Chapter 4

    It was the beginning of a new planting season, the one called opon, and men and women were busy hoeing in the hot sun. It was really dreadful working in the scorching heat without any sign of rain stirring up in the sky. The ground was stiff and farmers were covered in thick clouds of dust. When one stood on a sunken ground, the ground above - in the distance - seemed to be releasing hot vapours into the atmosphere. No one could dare walk on bare feet for the fear of developing serious burns. 

    Frogs did not croak in streams and ponds, and birds of the air chanted no more in the morning. The mornings were as chilly and heartbreaking as mountain snow and the mid-days as calm and cruelly hot as immature magma. The evenings were marked by strong whirlwinds which blew up excessive dust particles into the atmosphere. When walking, you would not miss one or two people holding handkerchiefs close to their noses or waffling their hands across their faces. 

    When the drought persisted, people stopped hoeing their farms and returned to the Blue-eyed's cotton plantations around the shores of Nam Lolwe. They would help with a number of tasks like weeding, top-dressing, pruning, transportation of manure from local warehouses to the farm, and harvesting which began later in the month of July. With a daily wage of three cents, the labourers endured the severities of their supervisors to the extent that one would claim they were used to it; the insults, the kicks and stripes, and overworking were the scourge of commons.

     What could one opt for anyway? With an increase in taxes, and schools demanding fees for the children, one had to find a way of earning income, and the cotton plantations were not an option but a compulsion. For husbands, laziness was a tale of many centuries passed. You could either willingly go to the plantations alone, get the money and pay hut tax or wait to be fetched with ferocity to offer your labour as a payment for the tax.

    The immediate and dependable workers in the cotton plantations were converts. Religion had been used to nag them down. The schools around too embraced the propagation of the new faith. They did this by using the Bible to enhance the pupils reading and listening skills. Reading and listening lessons were therefore always lively with enthusiastic pupils staring intently at their teacher with every bit of alertness. The stories about Moses, Joseph, Elijah, Abraham and many other patriarchs, prophets and legends in Israel - as recorded in the Bible - were just so compelling and fanciful to the pupils. For instance, most children made the incident about Elijah the prophet calling for fire from heaven to consume his sacrifice while the Baal prophets cut their bodies with sharp objects for their journeying god to make haste, a tale to tell and retell. 

    "Teacher, tell us that story about Elijah again," a pupil would plead on behalf of the whole class. And the others would join him hands so that, in the long run, the teacher would have to recite the story. 

     Most of the clan's children, especially boys, were going to school except Osayo's. He was such an intrepid conservative, so staunch and loyal to the traditions of his land to the extent of being the only pig in the pitch. How could an unknown race intrude into the placid community atmosphere and pull to pieces all the customs and beliefs of the people? No way, he told himself over and over. "This school-and-church thing is so weird," he would tell himself when alone. "Our culture has stood the test of time, and its superiority should not be left unprotected. But my people are so simple-minded that they are easily beguiled by such fabulists!" He would then click himself several times and hit the ground twice or thrice with his walking-stick. 

    Notwithstanding, Osayo's home was thrilling and lively at dusk when Agola, his mikayi, would be surrounded by all the children in the homestead willing to quench their thirst for fantasy. Agola would, in deed, take them out of their simple imaginations into whimsical legendary and fairy tales. And the children would feel tossed back and forth lusciously in the world of all-things-are-possible. Agola was a humorous and quick-witted storyteller. She had assumed the role of storytelling a few weeks after the death of her mother-in-law. Just like Nyowila, she would dig deep into surreal stories and make them sound either poignant or humorous. The children would be all-ears-out, waiting to grasp the next capricious outcome. This, actually, was an intrinsic element of tradition and culture as was a few seasons ago when grandparents would sit their grandchildren around the fire for such an event. However, change was inevitable, and it had arrived so expeditiously in the nook of time when almost everyone was in slumber. Yes, it sneaked in quietly when all folks were encumbered with tribal and domestic affairs. 

    Osayo had a fairly good number of children who were well-behaved, but Okayo, the second son of Agola, was a hobbledehoy - quite different from the rest. He would occasionally fail to show up during sigana (story) times in the evening. He would just be sleeping in his late grandparents' hut. It was an act he had developed from childhood, and there was no likelihood of him changing. His parents did not question him about his behavior. They feared the boy. Had they not been told by a seer long ago that they would give birth to such queer a character?

