Uzodinma Iweala: Beasts of No Nation

My father was taking me to Mistress Gloria who is the head teacher and asking her if I can be going to school, but she was asking, this one? Isn’t he too small? And I was looking at how Mistress Gloria is having very fat belly and big cheek and I wanted to be saying, I am only too small because you are so big, but my father is saying, no. He is not small and Mistress Gloria is having to take me in.

Because my father was schoolteacher and my mother is always reading to me from The Bible, I was already reading when the other children are just trying to learn. I was the smartest person in my class, so smart that the only thing I am having to learn is writing. Mrs. Gloria was seeing how smart I am and she is moving me up with the other people in primary one so I was just sitting on a bench with people bigger than me. When all of the other student are having their leg touch the ground while they are sitting, my own was just swinging back and forward in the air.

The school is just one big building with blackboard at the front of the classroom. This is where Mistress Gloria is standing when she is teaching lesson. All of the class are having their lesson in this one room so that Mistress Gloria was teaching every class up to primary six. She was always holding one large wooden ruler that she would be using to hit you on the head if you are not behaving well. Sometimes during the day we are having quiet time where the younger people is having to put their head down on their desk and all the older one is having to copy their lesson in their notebook. I am always doing my lesson at home so during quiet time I am sitting and thinking about different thing. I always liked thinking about everything that I am reading in book until it is time to play. Even though I am learning with the older children, I am always playing with all my mates. I am having one very good friend who is having Engineer for father so they are some of the rich people in the village. My friend’s name was Dike. He was tall past me even if we are the same age, but he was still my best friend.

But these thing are before the war and I am only remembering them like dream. I am seeing my school and all of my friend. I am seeing Mistress Gloria and her curly black wig of hairs that she was always shifting around because it is not staying on her head well well. Some people were hating Mistress Gloria and always making fun of her by pushing out their belly big and walking around like fat goat, but I am liking Mistress Gloria and she was liking me. She was always saying to me softly when I was leaving the classroom after helping her to clean up, Agu make sure you study book enh? If you are studying hard you can be going to the university to be Doctor or Engineer.

All of this thing that she was always telling me are making me to happying because I was seeing how the Doctor and the Engineer is being treated. I was putting all this thing in my head and remembering them but not letting them be taking up too much of my time as I am young. So after talking with her like this each day, I was then going to play with all my friend in the schoolyard. I was having many friend in my village because all of the other children were thinking that I am nice boy and also I am the best at all of the game and all of the lesson we are learning. So they were all liking me and wanting to be my friend, but the person who was really liking me and who I was really liking was my best friend Dike. We are always doing everything together in the village. So after going from Mistress Gloria, I was going with Dike to be going behind the school yard with some of the other boy to be playing football in the dust with one flat ball that is never very good to kick or we are having the race that I am always winning and I was flying up and down the school yard even if I am only wearing slipper. I am liking school very much and always thinking about going until the war is coming and then they are stopping school because there is no more government.

I am always going to church every Sunday where I am first going to the Sunday school to be sitting outside under the shade of one big tree in the church compound with all of my mate and sometimes, if she is not causing too much trouble, my sister, to be listening to the women reading us more story from The Bible about Jesus and Joseph and Mary and telling us that we should watch out so that we are taking the hard road and not the easy road. And then we are saying prayer for forgiveness and the Our Father and also singing many song because God is liking music more than just talking so if we are singing, then He is listening to us well well. They are always telling us that God is liking children so much, that He is always watching us. Sometimes after Sunday school is finishing I am going into the big gray church and sitting with my mother and father who are dressing in their nice clothe and listening to Pastor shouting and sweating. I am feeling how the wood is chooking my buttom with splinter and how the fan above us is shaking so much that it is looking like it was going to fall and be cutting off my head. I was always watching how the women would be dancing well well so that their clothe is shaking and they are having to tie it and tie it again and singing very loud when it is time to put their money in the collection plate. And the men are just shuffling their feets and bowing their head so their chin is touching their chest.

And on Sunday there are other thing that we are doing in my village. When there is no school and no chore, all my friend and me are making all kind of game to be playing. Sometimes, we are playing that we are grown up and doing grown-up thing like driving car and flying plane, or being Doctor or Boatman. And sometimes we are playing that we are soldier like we are sometimes seeing in movie and taking stick and using them as gun to be shooting at each other and falling down each time to pretending we are dead. And each time we are playing all this game we are having so much fun and laughing and running and yelling all up and down the road of the village. All the small small children are watching us and wanting to be like us and even the grown people are watching us and even if they are yelling at us to stop making so much noise, I am knowing from the way that they are shouting through their teeths they are trying not to be smiling because they are also wanting to be just like us. So we were playing all this game then and thinking that to be a soldier was to be the best thing in the world because gun is looking so powerful and the men in movie are looking so powerful and strong when they are killing people, but I am knowing now that to be a soldier is only to be weak and not strong, and to have no food to eat and not to eat whatever you want, and also to have people making you do thing that you are not wanting to do and not to be doing whatever you are wanting which is what they are doing in movie. But I am only knowing this now because I am soldier now.

So I am singing to myself,

Soldier Soldier

Kill Kill Kill.

That is how you live.

That is how you die.

And I am remembering to myself that I am doing all of this thing before I am soldier and it is making me to feel better. If I am doing all of this good thing and now only doing what soldier is supposed to be doing, then how can I be bad boy?

It is morning again, like all the other morning. The sun is just jumping up up into the sky so quickly that we are not even having any time before we are just sweating sweating everywhere. There are many tree around us, but they are all too far away to be giving any shade. I am crushing the grasses under my feet and just looking at how all of our footprint from the day before is everywhere. They are drying in the mud so it is looking like somebody is playing football here the night before, but I am knowing that this is never happening because nobody is playing football anymore during the war.