Family & Culture: Family & Culture - Sanwi

An insight into a the heart of a place and it's people, showing a young man's perspective of culture,family and self-realization .

I always liked the creeks, I always liked the sage-green mass of calm of water, the smell of sea breeze and drying mud that soak the air.

Riverside.

I always liked to walk barefooted in the wet sea banks littered with crab holes as I savoured the feeling of moist dirt rising between my curling toes. I would always sneak out in the evenings to sit at the riverside and throw stones into the water never letting the late hours and Ndakaa’s warnings discourage me. I would always climb the coconut trees and knock them down before rinsing them by the water and breaking them open. The creeks were my little paradise, my definition of happiness.

But yet after all my life in the Niger Delta , what fascinated me the most about  the creeks was the life that lay beneath the waters , as little children the elders and older children in the village would always tell us visual tales about the Nile crocodile native to the south and south-east regions of Nigeria. Our community and many others in the delta maintained strong traditions that placed value on our sea-life, especially crocodiles.

 

Sacred Crocodiles.

People weren't allowed to kill them or hunt them for meat and in some nearby communities, they were considered sacred and seen as vessels for river Gods. I had only seen a live crocodile on a few occasions, my first time was when my grandfather caught one in front of hundreds of people, it was about ten feet long and the story was talked about for days.

Ndakaa had told me of how they swam through the waters at night eating little children, she would always advice me not to go and fetch water from the stream without the company of an adult and she would beat me whenever I returned home with mud stained shorts, crying about how I was trying to make her a childless mother. But like the proverbial disobedient fly I would return from school and make my way to the river before she would return from the market. Perhaps it was just childish negligence or maybe it ran in the family.

My Grandfather.

My grandfather Sanwi was a famed crocodile catcher in Zorgohmue and the whole of Bane, he caught crocodiles and moved them away from domestic waters were people fished and children swam, and if there was ever an occurrence of a crocodile killing he was the first person people would call, but he was mostly a seasoned fisherman that had mastered storms and threaded the deepest waters because he knew the sea well.

 

Sanwi was a man in his late 60s whose stubbornness and doggedness had sustained him through his years, stubbornness he must have passed onto his daughter,he wore a crocodile tooth necklace and walked around the village with an air of authority and wisdom, wisdom I had learnt from on my weekly visits to collect fish from him.

That morning as I walked past the line of canoes by the beach I had spotted him from a distance, he was sitting in his canoe mending his fishing net, something he had done too often over the years.

‘there is fortune in this net’  he would say whenever Ndakaa suggested he get a new one.

That morning he was digging into his chewing stick as he maintained a distant look on his face, his crocodile tooth dangled at his neck as he firmly tightened the knots. The sight of him sitting half naked in a pair of boxers would have been funny if I wasn’t already used to it. As I approached him he gave me stern look, my grandfather was never really much of a big man but he had an ever imposing presence, his intense eyes could almost stare down a lion and he had a firm jawline covered in white beard along with a strong body frame that betrayed his old age.

‘ Ndakaa le meke’ he asked.

‘ She’s at home sir’ 

‘ Tell her I am not bringing fish today, my net have spoil ‘

 He paused to spit.

‘ there is problem in village, them oyinbo people have come again’

No Fish.

That explained the worried look on his face. Some years before foreigners had come to Zorghomue to hunt down crocodiles for their skin and their bones. They would kill them then put them on their big boats and take them to Port-Harcourt before leaving for their destinations. He would explain to an adamant Ndakaa that the white man must be foolish for turning crocodile skin into clothes.

Our fish stand had seen better days, there was a bowl of clarias with some tilapias lined up on the table and that was just about it. In Zorghomue people buy and sell by what Ndakaa would refer to as ‘’smile market’’, no matter how small or stale your fish are, your regular customers are bound by conscience to buy from only you, at the end both parties smile one to fake appreciation and the other to hide regret. As Ndakaa waved flies away from the table, I tried to read her mood but I went ahead and told her.

