A repeated harsh pummeling of the narrow zinc gate into my fathers little compound brought first my mother and then my old grand mother out of their huts into the main compound. It was the wee hours of the day, too early a time to have a visitor. I lay in bed in that no-longer-asleep, yet not-quite-awake state, certain that who ever were at the gate had no good news.     

       
“Where is your husband?” the visitor asked rather rudely ignoring both mother and grand mother’s greetings. The voice was unmistakably that of Obong Attah, the richest merchant in the whole of my village. He owned a big shop at the market square in which virtually everything essential for life was on sale, from cooking ingredients and stockfish to drug tablets and dry gin. He also owned an old open lorry Long Jorni with which he conveyed these essential goods from the big market in Uyo once every week to our little village. His lorry was also my villages only link with the outside world, so it’s weekly trip to Uyo and back was usually an event people looked forward to especially the petty traders and those who had the privilege of having close relatives in the city who they went to visit once in a while.