Claudina's Holiday

By IDIM EKANEM

As Mama-mboma sat on, her faded face, just like the faded grey colour of the ancient building radiated some sudden brightness as she remembered she had not sniffed tobacco snuff that evening. She picked the can of snuff by her side, and scooped a little into her nostril. She replaced the can on the bench and wiped her nose with a grubby brown handkerchief. She observed a flock of sheep making their way to a small farm on her left up-front. Coming from different directions, clucking, were her chickens coming home to roost, and seeing them, Mama-mboma peeped into the sky and sighed for having lost the track of time in the fast setting sun.

She arose with great pains and cursed her arthritis joints while staggering into the corridor with a short walking stick. As she made her way in, she admired the door of the first room on the right, which had become a ritual practice. The room was the abode of her late husband of blessed memory. The man had died so many years ago. With failing memory, she could not actually make out the period. She further reminisced, the man was ebullient, a vibrant merchant whose fame was widespread. In the colonial period, he was a contact man for the white people.

She sighed, and heaved noisily as she made her way to the second room on the left, ignoring the intention of going
into it. That room, and the one after it, were her rooms. As she got to the end of the corridor, there was a door of hard oak frame, which opened up to a very large area backyard where all sorts of ceremonies are held.

She brought her right leg and placed it on the doorsill while she leaned on the doorframe, grinding her teeth noisily. She glanced far left where three huts were built for her relations and Mma Buyuka. She could observe that the women were so busy trying to prepare the evening meal, and the boys were keeping the large area clean. The cleaning exercise could be for the impending ceremony coming up in two days time, she reasoned admirably.

A distance away from where she stood at the verge of the veranda of the building was a small murky green pool for crocodiles. In the hot afternoon, the reptiles often swam out and lay on an artificial beach she had ordered to be made out adjoining the pool. A small distance away from the pool was another well-fortified mud structure of about three feet high and sixteen feet square of many interior partitioning, where large snakes of assorted colouration and types were penned. On full maturity, as the present snakes were, they are killed and skinned. The meat taken as delicacy and the skins dried and sold.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B09KN4G5GT
• ISBN13: 9798754180857
• Release Date: November 2021
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"