    Okayo was now fifteen seasons old and an enigma to the rest of his siblings. First of all, he had a well-built body with the mature muscles of a grown-up. He was slightly tall and dark-skinned. At such an age, he had won the attention of most ladies, and they ran after him, but he seemed to be reluctant and undisrupted. The ladies fancied his lovely gait and the fluffy kinks of hair on his head. They made a good tale of him amongst themselves. 

    Secondly, Okayo was clairvoyant, a quality which was rare among his fellow youth and which earned him a lot of respect from them. He could see, more often, things that ordinary people did not see. This quality was evident in him from quite an early age. At around eight, almost everyone - including his parents - called him Onee, a knick name which meant seen, because he could see invisible things. Once, at around his tenth season, he had scared the daylights out of his father when he shouted at him loudly from where he was seated on a patch outside his mother's hut. Osayo had then been seated in his favourite shade facing his gate and caught up in incredulous thoughts about the pervasive ways of his people. Okayo rose up and shouted a stern warning at him to flee away from an inebriate whom he claimed was staggering behind him with a knife in his right hand. The unexpected clamour sent Osayo flying off his seat and onto the ground. Of course nobody had seen this, but Osayo himself had been feeling apprehensive of being hunted for torture because of denying the apt request by the missionaries to stop persecuting converts.

     Stranger than all these, Okayo was a somnambulist. He would walk about in his night dreams, and this meant his parents had to take great care. What if he walked out and got lost in the night? No one knew what would happen. Many were the nights when he walked about in his room, talking and touching things while asleep. When questioned the following day, he would say he had been dreaming. He had been sleeping in his mother's hut, but when he came of age, his mother had no otherwise but to send him away to sleep with his step brothers in their grandparents' hut. That was the tradition those days, and traditions were inescapable. 

    Osayo had several qualms about his son. Although he was one amongst many, surrounding his life were portending dangers. He therefore wanted him initiated into manhood soon even though it was a ritual undertaken at one's sixteenth season. To him, time was now just a factor of compunction. Yet, in reality, traditions respected time limits - especially for cultural rituals. He would look at him - his son - and marvel, and wonder. He looked heftier than his brother Gumba and the others whose teeth had been knocked down the previous season.

                                        ***

     Okayo walked briskly past his parents' huts. He dared their notices. He ran into a nearby bush to conceal himself. He was panting heavily. When he was quite sure no one had seen him or was on the lookout, he came out and took a narrow footway behind the homestead that would then lead him to a nearby primary school. He had never felt like that before - scared and totally on pins and needles about some unchecked circumstances. He started trotting. 

    What worried him was not yet clearly known to him. He would only learn about it when he came by it. Definitely, something was keeping him aloof, leaving his life askew like a grass-thatched hut hit inimically by the rains. For a long time, he had been wondering whether a father's advice was obligatory, something a common child of his time would have never thought of. He was such a rational thinker, even unto the most obvious issues. Elseway, why would a child question a father's advice? 

    In the days that rolled behind, he had been contemplating on various issues. He had been keen to observe the movements of his age-mates and kids much younger than him, and he noticed that most of them went to what they called 'school'. He had also noticed that on the days they visited the shrine, most people went to what the Blue-eyed called 'church'. What then was the problem with his family? Oboo had hinted to him some of the pleasures at the mission centre. But he knew his father would not comprehend; he was always so impetuous, and of irrevocable fury.

    He ran on. He wanted to know what happened in the classrooms, even by means of eavesdropping as was his plan. He suspected there was more than freedom in those rooms. Oboo had told him that those who successfully completed their education qualified as factotums at the mission center; they would do any readily available job and end up earning an average man's pay of six cents per day, double the commoner's wage. That was quite impressive to him since even to that very day, he had never seen a coin. And not only that; he wanted to have a pair - be the man he wanted to be and have the courage to control all the forces around him. Yes, he felt like something was holding him in apprehension. Whether it was his father or some fiendish goblin, he wanted himself released off its bounds. He wanted to get out and, like a boulevard, explore the world and all its imaginary landscapes. Like birds leave their nests early in the morning and return at wee hours with food for their fledglings, he longed for a time when he would hold onto the gears of his life. "I am no longer a juvenile," he would often tell himself.

