Laura Nnamdi: Igbo Is an Action Word

Dear Remi, 

Now Playing Beautiful Rain by the Cavemen. 

I have always wondered what I would be if I were not Igbo. Today, I finally got it. Mmụọ. I would be spirit. Don’t give me that look. But yes, I would not be of this realm. I would rather exist purely in the spiritual than take on flesh that does not wear beautifully against the skin like Akwete. I would rather roam the world free-formed than travel every Christmas to somewhere other than Mbaise. 

Remi, imagine my speech without the interjections of ‘Ngwa ngwa”? How else would one know I am on the journey to being patient, but not there yet? Hian! What pride would I have if not in the stereotypes that my people have so excellently flipped? 

“Igbo men and business! Igbo girls too like money!”

Remi, even you, don’t you like money? Is liking money a crime? We have turned the tables, working hard and doing great things while simultaneously steadily riding on the back of stereotypes. Verily verily, what the enemy meant for evil, God has turned it around for good. If I were not Igbo, I would be spirit, free from the restrictions of this flesh, yet marked so hauntingly with Nsịbịdị. It is ingrained in me, even if not visibly tattooed on my skin. 

Remi, do you know what it means to belong to a people who can weave emotions into fabric and clothe grief with music? People who bury the hatchet with palm wine-laughter spilling from different sizes of gap-toothed mouths? As annoying as it may be, I am grateful for Umuada, who will drink no other soft drink than that one brand. Sometimes I wonder what covenant they entered into with the manufacturers. 

What memories will I have if not those activated by the smell of damp August meeting wrappers buried deep under boxes and boxes of wrappers? I think of the women and their ichafu rising like small kingdoms above their heads. I think of those who protested in 1929 and demanded an end to the colonial nonsense of taxing market women and the craziness of oppressive warrant chiefs.

I think of the aroma of fufu and ofe nsala clinging to the air. Or the burst of tasteful delight when you eat Ugba agwọ ro agwọ ọfụma. Have you eaten oil bean prepared very well by an Igbo person? I think of somebody shouting for more chairs and somebody’s uncle drunk before noon. 

Life everywhere. Loud, stubborn life. 

Even if they do not have much, you will never visit an Igbo person and not be offered oche and Ojị́. You will always have a place to sit and eat or drink what is offered to you as a guest. Remi, I have so many cousins (first, second, third, and maybe 50th; I have lost count.) Everybody is a nwanne or nwanna even if we do not have the same DNA. Being Igbo has taught me that your sisters and brothers do not end with your biological siblings. 

Sometimes I think that being Igbo is carrying an entire marketplace inside your chest: The noise of bargaining.  The sharp scent of ogiri okpei, no matter how nauseating. The rustle of crisp notes folded into sweaty palms during festival dances.  The study steps of the Mmonwu at the market square. You hear our masquerades before you see them. The rhythm in their steps in tune with the drums heralds their arrival, giving children and adults alike a chance to get ready to scatter in gleeful amusement, in escape from the whip. 

And the language. Ah, the language. No tongue should be able to sound like a prayer and a warning.  Listen to an Igbo mother call your full name and tell me spirits do not exist.  Or the richness in our names which refuses emptiness. 

Ikemba. Ahamefula. Nkemdili. Arunma. Odumegwu. Ayondu. Ijeawele. Oriaku. Ugochinyere. Each one, a sentence. Each one, evidence that language can kneel before God and still echo power. Igbo sits in me like inherited fire. 

My people crossed rivers with trade balanced on their heads. They survived war with hunger, cracking their ribs like a big stone coming down on palm kernels. They rebuilt ash with bare hands and stubborn dignity. 

Sometimes I think that if you cut me open, you won’t find blood. You will find Mmanụ nri.  Palm oil. You will find the dust of village roads in December. The sound of the Cavemen playing from a distant speaker while rainwater gathers itself gently on zinc roofs. Mmiri ozuzo oma. Beautiful rain. Perhaps that is what I am: Beautiful rain, like my people, who refused to disappear. 

Remi, if I were not Igbo, I would reject flesh. 

 

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