‘Grandfather said he doesn’t have fish ‘

She paused fixing her gaze on me.

‘Why?’ she demanded

‘His net is bad aga…….’

‘I told him to change that net!’

‘ I don’t know why your grandfather like this, he suppose give me fish to sell but all he do is chase crocodile up and down the village every day , and now he forget us because oyinbo have to come catch crocodile’

I wanted to cut in and tell her that poaching was harmful to the village and its sea life, but 19 years as her son had taught me never to correct Ndakaa.

‘why he not just leave them oyinbo people to do what they want’  she continued

‘If them come and catch and give us good money, everybody happy. I tell him to let them be because we need the money but he never listen to me’.

My Father.

My father was to return from Nyogor in the next two days and I was hoping he would be the answer to his wife’s recent tantrums. He ran a palm kernel grinding business there where sometimes he would come back home with proceeds and sometimes he wouldn’t, but whenever he came home he spent as much time with his family especially those long night discussions with Ndakaa. My father wasn’t much of a talker and there wasn’t much to him except that he wasn't a fisherman, in a place like this that’s enough to standout. After I finished secondary school he had wanted me to take over the palm kernel business but Ndakaa couldn’t bear the thought of me being so far away from her.

Rainy Season Storms.

About a week later, the tides were gradually rising, villagers had started planting, there were less sunny days and sea was rougher. The rainy season was coming and nobody was waiting for the first rain to prepare. I had been to the dock twice that week and I didn’t see Sanwi, his canoe was on shore but he wasn't there. He might have been at an elders council meeting, there were many of them since the foreigners came. My father had brought barrels of palm oil that I had a daily responsibility of taking to the market to sell, I would tie them by the handle with a strong rope and carry them to Wiwa market, with every passing day I sold more and more bottles as the crowds grew.

It was expected, the season was coming with exuberance, I could see ridges on the fields to counter the intense erosions, fishermen were docking their canoes earlier than usual as signs of storms were starting to show. It seemed as though it was going to be a very heavy rainy season and it was evident in the smell of the humid air. I still had not seen Sanwi for the past three weeks or so, I asked Ndakaa but she didn’t know his whereabouts probably because she had been selling well to flocks of buyers, It was nice to see her glowing expression. This wasn’t ‘’smile market’’, her fish was actually better plus we had crabs now and itu, so maybe better days were here.

A month and some days from the first rain, by now the white men had settled well, they would spend days at the creeks catching crocodiles before putting them on their big boats before leaving from there. But the aching feeling in my heart was growing stronger as there was still no sight of my grandfather. By now people had started asking of his whereabouts, his boats were still tied at the shore with his newly mended net lying inside just like the first day I didn’t see him.

 

Ndakaa had gone to see the chief concerning his absence and there were some meetings amongst elders but nobody could arrive at answers. I had started to question hope and I would spend long nights thinking and staring into the sky as if to find answers.

One rainy night I walked to the nearby creek just like I had always done to spend time alone thinking, the heavy rain almost made it impossible to see, the ground was much muddier making it hard to walk in without sinking and the heavy wind blew leaves and dirt everywhere but somehow I found solitude.  I stood in the rain for about ten minutes as I let the downpour rinse away my distress. I heard footsteps behind me, it was my father he was drenched from head to toe holding a crocodile tooth necklace in his hand.

‘It’s dangerous to be here by now’ he said

‘sorry, I needed to think’

It was then I saw Ndakaa coming from behind him, as she approached him she snatched the necklace from him

‘I thought I told you to throw it away’

With that she flung it into the distance as I watched it drop gently into the large, sage-green, calm mass of the creeks.

Written by Tezor Dedam.

Tezor Dedam is a fictional writer from Port Harcourt , Rivers state. He is a student of the university of Lagos and he enjoys music and sports . Twitter: @bigtezor  Instagram: _tezor

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