Shadows

THE SOUNDS OF AFRICA

69 THE SOUNDS OF AFRICA From borrowed shores, Determined my Odyssey to end, Into Ipaja I travelled. The morning quiet, without The characteristic summons of Allahu Akbar I could breathe the silence, Hear the chirping of rising birds, And the sky with cloudy lids sluggishly Blinked its burnished cyclopean glare. That scene of childhood days in the fields of corn And sweet potatoes were once more summoned To the fore, the song of another bird: Numo tuchu ku-ku Numo tuchu ku-ku Numo tuchu ku-ku That plea of baby bird: Mother a caterpillar catch it-catch it Mother a caterpillar catch it-catch it Mother a caterpillar catch it-catch it. Waves of the past wafted themselves Like butterflies of anticipation in my stomach; I recalled decades before With Father and Mother in the fields, Before fertilizers in the fields of Smoking ankare* cooking sweet potatoes, Being told the meaning of that unique cooing Of a yet to be identified bird, 70 But this is Ipaja, Lagos, the belly of a metropolis. So from whence is that farm bird’s voice? True, this is Africa indeed, the sounds of my youth, The throbbings of Buea, of Bamenda, in Lagos Brought home recognition—Africa! Africa, the land where nature speaks. *Ankare, a Mankon word, refers to a former furrow which is turned into a ridge by scooping in earth and dry grass from the neighbouring ridges on either side of one of the previous year’s furrows. The grass in the centre of this new ridge is usually lighted so it burns slowly with the resultant ashes serving as a natural fertilizer. In the process of the buried grass burning slowly, parents seize the opportunity to roast sweet potatoes for the children to eat when they begin to get hungry while they are in the f. ...