospitality, ate vegetables at its freshest , made some phenomenal friends and dwelt in its welcoming cleavage. Misty at dawn, lush greens in the evening breeze, and housing the most unbelievable variety and species of plants and flowers I have ever seen. Every side of the city housing its own delight, its countryside awe-inspiring, the fields, the plateau, the potatoes and its cosmopolitan ambience directly derived from the influence of early missionaries.
Over the years my dream of building a house in Jos is slowly ebbing partly because I am still unable to garner the required resources but mostly because of the constant upheavals in Jos.
The beauty which I taste and behold especially every time I visit which is often( because in the last seven years but one I have been Guest lecturer at the NTA TV college based in Jos) has made it one of the high points of my yearly calendar. And its not just because I go to mould young and aspiring Broadcasters which is a joy but I yearn for it, because of Jos, the city, its many twists and turns which never ceases to delight , titillate , surprise and elevate the spirit.
But this piece is not about delight, or the Jos dreams that are being deferred, it is a piece about the pain in my heart and the salty tears that come unannounced as I view the gory pictures from Jos and I hear the stories of victims, survivors, escapists, attacks, counterattacks and the wailing of children. My heart refuses to sleep in the face of such tragedy, in the face of Rwanda at play, in the face of accusations and counteraccusations. This piece is a piece for fallen victims and unwilling heroes, of hatred and anger, of blood and bloodthirstiness and of my insides becoming mushed up, watery....... sad ....... unhappy.
I speak as a woman..... as a mother, as a sister, as a friend. I speak as a mother...l speak those loud noises in my head that only I can hear when I look at women in the aching stories, who have lost six children to the carnage.......... actors in a real life horror movie
I speak........ shouting in my spirit about labour pangs for every child that died in the crisis over the years.For I know as as a woman that one never knows at birth whether mother or baby will survive.I speak as a woman .... about death, about burying one's children.
I speak as a woman..... barring politics and whatever factors have led to these sufferings where more often than not a woman's views are not sought when carnage, war, hatred become the norm. I speak... knowing that when men agree to disagree, women hold the short end of the stick becoming victims of the destruction ,dislocation ,and death.
I speak as a woman because I know where it hurts when an emptiness claims your being at the sight of headless children, disembowelled women, gutted intestines and a missing husband.
I speak the thoughts of tear-ridden women who wake to find everyone dead in their homestead except the lonely dog whose howling is ceaseless at dawn.
I speak as a woman..... and borrow the voice of a friend, award winning writer and Author of "Say you are one of them" Jesuit Priest Uwem Akpan .Capturing the sadness of Rwanda in the Genocide years, where wives "belonged" to the wrong tribe and husbands were asked to decapitate their wives in full public view of their children in the hauntingly arresting short story titled "My parents bedroom", Uwem unnerves us with the tragedy of it all.
In a gut wrenching scene in this short story from the collection, a man is led to kill his wife because she belongs to the haunted tribe, and he is threatened by his people that if he does not do it, they will kill him, his two children and his wife. The story is told through the eyes of their nine year old daughter.
Papa is standing before mamman his finger on the knife's handle
"My people", he mumbles "let another do it please"
"No, you do it traitor!"................
"Papa lands the machete on mamman's head. Her voice chokes and she fall off the bed and onto her back on the wooden floor. Its like a dream. The knife tumbles out of papa's hand. His eyes are closed, his face calm, though he's shaking"
Eugenia Abu, Broadcaster and writer is the Author of “Dont look at me like that” a collection of poems.
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