    He drew near the school fence. He would not go in by the main entrance for fear of being spotted easily. He searched across the fence until he found a cut-through that might have been created by pupils who went to school late. He went in. It was around nine o'clock and all the pupils were in their respective classrooms quenching their thirsts for knowledge. The classrooms were just a few meters away from the fence, rectangular, tin-roofed and brick-walled. The compound was quiet, except for the chants of  pupils repeating words or whole sentences after their pedagogues. Okayo stopped for a while to give an ear to the chants. Oh no! They sounded quite arbitrary to him. They were drumming in his ears. 

    He moved past an enormous manera tree and leaned against the wall of the room of a fast-moving class. It must have been a thrilling lesson, for pupils were constantly applauding and cheering at the top of their voices. Okayo pressed his ears onto the wall and listened. For some time, the teacher spoke in English and he could not comprehend what he was saying. But he kept himself still and waited with a lot of patience and curiosity. The voices died down and he felt a bit scared. Was someone on the lookout? 

    After some time, he heard the teacher ask the pupils a question in Dholuo, "Ji adi ma dhiga kanisa (How many people go to church)?"    

    "Teacher! Teacher!" shouted the pupils. 

    "Kik udhi e tie yien maduong' cha. Yien mosiko nyaka chieng' ni e kanisa (Do not go under that enormous tree. The everlasting tree is in the church)," said the teacher. The class remained silent. It seemed the pupils too never understood. 

    Okayo was mesmerized by such an utterance from someone he believed was a grownup. Would the teacher not expound his ravelled opinion? These were the very things he wanted to hear of. A few days ago, he had heard a group of children talk of singing carols on Christmas day and that it was a yuletide. Oh! How he wished he could understand what they had been talking about! Sometimes, a feeling came to him that there could be a rind, like that of an orange or mango fruit, covering his mind and which made him remain so frivolous. And with that manner of thinking, he adored school very much and thought the panacea to all his problems lay inside there. 

    He was suddenly out of his mind. He saw no classrooms but two gentlemen approaching him from a distance. They sneered and leered at him. They drew near and were just about to grab him by the neck when he came back to his senses. That sounded quite terrible and left him startled. It did not take too long before he heard the tapping of feet emanating from the left side of the stream of classrooms. He quickly pulled up himself behind the manera tree. After a while, two gents walked up behind the classroom. Okayo closed his eyes tightly and withheld his breath. The men were so engrossed in their chit-chat that they scarcely noticed him. They went straight ahead and vanished on the other side of the stream. 

    Okayo opened his eyes and made a great sigh of relief. For a moment, he felt an urging hesitation to remain calm and not move, but the clinging of a cymbal drove him out of the spot and he hurriedly found his way out through the escape route. 

    When he arrived at home, he was first alarmed by the clowder that glared at him inimicably. The cats, as ubiquitous as they were in the homestead, were used as guards against anything fremd. Their gathering around a given spot would evidently rouse suspicion over any queer whatchamacallit. Thus, everyone began to smell a rat. What had happened to him? He had woken up early in the morning and disappeared. 

    When Osayo discovered that suspicion strove within, he called his son into his hut. Okayo got into his father's hut and sat on a stool by the door without greeting his father. He then raised his head high and dropped his looks onto him. What manner of courage! Osayo wondered looking out through the oval window of his hut. He was taken aback by his son's behaviour. 

    "Son," he began, still looking out. 

    "Yes, Baba. Here I am," answered Okayo calmly. He then placed one of his thighs onto the other and supported his chin into his right palm.

    "I... I understand that you are come of age, son." 

    "Aye." 

    "But that doesn't guarantee misconduct. Hearken to this, son." He turned and looked straight into Okayo's eyes. "There is a locked prominence overhead good character. Look, I want you to be of adorable and noble characters. Do you hear me?." 

    "Yes, Baba." 

    "And now, tell me - where were you this morning?" 

    "School." 

    "Mayie Nyasaye (Oh God)! To do what?" 

