English for Life Reader Grade 9 Home Language. Elaine Ridge
a powerful magnet, the commotion pulled us away from the rag dolls that had so occupied us but a moment before.
iii-ii-iiiiiWuu-uuuuu!
Mmbaaa – mbeeehh-ni!
Qhaaa-wuu-leee-laani!
An old man: short, tight-curled springs of wool on his head making a greyish-white skull cap tottered past in what I saw was his earnest attempt at running. His left hand clasped the blanket loosely wrapped around his body; his right arm, from the shoulder, was stuck out as if from a toga. Thin, long, and bony, it swung back and front in time to his intended accelerated step. Held high in the hand, a knobkerrie jutted out and away from his body. Each time he shouted – ‘Mbambeni! – Catch her!’ he stretched out the arm holding the knobkerrie, pointing the stick towards the mountain.
My eyes leapt to where he pointed. The mountain was playing a game of hide and seek with the sun. Or was it with the clouds? Anyway, half the mountain had disappeared. I threw my eyes towards the remaining half. There, distance-shrunk figures scurried, hurried, ran, and scrambled.
Ahead, a lone figure darted like a hare with a pack of dogs hard on its tail. The clouds were no idle players, I saw. They were the third party to this game; and they would make the telling difference.
Clearly, that day, I witnessed the birth of tears. The clouds wept and showered soft tears of mist onto the silent mountain. Would the fleeing figure gain the mist blanket in time? The sun smiled and the mist disappeared in a spray of long, hot, yellow needles, the children of the sun.
There she was, clearly, I saw her. Surely, her pursuers too could see her? – see her as I did?
My insides churned. A hot ball of fear curled inside my stomach. But the clouds, not to be outdone, wept. Thick, fat, dark-grey spears fell. Fast and hard they came. Thick, fat; safe for her to be enveloped in and lost to her pursuers.
‘Uye phi? Uye phi? Where’s she gone?’
Sounds of distress from those who were bent on her capture reached me. I held my breath as I strained with her, willing her to elude them, urging her on and on and on.
My last glimpse of her: blue German-print dress paled to a soft sky-blue by distance and lack of light … there she was, flitting here and there between boulders, her long new-wife-length dress making her seem without feet. As she hurried escaping, she appeared to me to be riding the air – no part of her body making contact with the ground.
Away she floated; the men plodded behind her.
I saw her waft into the wall of mist. I saw it close the crack she’d almost made gliding into it. Like a fish slicing into water, she’d but disturbed it. And it rearranged itself, accepting her into itself. And away from those who harried her.
I cannot remember her face at all. It was a long time ago and perhaps she had not tarried long with us. I don’t know. But I remember her leaving. And that is because it taught me about determination, the power of one’s will.
She was a young woman, a new wife. Her husband, my uncle, was away at work in one of the mines where all the men of the village went for a very long time. Later, much later, with great learning to aid me order my world, I would come to know the precise length of their stay – eleven months each year. However, this knowledge was light years away from me that fear-filled day long, long ago.
It must have been midday for the sun was well up and we children were already outside at play; that is, those of us too little to go to the one mud-walled, grass-thatched house called school.
I know I should’ve been sad at losing an aunt. I know she was a good makoti, cooked and cleaned well, and we children were saved from a lot of chores by her coming – new wives are worked like donkeys as initiation into their new status. I know I should have sympathised with my uncle who lost not only a wife but also the cattle, the lobola, he had given for her.
All I know, is the thrill I felt watching her escape into the thick grey cloud and mist.
| Post-reading | |
| 4. a) | Why is this woman running away? |
| b) | Why does she appear to “float” while the men “plod behind her”? |
| 5. | Look at the beautiful descriptions of |
| a) | the sounds made by the people and |
| b) | the beauty of the clouds and sun on the mountain. Pick out one example of each of these and say why it appeals to you. |
| 6. | The narrator describes the day as “fear-filled”. List the people in this story who were filled with fear that day and why. |
| 7. | The adult author tells us about an incident she experienced as a young child. The perspective is a mixture of what the child experienced and felt and what the adult is able to understand and interpret now. |
| a) | The narrator recalls the thrill of watching her uncle’s wife escape, but says she should have sympathised with her uncle who lost his wife that day. Which is the child’s perspective and which is the adult’s perspective? |
| b) | She says that “new wives are worked like donkeys”? Is this the child’s perspective or the adult’s perspective. Explain your view. |
| 8. | Suggest two reasons why this new wife has been made to work so hard. |
| Pre-reading | |
| 1. | What does it mean to be ‘loyal’? Do you find that you sometimes have conflicting loyalties? In that case, what makes you decide where your loyalty lies? |
| During reading | |
| 2. a) | Who is the narrator of this story? |
| b) | What is the boy’s father so excited about at the beginning of the story? |
| c) | Who is Ojukwu and what do the men think of him? |
| 3. | How do the people receive most of their news about the civil war? |
Loyalties
Adewale Maja-Pearce
This story is set during the Nigerian Civil War in the 1960’s. It is set in the new state of Biafra with its mostly Igbo people.
I was twelve years old at the time. One afternoon my father came rushing home earlier than usual.
‘Wife,’ he shouted to my mother who was out the back preparing food, ‘Wife, have you not heard the news?’ He was so excited he went rushing through the house. I followed him.
‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, a grown man like you rushing around like a small boy? What is it?’ my mother said.
‘Ojukwu has announced the new state of Biafra. We are no longer Nigerians, you hear? We are now Biafrans,’ he said and smiled.
‘And what then?’ my mother asked.
‘Woman, don’t you know what you are saying? Don’t you realize this is an important day, an historic occasion?’
My mother stood up and put her hands on her hips. Her face was streaming from the heat of the fire.
‘Whether we are in Nigeria or whether we are in Biafra we are almost out of firewood,’ she said.
My father raised his hands to the sky.
‘Events of world importance are taking place and you are telling me about firewood. Trust a woman,’ he said and walked away.
That evening the schoolmaster and the barber and the man who owned the Post Office came to our house.
‘Boy, come here,’ the schoolmaster called.
‘Come and hear what teacher has to say,’ father ordered.
‘Seven nines are?’
‘Sixty-three,’ I answered.
‘Good. Now, if twenty Nigerian soldiers march into our village and five Biafran women attack them with saucepans who will win?’ he asked, and the barber collapsed on the floor. My mother took me by the arm and we left the room. But I crept back and stood by the door.
‘What was I telling you the other day? That