The Ruins of Our Village

My village is located in the middle of the rainforest. You may have not heard of it. But it is very close to Port Harcourt . . . We are at the place where the waters of the River Niger flow into the Atlantic Ocean. The villagers survive by fishing. But they also farm the land for a living. We have fertile lands and work it to serve our needs. No one really knows when our people settled in the land. It must have been hundreds of years ago.

Three years ago we noticed some men with herds of cows in our sacred forest and farmland. The elders approached them and asked them politely to leave. Reluctantly they slowly moved away. We heard they are Cattle People from the North. The North is very far from our area. We live in the south and depend on our farmland for survival.

This year the government sent an emissary seeking permission for the Cattle People to feed their cattle on our farm land. But our elders refused. They said that the government does not keep to its promises. They remembered and lamented the day they leased some of the land to the government for oil exploration. Today the government has taken the land and the oil that came with it. The fish and our rivers have been killed by pollution from the oil companies pumping the oil out of the ground. They drove us away from half of our land as they flared their gas to the atmosphere. Some children are now developing cancer and birth defects. I know two children who were born without their full fingers. I have a classmate with six fingers. The elders say it is because of the heat coming from the oil wells. Now the government wants us to give the rest of our land over to the Cattle People and their cattle.

Despite the elder’s refusal, the Cattle People came once again with their thousands of cattle. In a month they had devoured our crops. The elders complained, but the government sent in the military to protect the cattle and their handlers. Women cried as they helplessly watched the crops that they had carefully tended for many months become wiped out in a few days. The cattle went to our village river to drink, making it into a murky mess. This was our only source of water. For generations the elders had set specific rules on how to keep it clean. Neither little children nor women on their period were allowed into the water. There was rage as the cattle mulled about and dropped their dung into the water that we drank. The village is now finished. The farmland is gone, the fish are gone, and now our water is gone.

The priest said the gods were angry. They wanted us to return to our traditional ways. The elders and priest called for a week of traditional prayers and cleansing. They said that would drive away the spirit of bad luck away from the village. Everyone joined in these prayers, even the Christians who aren’t supposed to believe in the traditional gods.

The next year it rained in February. The rain usually comes at the end of March or the beginning of April. But this year it started earlier and never stopped. The elders warned that we should not start farming the soil because the early rain should be allowed to clean the land. However, after the third rainfall of the season we were allowed to return to farming. But just as the seeds were beginning to flourish, the cattle people returned. Once again they came with military protection.

But the elders did not need guns to fight off the military, because they had their traditional methods of solving problems. They believed in retaliation and had put juju on the whole farm land. But the Cattle People and their military guardians did not know our traditional methods. Because of the early rain, this year’s harvest was done early too. But the remaining crops were devastated. The elders said that it was juju but...