Sudden Disappearance and a Mystery Bridge

Nene and Titi had gone to farm when Uncle Iyeke and his wife returned from a routine rubber-tapping chore. They proceeded to the kitchen to prepare irhibotor with canned sardines. Paxy and I sat at the kitchen door as we drew in the pleasant aroma of the dish, and licked our mouths in expectation. It is a mystery how the human mouth and its juices lose control at the sight of food. We swallowed tasteless saliva several times.

We weren't quite prepared for the shock treatment. We watched to our utter consternation and anger as Uncle and his wife alone demolished the dish. Paxy and I were so peeved by their selfishness we sought a way to hit back.

Paxy put his adventurous mind to work and soon came up with an idea: we would create severe anxiety by disappearing from the house.

“But where do we go to?” I asked.

“To my mother’s village,” Paxy suggested.

We packed a little bag and quietly slipped out of Nene’s house unnoticed. Paxy’s mother’s village was some eight to ten kilometres from home, and we were going to walk hours to get there. After more than an hour’s walk, we came against our first major obstacle—a bailey bridge just past Okuejeba, Adeje’s neighbouring town. We became afraid.

We stood a safe distance away from the bridge for probably thirty minutes, wondering how we were going to cross it. The devil struck our childish and mischievous minds with an unusual erasure of our thinking faculties. Somehow, our numbed minds believed the bridge would crash under us if we stepped on it. Our fear was not helped by the stream under the bridge as it rushed past in its threatening noises and blackish water. It was a bizarre thought that kept us transfixed on one side of the bridge. Perhaps this was a divine punishment for our thoughtless and reckless adventure of greed.

Propelled by his insatiable appetites, man’s recourse to fruitless journeys is legendary. Even as I write this sentence, the destinies of many men and women are being jeopardised by fatal journeys engineered by their uncontrolled appetites for food, sex, and pleasure.

Too afraid to step on the colonial bridge, we explored other means to safely cross the stream that stretched across our path and found none. Our bewitched minds had been completely immobilised.

Just when we thought we might beat a humble retreat and return home, we heard the rumble of a lorry in the distance. Soon it negotiated a bend and was steaming towards us. Holding our hands, we quickly ran out of the tarmac into a side bush. Vehicles were few in those days, and seeing one cruising was revelatory.

The Bedford lorry rushed thoughtlessly towards the bridge as Paxy and I stood terrified in the bush, far away from the abutment, expecting a calamitous crash anytime.

Before our wide-opened eyes, the lorry breezed past us and over the bridge, pasting our faces with a pancake of dust as it did. Incredible! The lorry was gone, shrouded in a blaze of dust, and the bridge stood. We watched the lorry re-appear from its cloudy cover in the distance. Its motto, No food for lazy man, emblazoned on its tail board, sent a timely message.

Because those colonial roads were built very narrow, vehicles passed and overtook each other on dusty tracks. The roads were even narrower at a bridge. When they passed by, a cloud of dust usually rendered the bigger vehicles invisible until some distance down the road when the dust cleared. Although they were narrow, these roads were built more solid than their modern compatriots. They didn’t get washed away in one rainy season for the 'Road Master' to come and repair. Besides, traffic on them was far less intense.

Emboldened by the performance of the Bedford lorry, we wiped our faces, came out of our hideout, and walked courageously over the bridge. Somewhere in the middle we jumped on the bridge, daring it to collapse under us. Safe at the other end, we turned and looked at the bridge in bewilderment. Years after, Paxy and I would recall this incident with great incredulity and laughter—laughter at the utter foolishness of childhood.

Just beyond the bridge, we took a right turn and beat the narrow path to Paxy’s mother’s village. His relatives received us with uncommon welcome. We told them all was well back home, and that we were visiting just to pass time with his maternal roots for a few days. Our explanations seemed to strike the right chord with our hosts who treated us extremely well. Trust kids; we were soon feeling at home.

Meanwhile, back home, a perplexed and agitated Nene searched for us fruitlessly for three days. For all of those days she went on a hunger strike and town-cried across Adeje, placing intolerable curses on anyone who had abducted her grandchildren.

Our sudden disappearance became a town concern. But, after three days, Paxy and I caused quite a commotion when we suddenly reappeared. Paxy’s relatives had despatched us with enough money to buy us many irhibotor dishes. Our adventure had paid off.

“Where did you both go to?” an infuriated Nene screamed.

“We ran away because Uncle Iyeke will not let us share in his sardine irhibotor,” Paxy ventured defiantly.

“You children ran away from home because of food?” Nene almost went berserk. She tilted her hip to one side and pinched it in fury. “Alright, I pinch my hip. Get yourselves ready. Since you both are starved of food in this house, I'm going to make you food. And you'd better be ready to eat the food of your lives!”

Any time Nene wanted to convey a rare emotion she would say, “I pinch my hip.” She was that dramatic. Her rage was palpable. We were ready for her punishment, but, at the same time, we were satisfied in knowing we had taught that ‘wicked’ and ‘insensitive’ Uncle Iyeke an important lesson.

At eventide, Nene’s rage wore off and no punishment came. That was vintage Nene, the ever caring and compassionate grandmother.

(Culled from my book Laughing Over Serious Matters. Call 08182813231 for copies. Take this link for other articles: https://www.chrisekpekurede.com/blog)