It was a cool evening in the village. My family and I had travelled to my mom's village to spend that year's Christmas holiday. This was ten years ago but the experience will always remain in my memory. The plan was to first visit my maternal village, spend some time and them move to my paternal village to round off the holidays there. I was very excited for this trip because my sixth uncle was about to throw an engagement party to notify the family of his bride to be and make further arrangements on his wedding plans. As far as I had heard, his bride to be was not from that state or region and so my interest got piqued to get to know her in person.
Fast forward to boxing day, which was the day of the engagement. My aunt woke me up to assist her in the kitchen and I gladly followed her like a sheep to the slaughter. The entire house was abuzz with preparation, decorations and my sixth uncle played some hip hop music from the sitting room's home theater system which kept us livened up. It was really a joyous day or so we thought.
At about 4pm in the evening, guests began to arrive. The elderly men I saw walk into our compound were not looking indegenous. They had this aura that spoke foreigners so loudly but to show some manners, I overlooked and carried on with what I was doing prior. The guests comprised of two men clad in suits and one woman in a gown. They were welcomed by my third aunt and sixth uncle and ushered to the sitting room.
Soon the sitting room was filled with people who came to celebrate with us. My grand uncle stood up to address the entire gathering..
"Cha, cha, cha, igbo kwenu!"
"Cha, cha, cha igbo kwenu!!"
"Cha, cha, cha, igbo kwezionu!"
Everyone respond with a thunderous "eeyah!!!"
"We are all gathered here to celebrate with our son Linus on his engagement to his wife to be. I will call him up so that he would say a few words and also introduce his wife to be". After speaking, he received a loud ovation as he walked down to his seat while my sixth uncle took the stage..
"Cha, cha, cha igbo kwenu!!!"
"eeeyah! Everyone resppnded again at his greetings.
"Like my uncle said indeed it is a happy time for me and my beloved and it gives me great joy to introduce her to you. I have known her for almost three years and now that she has agreed to be my wife, I don't want to waste time at all. Now let me call on my beautiful fiance to grace you all" he said and received a round of applause from the audience.
He made some signals to the three foreign guests from earlier and the woman amongst them stepped out to do something. In about two minutes she returned with a woman in a veil being led by the hand to where my sixth uncle stood. When they were at the stage, the older woman removed the veil from the bride to be's face and all of us were amazed. She was an albino lady. Gasps could be heard from every corner of the sitting room, mirroring our utmost surprise. No one had ever married an albino in my village, so this was a hard nut to chew.
To add salt to the injury, the village head also came in at that moment and what he said next was even more scary. "Linus hear me, hear me, if you go ahead to marry this woman, you will not live long. She is an ogbanje ( water spirit) and she will ruin you. Infact, the child she gave birth to is not yours but a seed from her kingdom to tie you down. Heed my warning and separate from her" he dropped the bomb shell and left our compound.
"Abomination!" "Tufiakwa!! These were the chants that came to our ears. The bride to be whose name I didn't get to know was weeping. Uncle Linus was so shocked that he could hardly say a word. My grand uncle looked at him, shook his head and stormed away. One after the other, the visitors left our sitting room. Soon it was only our family memebers that remained. Uncle Linus who was now a bit calm was asked to sit down and narrate how he met his fiance and also to confirm if the words of the village head were true. He replied in the negative saying that she only came to tell him she was pregnant after a wild night they had and due to his love for her, he never doubted her but now he was shocked, just as we are.
The vilage head was known as a seer. Whatever he says would happen will eventually happen and so the villagers all feared and revered him a lot like a demi-god. I who was among the younger generation simply sat and began to ingest all the confessions that were being spilled. I was also a little bit scared because the words of the village head spelled doom for my extended family and even though a part of me didn't believe in those things, another part of me was being cautious and worried.
To bring this whole episode to a close, my sixth uncle sent his bride to be and those* foreign* guests away. He promised to get to the root of the matter but that was just a ploy to get them to leave. Till date, my uncle Linus refused getting married. He has two more children with another woman but he has refused to settle down, fearing the worst that could happen.
Thank you all for reading.. Shalom
Images used were generated with Meta Ai.
