Godwin Inyang's Blog

  The first time I consciously realized some English words were not used anyhow was in Elementary Six. It was towards the end of first term, the head teacher or headmaster (as it was known then), Mr Ntuen (but the pupils fondly tagged him Mr Pepper as the word in mother tongue which the head teacher bore refers to the same object the English word portrays) was sitting before us and dishing out pieces of advice as a responsible father to his innocent children - our lovely head teacher was aging and about to retire.                 After all he told us (do I remember any salient point?), we were about to sing from the hymnal and also it was a carol as Christmas was fast approaching. The headmaster was reading out the words to guide us how to pronounce them properly (of course, the language was this same headache-giving English Language). He came to the word ‘baby’ and an overzealous pupil screamed ‘abeibei’....

It’s recently I got to know Mma Efa was a no-nonsense senior policewoman whom drivers in the South-east dreaded because of the ‘discipline’ she meted out to recalcitrant drivers. They tagged her a ‘witch’. Of course, that’s understandable because back then in the late 1970’s when the policewoman sent shivers down the spines of men, it was inconceivable for women to be considered equal to men. So any woman who seemed to lord it over the men was seen as extraordinary. So, my class mistress who beat pupils with a short wiry bamboo was aptly referred to as ‘Mma Efa’. It was a Saturday morning. I and Okon were at the veranda of the front building in my grandmother’s place, chatting. I can’t remember the plans at the age of eleven that we were hatching but it could’ve been about throwing cards, setting traps for birds, flying kites or going to the stream to fish and bathe. Those were the things I and Okon often did together. Then, my eyes strayed to the street and I saw Mrs Peter, my P...