Nothing creates lifelong memories and family experiences like travelling. There are three, maybe un-generalized, stages in any travel: the preparation, the journey, and the arrival. Each stage is crucial to another because it is relative and symbiotic.
I will tell about a travel, the one which is about my sister’s traditional marriage, with the assistance of the three un-generalised stages mentioned above. I am telling about this particular travel because it’s something I have given a meaning and an outline inside of me so as not to be forgotten.
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The Preparation
I have just finished observing our mother and sister load their fourth travel bag with clothes. And I’m wondering why they need that for a short travel. I read, mostly on Facebook, that women pack a lot of things for any travel and some of them get unused and untouched. ‘Why?’ is the big question, you see. Yet, no one seems capable of a satisfactory answer. My two brothers, Onyii and Uche and I are yet to pack. We each own a bag and will pack the few things we need for the short travel. It is now a tradition that we pack our things the night before the morning of any travel.
We are getting ready to leave Awka for our village in Imo State. My sister’s traditional marriage would hold in four days time.
Our mother is almost solely responsible for organizing everything. She has been busy with buying food items in the market, hiring cooking utensils, coolers and chairs; calling friends who will help with and during the cooking; making sure that the tailor making my sister’s outfits fulfills their agreement of having them ready before the date; and sharing invitation cards. She has just requested for the third batch of the invitation cards which I am to pick up from the printing press.
I’m afraid that we will be entertaining a whole country in our small compound in the village. My sister is in her room with a close friend whose responsibility is to make sure that their other friends, who will lead her out to greet the people gathered during her traditional marriage, don’t disappoint.
The other day, I saw our mother in the room admiring an outfit before carefully putting it inside her third traveling bag. The outfit is an expensive Ankara that has been made solely for the ceremony. The shoes to accompany the outfit are in a shoe-bag beside her traveling bags. I smile. Since we have known the groom’s family, our mother has been glowing with great happiness and bliss. She appears to be happier than my sister who is getting married.
With our mother, I have come to understand that a daughter’s marriage is also as difficult as giving birth to her. The daughter finally leaves the mother. Although our mother is happy, there are times I have seen her alone in her room, looking into distance, engulfed by thoughts. I have asked her on a few occasions why she has developed such a saturnine attitude.
And one time like that, she muttered, “Nene will be leaving soon.”
I smiled. It is what I do best. I smiled because I know our mother well enough: she did not mean Nene is “leaving us” in her “leaving soon”, but “leaving me”.
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The Journey
7:45 am. We have taken our baths and had breakfast. We are dressed, all of us, ready for the travel that will herald a new lap in my sister’s life, in all our lives. With her eventually gone with the groom, beholden to a new destiny, what would things be like at home from now on, when the drums have died, the oily plates washed and littered bottles gathered, the guests way beyond the gates of our homestead?
We leave the outside lamps on to ward off thieves, which I think is no longer a brilliant idea. The house windows have been shut tight, the dustbins emptied, the toilet seats covered, the gas cylinder outside turned off and carried into the house, the pipe that takes water into our house turned off as well. I supervise all the activities as directed by our mother. The front and the back doors of the house are specifically locked by our mother. I watch her take the keys from the door lock and toss them into her handbag. Bags full of items and clothes and the remaining things needed for the ceremony are already in the back of the car. My brothers and I have arranged them so that nothing gets broken.
I take the wheels. My sister sits beside me. Onyii and Uche and our mother are at the back.
“Shut the car door,” I say to my sister, “let’s leave already, we need to―”
“Is the pipe water into the house properly turned off?” our mother asks.
“Yes,” Onyii says.
“Are all the food items bags and everything for this journey in this car?”
“Yes!” Uche says.
“Go and make sure,” our mother insists.
Uche hesitates.
“Go about it right now,” our mother orders. “I will deal with you if we get to the village and something is missing.”
Uche exasperatedly goes over to the back of the car and confirms.
“Are the cans of groundnut oil also in this car?”
“Yes mum,” my sister says. And our mother agrees and says nothing further.
“Finally. We are set,” I announce and turn on the car engine.
