It’s cold and white outside. The scenery looks beautiful, like an exclamation by the season saying ” I am here, it’s my time. ” Standing out and watching it , my mind drifts…
I wake up in Umudisi, a small African village, south east Nigeria. It’s chilly this early morning . The winds are howling and everything that can dry up is quickly drying. The harmattan season is at it’s peak and I can almost sense it saying ” I am here, its my time”
It’s fun season and besides the hiccup of waking up early to fetch water from the stream, a good six miles back and forth , this time of year is full of celebrations, homecomings, feasts, and the one that I never forget, my initiation rites . Oh what a day it was . I was barely 12 , but it was my turn to know Masquerade (Mmuonwu). I had to or else I will have no face among my age mates not to talk about the elders. I was too proud , too cocky to let that happen. God forbid!
Few things commanded my attention like these Masquerades . Now when I say masquerades I don’t mean the masks sold in the markets or the Halloween costumes at Walmart. No . My masquerades were different .They are the symbol of the spirits that watched over my people I had been sternly informed . Not something to trifle with . Revered, all you had to do to get a kid to straighten out was the threat of their presence. Following them around – at a safe distance – was my hobby. There was something about the spirit of it all that held me spell bound.
Finally my time to enter into Mmuonwu had come and I was ready.
“Daddy are you ok?” My daughter asked. I snapped back to Missouri. “You have been so quiet for a while”. I am good I answered and looked at the time . 11:53 pm. Seasons, I muttered, there are different seasons in a man’s life and I went to bed
