Читать книгу English for Life Reader Grade 9 Home Language - Elaine Ridge - Страница 21

Pre-reading
1.	What does it mean to be ‘loyal’? Do you find that you sometimes have conflicting loyalties? In that case, what makes you decide where your loyalty lies?
During reading
2. a)	Who is the narrator of this story?
b)	What is the boy’s father so excited about at the beginning of the story?
c)	Who is Ojukwu and what do the men think of him?
3.	How do the people receive most of their news about the civil war?

Loyalties

Adewale Maja-Pearce

This story is set during the Nigerian Civil War in the 1960’s. It is set in the new state of Biafra with its mostly Igbo people.

I was twelve years old at the time. One afternoon my father came rushing home earlier than usual.

‘Wife,’ he shouted to my mother who was out the back preparing food, ‘Wife, have you not heard the news?’ He was so excited he went rushing through the house. I followed him.

‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, a grown man like you rushing around like a small boy? What is it?’ my mother said.

‘Ojukwu has announced the new state of Biafra. We are no longer Nigerians, you hear? We are now Biafrans,’ he said and smiled.

‘And what then?’ my mother asked.

‘Woman, don’t you know what you are saying? Don’t you realize this is an important day, an historic occasion?’

My mother stood up and put her hands on her hips. Her face was streaming from the heat of the fire.

‘Whether we are in Nigeria or whether we are in Biafra we are almost out of firewood,’ she said.

My father raised his hands to the sky.

‘Events of world importance are taking place and you are telling me about firewood. Trust a woman,’ he said and walked away.

That evening the schoolmaster and the barber and the man who owned the Post Office came to our house.

‘Boy, come here,’ the schoolmaster called.

‘Come and hear what teacher has to say,’ father ordered.

‘Seven nines are?’

‘Sixty-three,’ I answered.

‘Good. Now, if twenty Nigerian soldiers march into our village and five Biafran women attack them with saucepans who will win?’ he asked, and the barber collapsed on the floor. My mother took me by the arm and we left the room. But I crept back and stood by the door.

‘What was I telling you the other day? That Ojukwu is a real man, just the sort of leader we need to get things moving. Those dirty Nigerians will taste pepper if they try to attack us, let me tell you,’ my father was saying.

‘That’s the way to talk,’ the schoolmaster said. ‘Just let them try. Biafra stands supreme.’

‘They were saying on the news that five countries have already recognized us,’ the postmaster said.

My mother called me. ‘Where were you? Must you always be sneaking about listening to what foolish men are saying? Biafra, Nigeria, what difference? Have we suddenly acquired two heads? Go and collect the goat and tie him up for the night,’ she said, and added: ‘After all, he is now a Biafran goat so we must take better care of it.’

During the next few weeks everybody was talking about it. But as my mother kept saying, the only difference it made was the increased cost of food.

And then there was a rumour that Federal troops were marching towards us. Biafran soldiers appeared overnight. In their new uniforms and polished guns they looked smart. They drove up and down in their jeeps and raised dust everywhere. All my friends worshipped them.

One morning I woke up and heard gunfire in the distance. A plane flew overhead.

‘Hurry, hurry, we are under attack,’ my father shouted.

‘Where are we going?’ my mother asked.

‘Are you blind, woman, can’t you see the others heading for the forest?’ my father said.

‘But what about our troops?’ I asked.

‘What troops? They ran away last night.’

My mother rushed into the bedroom and started dragging clothes onto the bed.

‘We have no time for that,’ my father said.

When we got outside I saw that it was true. The entire village was heading for the forest, the schoolmaster in the lead.

We spent two days and nights in the bush.

‘So this is your great Biafra,’ my mother said. ‘Where is Ojukwu, I didn’t see him?’

‘Shut up, woman,’ my father said.

On the third day my father said to me: ‘Go and see if the soldiers are still there.’

‘You want to get the boy killed?’ My mother said, reaching for me.

‘Leave him, they won’t harm a child,’ my father said; and to me: ‘I don’t ask you to show yourself, you hear?’

I crept to the edge of the forest. The village was completely deserted, except for a few hens. And then I saw our goat. He was eating the food in front of the Post Office. I knew the owner would be angry. I forgot my father’s warning and started running. Three armed Nigerian soldiers stepped out of the barber’s shop, their rifles in their hands, and waited for me.

‘Where are your people?’ one of them asked. I pointed in the direction.

‘Are they afraid of us?’

I nodded.

‘Go and tell them we mean no harm.’

As soon as I got back to the clearing everyone began talking at once. I told them what had happened. An argument began. Some wanted to stay and others wanted to go, but we were all hungry and there was no food left. Because of the mosquitoes no-one had slept well. So we went.

The soldiers kept to their word. By the next day everything had returned to normal. At the end of the week the soldiers pulled out.

One evening the barber, the schoolmaster and the man who owned the Post Office came to our house. My father sent me out to buy bottles of beer. When I returned my father was saying:

‘Those dirty Biafrans, what did I tell you? As usual it was all talk. When it comes to talk there is nothing they cannot do.’

The schoolmaster called me. ‘Boy, if the Biafran soldiers cover twenty miles a day how long will it take them to reach the Cameroons?’

The barber held his sides and groaned.

‘Don’t mind them,’ my father said. My mother called me from the back.

‘Go and collect our Nigerian goat,’ she said.

Post-reading
4.	There is a difference between the men’s attitude to the war and the women’s attitude. Which group has the more practical or pragmatic approach? How do we know this?
5.	Explain the joke about the twenty Nigerian soldiers and the five Biafran women.
6.	The narrator’s father tells his wife to “shut up” when she teases him. What does this suggest about the role woman are allowed to play?
7. a)	The narrator’s father refers to the Nigerians as “dirty” Nigerians. This implies that they are untrustworthy. Who does he describe as “dirty” later in the story?
b)	Explain the irony in the story’s title.
8.	How is the change in loyalty neatly and humorously summed up by the boy’s mother? (Look at the illustration.)