Adorned with local artwork made with burnt clay and carved wood and feathers of peacocks and horn of buffalo, my mother's first house which was located in the heart of the forest of Mutewa was a place of comfort and warmth for me. Each time I had a reason to visit my mother's house from the city where I worked, my mind flashed back to the era when I ran errands in the woods and made friends with my mother's bicycle.
The bicycle was her wedding gift from Papa. She cared for the bicycle so much that she asked me to wash it every weekend. It had a headlamp and a siren horn that made me blare at night when I had to speed up to deliver a message to Mother's Crayfish customers.
Ekene, take the bag of crayfish and deliver it to the women from southern Cameron, they would have arrived at the border now.
The bicycle played a predominant part in my growing up. I would without hesitation load the bagd of crayfish on the bicycle and travel through the woods to the border where my mother's customers are already waiting to receive their goods. In return, I would have to bring back some money which was usually concealed in a pocket-size sack to my mother. She never told me how much she sold a bag of crayfish.
Another thing that made me always want to come back to my mother's house even though I am now married with kids was the smell and taste of fried vegetable stew which always occupied the air space in my mother's house. All my childhood friends knew how good my mother's food tasted.
She would make a meal from the least expected recipe. There was a time when food was scarce, my mother would simply go behind the house where she had a garden of all sorts of fruits and vegetables. A place she guarded with so much jealousy.
Bring the knife from the kitchen.
She'd say from the garden and when I came forth with the knife, she simply say to me:
Stay there, don't come in here and destroy my veggies.
I would hang by the bamboo fence and watch how she would cut the fresh vegetables and mushrooms. My mother would come out of the garden ready to storm the kitchen with her culinary skills. The best I could help her with was to slice the onions. There was also a natural flowing stream behind the garden but my mother never allowed us to go there. She would go there to fish. The only thing we got to see was the fish she had caught.
She would set the net in the evening and would go to check it in the morning. During the dry season where there is little or no rain at all, she sets a hook in the holes that have been created by the mudfish to be able to catch them using baits of worms or moles of cassava flakes.
In the living room, there was old-fashioned furniture, embroidered with the best threads I have ever seen. The armchairs were set in such a style that made the living room looked like a king's chamber, where guests and chiefs would sit and discuss community matters with the king. Despite the beauty of the living room, the best corner of the whole house was still the kitchen. It was heaven where I got all my stomach matters solved.
My wife had complained bitterly about how I had made my mother's house a sanctuary. It became a place where I could escape from the hustling and busy life of the city. No other place brings soothing relief to me than Mama's house. When I needed someone to pamper me like a child, my mother's house came to mind.
Directly opposite the main building was a small shed that Mama dedicated only to roasting purposes. During the rainy season, we would engage in roasting corn and yams. Whenever Mama came back with fish from the stream, we usually got it roasted in the local oven in the shed. The mudfish when roasted can last a year.
Since Mama passed on, the house in the heart of the forest of Mutewa has become my responsibility. Though it feels empty, I still perceive the scent of the fried vegetables with mushroom and ground crayfish. Anytime I walked through the corridors, I got suspicious that mama was walking right behind me. The memories of what we shared from this house, the humbling background and how we have lived the most crude and village life to a bubbling city workaholic life. Nothing on earth can make me avoid that house, it was my cradle.