Uzodinma Iweala - Beasts of No Nation

If I am seeing celebration in my village it is because I am closing my eye and seeing how everybody is coming to the village square and the men are standing to one side while the womens and childrens and boy who are not dancing are standing on the other. It is starting in the morning when the air is still cool and it is fulling of the smoke from everybody’s morning fire. I am remembering how the village square is always being swept clean by all the dancer and how the broom is making line in the sand from the chief ’s house all the way to the gray wall of the church.

Every year this is happening, my mother is grumbling, it is not good to be celebrating any spirit but God because He is jealous and will be punishing you. But she was still tying her white cloth around her body and wrapping her head in white cloth to be joining the other woman cooking the whole night in the compound of the village chief. And when she is grumbling like this, my father is saying, God is knowing that we are only worshiping Him truly, but there are other spirit that we must also be saying hello to.

In the morning, the whole village was standing in the square and wearing their white cloth. I was always looking at all the woman and how they are shutting their eye from tiredness and how the men who are standing are jumping and shaking like they are wanting to be dancing again. Then I am looking to the drummer who are sitting and cracking their finger and putting their ear on the goatskin of their drum just listening to what the drum is wanting to say. And the air was tighting like top of the drum and everybody in the whole place was just agitating.

Everyone is just standing around and agitating when each noise is coming and thinking, is this the time, is this the beginning, but the beginning was never coming when you are thinking. Everybody is just stopping to wait and talking talking about this and that when KPWOM! the first drum is beating and AYIIIEEE! then first dancer is shouting out to be telling everyone to shutup and just be watching. All the dancer is dancing the Dance of the Warrior and they are coming out wearing bell on their ankle and carrying machete that they are making from wood. All of the mask on the face is painting with color bright like sunrise, color that is dancing almost as much as they are dancing when the drum is beating and the bell is ringing. They are wearing grass hat that is just talking like the wind in the grasses when they are jumping this way and that way pretending to be fighting until dust is flying everywhere and making people to have catarrh too much.

Then all the dancer is disappearing just like that and everybody was sweating and shouting and smiling before we are feasting on yam with red palm oil, and fish, and meat, and egg with pepper that are making the mouth to be feeling fire so you are having to drink so much water. At this time, the women are talking to themself and the men are talking to themself and the children are playing. But me, I am wanting to dance too much so I am trying to be repeating the dance I am seeing.

And before you are even ready, KPWOM! AYIEEE! And all the dancer is coming back to be dancing the Dance of the Goddess in mask of white chalk and blue paint on their body and blue cloth around their waist. No drum is beating this time, but the women of the village are singing loudly loudly the song of the river goddess while the men are watching and moving from one foot to the other foot.

And in the afternoon, we are eating some more pounded yam and soups with goat meat and oxtail, or rice with chicken and plantain, or roasted maize and salad with leaf fresh from the farm, but nobody is really jubilating because the song is so sweet that it is making you to want to cry, and if you are talking then you are disturbing how sweet it is.

When evening was finally coming and the sun is setting so the only light is coming from the torch burning in the village square, we are dancing the Dance of the Ox and Leopard. All the dancer was shining with oil and sweat and their feets stomping the ground and their dress is shaking grasses all over the ground. In the orange light, they are looking like spirit themself just dancing in ox-head mask with sharp horn coloring red and white, and also leopard mask with sharp teeths coloring red and white. I am liking this dance the best, how the ox and leopard are just running at each other and falling back, running and falling back, and snapping their arm and their leg, throwing their head from this side to that side until the end of the dance when so much sweat is running down their arm it is looking like the color of blood in the orange light.

With all of the song from the day sounding in the air above us, the whole village was collecting all our torch, picking up the fire from the square and walking down the road past all of the compound, down to where the path is cutting through palm grove and down to the river. Everybody is rushing rushing because mosquito was biting us and also to be seeing who the head boy cutting the ox will be.

By the river, tied to one palm tree by its horn and its leg an ox was always waiting and stomping and making long low noise that are making you to sadding very much in your heart. The whole village was watching as all the dancer is dancing in the shallow river until the whole water is shining with small small wave. Then the top boy is going to the village chief and kneeling before him while the other leopard and ox dancer are dancing around and around him. The chief is giving him real machete and saying something into his ear until the boy is going and chopping one blow into the neck of the ox. Blood is flying all over his body and he is wiping it from his mask with his hand. Then he is putting his hand where he is cutting and collecting the blood to be rubbing on his body. When he is finishing, all the other is doing the same until everyone is covering in so much blood. They are spinning and spinning in their leopard mask or ox mask until KPWOM! the drum is sounding.

Everybody is knowing that to be killing masquerade you are removing its mask.

All of the dancer is removing their mask.

All of the spirit are dying and now all the boy is becoming men.

I am opening my eye and seeing that I am still in the war, and I am thinking, if war is not coming, then I would be man by now.

If I am closing my eye, I am seeing the rainy season and how, in my village, they are saying it is always bringing change too fast. You can be starting in one place with one plan and then finding that the whole world is washing away beneath your feets. You can be walking on road and finding that you are swimming in river. You can be starting day all dry and warm and then be finishing with your clothe like another skin on your body. Nothing is ever for sure and everything is always changing.

It is not like one day I am going to sleep and the next day I am waking up and there is war, but it still is not like we are having time to prepare for this war because everything was still happening so fast that we were not even knowing what really happened.

One day, they are closing school because there is no more Government. Part of me is feeling sad because I am liking to be in school and learning. Part of me is also happy because sometimes sitting in the hot classroom and just sweating while everybody else is making noise and all of the younger people are crying is making me to angry. Anyway, we are not having anything to be doing so early one morning I am going to Dike’s house because I am knowing he was always waking up early. I went to be standing outside waiting for him because his mother is not liking us to disturb her so early in the morning and I am waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for so long until the sun is full in the sky and the chicken are starting to fighting each other and quarreling over the insect and rubbish in the gutter. I was waiting but no one was coming out.