    "To know who I am." 

    "Come on, son! Don't grease around the sleight, OK? I'm not a child. Respond to my question without your youthful craft. What did you go for in that damn place?" His voice had risen sharply and he had begun losing his temper. 

    "But you said I am no longer a kid, Baba." 

    "Yes, a kid you are if you can't answer my questions right. Will you stop that nuisance and cut to the chase, boy, eeh?" 

    "Okay. Baba, I want to go to school. I want to know the Blue-eyed's way. I don't want to be unequal. Don't you see... ." 

    "Stooop!" Osayo boomed.

    Silence erupted and one would have heard the dead click. Osayo stared hard onto the wall. His eyes had become ruddy and his breath hot and rapid. His stares would have made the walls crack were they not glibbed with cow-dung. He felt so bitter. He had never expected such a wholehearted acrimony against him from his own son, inasmuch as he had held him in suspicion for a long time. Would he be the first to reject his authority? Had someone bewitched or deluded him? And if that was the case, would Nyasaye be fair to allow his own blood to walk into such obnoxious delusions? He had lost a wife. Would he also lose a son? All these questions raced through his mind and set him hooked onto the daylights of reality. He slowly quieted down and then broke the silence.

    "Son, these people are immoral." 

    "No, Baba. They are not. Whoever told you so is the greatest liar ever. These people are showing us light." 

    "Which light, my son? Who told them we are in darkness? Don't you see the great misfortune they have caused your step-father? Tell me what, son, have you spoken to one of their converts?" 

    "Not yet, Baba. I only sneaked into the school to have a glimpse and hear-tell of the whole thing." 

    "And so, what did you hear?" 

    "They are discouraging children from paying homage to that tree... I mean, the everlasting thing." 

    "Son, don't call it thing, okay?" Okayo nodded twitching his mouth. "Why should they impede the children from going to the shrine?" frained Osayo. "I think every community has the decision on whom to worship lying with them." 

    "I also think so, but I heard him saying the Blue-eyed's church has it." 

    "Who said and has what?" 

    "Mmm... they called him... er... tichaa, yea, tichaa. He said the church has another Long-lasting Tree." 

    "Wololoreee! How can a building host such a gigantic tree? Aren't they losing their heads?" Osayo was amused. His faced beamed with a mix of surprise and rare joy.

    "Mh-mh, I think you shouldn't be hasty in making such an invaluable decision, Baba." 

    "Aah! Son, that's quite snarky. Do you believe in such impossibilities? I think those are mirths to feed the teeth. Then they also talk of that weird thing - a god having a dead son! Oh my son! Do you also want to ruin your kilter with such heinous beliefs?"

    "I'm sorry, Baba. I want to know the truth. Baba, how can Nyasaye dwell inside a tree? NYA-SA-YE... does it make sense to you? Eating what inside there? Doing what in such a nasty place? I mean, does he even get scared when it rains and the waters level up, roaring and gushing down torrentially in the river?"

   Listen, my son. The mysteries of this world have not been fully known; neither have they been fully explained. Howbeit, better is little valuable experience than thousands of useless exhibits of sagacity."

    "But Baba, that equally doesn't give an answer to my question. You're only going around the huts, I see. And because you cannot give an answer to my questions, except for your yucky critiques, I have decided ." 

    "No. Not yet, son. You haven't attained maturity in making the right decisions. Look at you, your teeth have not even been knocked down. You are still under my authority, and could you just be a little more obedient?" 

    "Oh no! I have had it up to here with your despotic tutelarity. I am sorry, Baba - I cannot. What have we different from the rest that restrictively keeps us in your home while they all go to school? Baba, this isn't fair at all." 

    "You are my children. That's all, OK? Now, get out of my hut, you naughty kid!" Osayo hit the floor twice with his walking-stick and glared at Okayo despicably. 

    Okayo stood up and bowed in front of his father. "Safe and sound, Baba."  He walked out and went straight to his grandparents' hut. After some time, he came back and took breakfast in his mother's hut and then went out to see his friend Oboo before joining his brothers in the brown grazing fields. Time had come, and then it was, to draw a line between prevarication and truth. Even so, initiation songs were being sung everywhere, and he was counted a candidate.