A COLANUT TAKES US TO THE PALACE AND TO CHURCH

A COLANUT TAKES US TO THE PALACE AND TO CHURCH

We were all laughing, as we amused ourselves, when a bunch of colanuts

Fell from the tree with a heavy thud

The sound was so loud we knew it would be a large one

All of us three children rose and went for it

In the frantic search, we landed our hands on it at the same time

But then we sued for peace and let Akum pick it up

And carry it as he was the eldest.

True to size!

How large it was!

It was the largest bunch of colanuts I had ever seen

In our village, Koyimi, where colanuts

Are the main export commodity

And have built many homes

And sponsored many children in school.

Yet our parents say the villagers did not plant them

Our ancestors came into the place for the first time

And found it was overrun by colanut trees

So, they adopted and cultivated d them.

When such big ones fell

And children pickers took them home

Their fathers would take them straight to the palace

The big and best things go to the palace

Although to be fair to the Fon

The palace is everybody’s home

The homeless go there to be sheltered

The hungry go there to be fed

The thirsty go there to drink.

And that’s how it has been from time immemorial.

The following morning

My father informed mymother he was going to the palace

He put the colanut in his bag and gave me the bag to carry

I slung it across my shoulder and we left for the palace

The raphia handle of the bag totured my shoulder

With the weight of the catch

Even so, I couldn’t complain

We found the Fon sitting in the courtyard with some elders

When he spotted my father, he gleefully said to the others

“When I see Tayong Anomah with such a large bag

I know something good will come out of it

Bring it, Tayong!”

When my father took out the colanut bunch

Everyone exclaimed including the Fon

They all said they had never seen a bunch so large!

The Fon improvised a speech

He thanked my father

Who had now taken his seat among them

And asked the elders including him

To guess how many unpeeled round nuts

Might come out of the bunch

Different answers were given

He then asked someone to tell him

The largest number of lobes that any nut would produce

Again answers were ventured.

One elder, bewildered by the size of the bunch, said “thirty”

Another drowned his voice and disagreed

He reasoned that although God made colanuts

In lobes that were already partitioned and we only had to take one

He knew men only too well and knew that

If he gave a single nut up to thirty lobes

They would start fighting among themselves.

The Fon raised his hand and said:

“You know what?” The assembly said, “No, Mbe! Tsa be!”.

He again asked the question and the assembly said, “No, Mbe! Tsa beh!”

“I know!  I know what we shall do. Maformusong has spoken to me

He has asked me to do the unprecedented in this village

He has asked me to take the bunch of colanuts to church.

Tomorrow is Sunday

We shall all break tradition and go to church

All of us

We shall give it to the pastor and say

We are offering it to God.

God is supreme.

Everyone was surprised at this new apparent conversion of the Fon

But everyone was too overwhelmed to ask any questions.