“The fuel. Will it be enough for this journey?” our mother asks me.
“Yes mum, I refilled the car tank yesterday,” I say.
“Did you check the engine oil? And the brake fluid? Are the caution triangles and extinguishers in this car? I don’t want any of the police and road safety corps’ trouble.”
“Everything is alright, mother.”
“Put off the car engine and let’s pray. Every time, you are in haste.”
I sneer and turn off the car engine. I wonder how I am in haste as I hadn’t even moved the car. My sister says the prayers:
“O God, our heavenly Father, whose glory fills the whole creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go: preserve us as we travel and the others all over the world who travel by land, by sea, and by air; surround us with your loving care; protect us from every danger; and take us in safety to our journey’s end; may the reason we embark on this journey be accomplished and fulfilled to the glory of your name and install happiness and joy upon the faces we will meet at home; and may you send blessing in our handiwork, and grant us grace, kindness, and mercy in your eyes and in the eyes of all who see us. All these we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
We all chorus, “Amen,” and begin the journey.
I turn on the car engine and start driving us towards the junction that will lead us away from Awka and set us on the tar to our village. I get to the junction and step on the brake, slowing the car down. The junction stretches into two other roads, which I tagged: the long and the short route. Then I ask, as I point, “Mother, should I take the long route or the short route?”
“The short route.”
I take the short route and accelerate.
“Anything wrong?” our mother asks.
“Nothing,” I murmur as I meet her face in the rear mirror.
The short route is the long route. Our mother likes us taking it because its road is tarred and has fewer potholes; unlike the long route that is the short route, that harbours lots of potholes and roadblocks, that most people call the python dance.
Halfway into the journey, my sister is already asleep. I look at her and smile as I meet her calm and relaxed face. Maybe she is dreaming. Dreaming about herself walking through the crowd with a cup filled with palm wine during the traditional marriage ceremony, locating where her husband is seated and waiting. Or dreaming about herself and her husband kneeling before me and my uncle for blessings, since our father is no more. He died years ago of cancer in Cambridge University Hospital, England―it would have been gracious and gratifying if he was with us now, for nothing is more fulfilling as a father’s blessings, according to my people. Perhaps she is dreaming about us, her brothers and relatives, trailing behind her with her belongings as she accompanies her husband and his people to their place.
My two brothers are busy with their phones, and our mother is awake making calls. Her eyes are also on the dashboard, ready to scream at me when I exceed 60mph. She has warned me severely not to exceed it whenever she is in a car with me. And she has warned me about staring at any passersby while driving, especially women. This is a difficult instruction, for a boy like me, to obey. So, I devise to use the side mirrors. But it only allows me to look at their hips and behinds instead of their faces, bosoms, and tummies. A song is playing from the car radio, it is slow and uninteresting. I cannot change it or play the kind of songs I enjoy because our mother detests them. She claims they are full of bang-bang, bang-da-da-dang beats accompanied by obscene and meaningless words and lyrics. But what meaning does a song have if it’s uninteresting, slow and can even send you to sleep before it ends?
We have passed Agulu town, Nanka town, and Ekwulobia town. We are about leaving Uga town for Akokwa town. The road is lonely and abandoned. No noise from marketers. No beckoning from hawkers and park-men and beggars. Just a few old shacks with food items―yams, cucumbers, potatoes, abacha, and oranges―paraded in their fronts. There are fewer cars on the road and I am not happy I am being overtaken by them. I deem them not fast enough for our car. I look at our mother through the rear mirror, she looks back at me. I take my face back to the wheel and maintain the desired speed limit. Then I exceed it a little. I like being fast. To me, if you are not fast enough with anything, life either eats you up or makes you slow and tired. I don’t think anybody wants that.
We are in Akokwa town. The first town one meets on entering Imo state from Awka when the short route is taken. The town is busy. I see people walking fast along the roadsides. I see kiosks, stalls, shades and stands with displayed goods in their front. I see hawkers too. They are running after cars with wares in the hands. Noise and music from stores rent the air. A man from a stall is running and screaming after a woman, who is waving down a motorcycle, distances away from him to pay for an item she had bought from him. There are more bicycles, motorcycles, and trucks than cars on the road. Roadside beggars have their arms outstretched, asking for alms. Tricycles are also lined up at strategic corners for commuters.
