Godwin Inyang's Blog

CHAPTER 10   THE RANSOMS HAD NEIGHBOURS around their property to the right flank and also to the left; the path bordered them at the front but to see the border at the rear you actually walked down a footpath they constantly weeded to reach a swampy and thick bank of a brook. To one side he had dug a fish pond near the swamp and marked a large area around it he would need to wall and put wire netting around which he would use for raising snails. The financial aid about to be given was just coming at the right time to see him finish and launch his project. He had gone down the path quite early in the morning with Muscle and Bone running alongside him to look at the site and at the same time assess the sides of the path with vegetables and fruit trees to see if any weed was choking any plant and so whether he should work there that day or go to one of the distant farms. Done with his assessment of the site and farm, he decided the distant farms needed his attention more than th

He picked a book with a glossy cover on the table and showed it to the crowd and his colleagues picked a few copies and walked down the aisles to let the audience look closely at the well-produced books. Boldly on the large covers were assorted leaves surrounding a bee blown out of proportion. ‘The experts had carefully researched and put in this book the secrets of why our parents lived healthily for long and stayed strong throughout their years. They had lived long before the Europeans arrived and were not wiped out. But as soon as they arrived, the Europeans started falling sick because of mosquito bites. Our researchers were baffled by something they thought our forebears used in treating themselves which the Europeans ignored and brought in quinine to treat malaria. That missing remedy had been rediscovered and packaged in this book for our own good. ‘Another bad practice our parents ignored but we’re fond of doing today is this frying of food. Our parents boiled their yam, planta

CHAPTER 9   THE REGISTRATION EXERCISE for the get-rich-quick Western-backed scheme (according to what the coordinators professed) brought all sorts of characters to the Ransoms’ threshold and Mr Ransom seeing the mean ones around would ask his family (just like himself) to keep alert eyes on them. There was one fellow Grace readily identified as a potential crook as all the while he sat on the bench waiting to be attended to, he was just gawking at the goats and if not the goats were moved at night from the open pen to the locked-up stalls, something nasty might have happened soon to some as her instincts strongly warned her. Even the dogs were not safe. It was the reason they were not allowed to mingle with visitors during the day and were freed mostly when there was nobody in the house and at night. It was after a month that the applicants said, starting from Mr Ransom, that they were getting text messages on their phones from the NGO inviting them to a seminar at a locatio

CHAPTER 8   IN A JIFFY, MR RANSOM TRANSFORMED the appearance of his veranda. He brought out an old table and chair and placed them at one end and then two stools before the table where two applicants could sit at the same time and fill their forms; and behind the stools, leaning on one wall was a long bench that in a situation where there was a crowd, others would warm their butts as he attended to the applicants one after the other and at first come, first served basis. The dogs were locked up in the courtyard at the rear. They kept barking intermittently at the overwhelming presence of the intruders. Grace noticed that a bit of bossiness had crept into Mr Ransom’s tone as he attended to the applicants of the wretched ilk who had no bank accounts or phones while there was a bit of cajoling the enlightened who came out of curiosity and remained ever sceptical. With the assumed rich, who still thought they should partake in the freebies from the West and as no one dared to exempt them,

  CHAPTER 7   GRACE REALIZED HOW LONG AFTER THAT Mr Ransom wallowed in his debt-recovery victory. The fufu sellers loved and trusted him and  hailed him as a dependable leader of their union. He too became more active in the business. Those who flouted their bylaws were sanctioned and buyers who showed crooked intents were warned to desist or were banned from buying from the village. Then Grace noticed Mr Ransom’s enthusiastic activities drew some strange but wealthy-looking men to him. The nanny goat had thought at first they were the cassava processing plant people returning to get done with their unfinished business but these ones turned out a different set of guys. The new set of men had approached Mr Ransom and charmingly said because of his status in the village, they would want him to be in charge of forms given by Western countries who were concerned about the tough circumstances in the entire length and breadth of the country for they had noticed because of the econo