"Is this how my sister is going to die? Are we so careless as a family not to have someone, at least, know a little about my grandmother's profession?"
"You were close to your maternal grandmother when she was alive. Don't you know about Avi ochi?" My father who hitherto sunk in his armless chair stood up and approached me to ask.
Grandma was close to me but we never regarded what she was doing to the benefit of many in the community. Whenever she was busy attending to patients in her one room ward, we would be at the parlor criticizing what she was doing.
"Every sickness that is treatable has a scientific approach to such treatment." We criticized my grandmother for cooking herbs for people to treat ailments that we believe should be attended to in the hospital.
My grandmother was the last of her lineage to take after the job of her great-grandfather. They treated diseases from leaves and herbs.
I looked up to my father's teary eyes and I was short of what to say rather than to just make him hopeful that my sister would be fine.
"Ize will be fine, daddy. God will show us the way to get Avi ochi."
My mother walked in from where she had gone to search for the herb. She entered with muddy legs and a tired face. Her hair was begging for attention. The sickness of my sister was making my mother to be the shadow of her former self.
"I still didn't get the herb," she said as she forgot herself into a stool with two good out of three legs. All of a sudden, I saw my mum on the floor. I joined my father to pull him up. Take it easy, Ize will be fine.
I stood up to check my sister where she was lying down. Hearing the sound of the door, she struggled to turn her face in my direction. She threw her head upward slightly in an attempt to talk but the energy was not there. She raised her hand gently to ask me if there was any development. I couldn't hold my tears, looking at my sister who used to be an extrovert battling to utter a word. Sickness sucks.
I was confused just like the rest of the family members. I went to the kitchen to fetch food for my mum. I was in the kitchen when I felt that I didn't try enough to not leverage my closeness to my grandmother to know about her profession. Immediately, I served my mother, I secluded myself to my room to think.
Adayi Anchi came to visit and to enquire if we had been able to get avi ochi. I heard him from my room telling my mum that he couldn't buy the herb even if he had come across it. The tradition made it mandatory for the relatives of the sick to buy it and not the healer.
Referring to my mother who had asked for his assistant to get the herb, Adayi Anchi said; "I am even surprised that you are asking me to help you search for it. I learned this work from your mother."
I felt disappointed in the whole family for not knowing the traditional demand of my grandmother's job. The job she did throughout the birth of her children and my generation.
Adayi Anchi demanded to be given access to where my grandmother's properties were kept in the room that served as her ward during her time. I was in the parlor with him already.
I entered the room with him and he was searching the loads while I was watching, wondering what he was looking for. During the process, I sighted Inya onokumi, a small statue that my grandmother regarded more than gold.
I have seen her have many encounters with Inya onokumi. I was busy thinking of fond memories when Adayi Anchi brought a clay pot that took me to memory lane in a similar direction.
"This pot is used to cook Avi ochi with other readily available herbs that I told you about. I am surprised that you don't know what your grandmother used this pot for."
I immediately remember an encounter with grandma before her death. I was coming back from school on a particular afternoon when I heard grandma talking to someone. The discussion was centered on the other person helping her to solve the challenges being brought to her.
My curiosity to know who the person was, that had so much power to be consulted by grandma made me go meet her. I met her talking to the statue while she was preparing some herbs into a clay pot.
"My son, why have you refused to learn this profession? You will value this if you are faced with a situation in future that requires such knowledge."
I don't know what made me stay to the end of grandma's explanation that afternoon.
"This is Avi ochi, the main ingredient of curing uku use. Avi ochi as a name is peculiar to my family. If you want to buy it outside, the popular name is operesu. Don't forget this name," she emphasized.
At this point, I came back to reality and asked Adayi Anchi if the herb we have been looking for is also known as operesu.
"Operesu is a popular name. Your maternal family are the ones that call it avi ochi."
Two days earlier, my mother had called me while in the market in a distant village, looking for the herb, to ask me if avi ochi is the same as operesu which I told her that I had no knowledge about. I was surprised that I couldn't remember the name.
The sight of the clay pot and Inya onokumi brought everything about the memory of the herb to bear. I rushed to the parlor to tell mum that Avi ochi is also known as operesu.
She didn't hesitate to pick her wrapper and headed straight to the village where she had seen it previously. Luckily enough she got it and all other herbs were joined with it to save my sister.
"It's better to have knowledge that you don't need rather than needing knowledge that you don't have. Always learn about things like this around you. Your deliberate ignorance nearly caused Ize her life." Adayi Anchi advised the family while Ize was smiling to be back to life after days of being unconscious.