Akokwa town, as much as I know it, is nothing like Awka. In Awka, everyone retires for the day by 9 p.m. This has been a tradition for a long time now and I believe will change over the next few years. Some people regard Awka as a calm city. The “calm” used for Awka, I have no issue with, but regarding it as a city is like calling a chimpanzee a gorilla. Awka is known for the numerous hotels and hostels scattered all over. And more are springing up. Though Awka bears bad roads and no city plan, it has good road networks.
A police officer, a few meters away, waves down our car. Onyii murmurs. Uche sighs. My sister is still asleep. Our mother is calm. No words from her.
I hit on the brake and the car slows down and then stops as directed. There are other police officers on the other side of the road waving down cars. It’s interesting to see them putting their hands in and out of their pockets as cars drive away. I wind down the car window and greet the police officer whose gun is swung over his shoulder. He greets back and walks to the back of the car, peeps in, and then returns to my side.
“Can I see the car papers?”
I find them where they are safely kept in the pigeon hole and hand them over to the police officer for inspection.
“What do you have in the back of the car?” the officer asks, handing back the car papers.
“Just food items and clothes,” I say.
“Are you sure nothing bad is in the back?”
“Nothing.”
“If I check and find anything bad…”
I want to speak, but our mother’s voice drowns my own, “Officer, you can go check it yourself. Nothing bad is in there.” She taps me on the shoulder, “Go open the trunk for the officer.”
“Madam, Madam. I am just doing my work,” the police officer interjects.
I sit back inside.
“I know,” our mother says, “that is why my son will show you to the car trunk.”
I turn and look at our mother who is looking at the officer who is looking into the car.
The police officer tells me to go on after he has requested I give him money to buy drinking water. Which I don’t do. Because it is not good. Because our mother has given the officer will-you-behave-well stares.
My sister wakes and looks around. She is looking for signboards that indicate our location.
“We are in Akokwa,” I say to her.
“We are close,” she mutters and picks her phone, where it had dropped, from the car foot mat.
“Yes, we are close,” Onyii replies. “You already got to the village, in your sleep, before us.”
Our mother chuckles, Uche laughs. I keep a straight face because I am angry that cars are zooming past and I can’t do anything. I swerve off the road and stop in front of a shack on our mother’s request. She buys two bunches of bananas.
Suddenly, Onyii says, “Mother, I don’t like that picture our sister and her husband put on their wedding invitation card.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Our sister looks like a child there. A thirteen-year-old girl.”
Everybody laughs. My sister, who is liberal and enjoys having her space, does not. But she smiles and tells us that it is not nice to say such a thing about her looking younger than her age.
“Don’t mind them. They are missing you already,” our mother says.
But we, I and my brothers, are not, at least not that much. It is our mother who is missing her already. I am sure.
*
The Arrival
I make a right turn and then left as I gradually drive down a slope that stretches into the compound. I halt the car, turn off its engine after announcing our presence with honks. Our cousins, aunts and uncles emerge from their houses and circle us. We are received with warm smiles and embraces. Our mother hands them food items as gifts and reminds everyone to get ready for her daughter’s traditional marriage. My sister is smiling, but at the same time, she is shy. I look at my wristwatch and sigh quietly. The short route, as usual, took us three hours and thirty-eight minutes to arrive at the village, instead of two hours and forty-five minutes if we had taken the long route.
We begin to unpack everything from the car into the house. Our mother stands at a side making sure all the needed items are complete. When we are done, and mother satisfied, I lock the car. My brothers and sister enter the house.
“Are you sure the car is really locked?” mother asks me.
“Yes mum,” I say halting my strides into the house.
“Go make sure.”
I go over to the car and lock it again to her seeing.
She smiles at me, and then leads the way into the house. Though I smile back at our mother in my head, I see in her smile flecks and speckles of joy and delight for one whose daughter of exquisite and unmatchable beauty and character will gather people, far and near, to herald and celebrate at the traditional marriage.