WHEN LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH! III

They say love is a strong force,
And with it, one needs expect no farce,
They say true love is best, when from sincerity it is born,
Especially when it is then shared with the right one,
They say love yields harmony,
In the presence of which is no acrimony,
But baby when I met you,
I realized the obverse was true,
For you sought for something beyond love in its abundance;
A love-life of plenty and wealth in its abundance,
You told me, "no money, no honey",
And you didn't mean to be funny,
You sought for something beyond togetherness;
A sassy, classy life of glamor and sleekness,
You needed a man who would not just say, "I love you with everything";
But who would also say, "I'll give you anything",
So it didn't take long for me to realize that with you,
Bare love is not enough!

WHEN LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH! II

They say true love is all you need in a relationship,
And with it, longevity is bound in every companionship,
They say love is all that matters,
Especially when that love will never falter,
They say love brings hearts together,
In the presence of which, every bond lasts forever,
But when I met you,
I realized the obverse was true,
For though I loved you with my entity,
You sought for a man who is proud of his personality;
One who is strong enough to stand on his own;
You sought for a man who has a mind of his own;
One would not treat compromise with relief,
You needed a man who would stand up for his beliefs;
So it didn't take long for me to realize that with you,
Sheer love is not enough!

WHEN LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH!

They say love conquers all,
And with it, one needs fear no fall,
They say true beauty heeds the call of love,
Especially when that love is sent from above,
They say true love is all you need;
In the presence of which every discord must recede,
But when I met you,
I realize the obverse was true,
For though I loved you with my being,
You sought for something beyond mere love, within my being;
A purity of spirit and a truth of character,
One that will not be altered, no matter the weather,
You sought for something beyond mere passion, within my personality;
A uniqueness of soul, and a sanctity of entity,
You needed a man who is humble enough to say "I love you",
But who is not too proud to change for the one he loves, too,
So it didn't take long for me to realize that with you,
Mere love is not enough!

THE SORROWS OF CHILDHOOD, A NOVEL: AS THE STORY UNFOLDS...

Five

The Slave Trade

    One of the worst nightmares to befall the people of the now oblivious Nri kingdom was the participation of the Benin Empire in the Atlantic slave trade; a venture in which many slaves were sold to the Europeans, subjected to inimical practices, and became susceptible to life-threatening diseases. The Atlantic slave trade developed after Europeans began exploring and establishing trading posts on the Atlantic west coast of Africa in the mid-15^th century before my birth.

     The first major group of European travelers to arrive Benin, were the Portuguese explorers in about 1485. A strong mercantile relationship developed between the two groups, with the Portuguese trading tropical products, and increasingly slaves for European goods and guns. However the slaves sold at this time were those of other villages captured by the Benins. They were reluctant to sell off the Nri slaves until later around the 17^th to 18^th century. Later in the 15^th century, around 1553, a significant trade developed between England and Benin, based on the export of ivory, palm oil and pepper. Trade consisted of 20 percent ivory, 30 percent slaves, and 50 percent other things which I didn’t know. Visitors in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, the period of my birth, took back to Europe tales of ‘the Great Benin’, a fabulous city of noble buildings, ruled over by a powerful king. The slave guards usually boasted about this to us, telling us we should even be happy to be associated with them. I just couldn’t understand what there was to be happy about, living in captivity.

        With the progression of time, in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, these European colonial powers began to pursue plantation agriculture in their expanding possessions in the New world(North, Central and South America, and the Caribbean Islands), across the Atlantic ocean. Also, as European demand grew for products such as sugar, tobacco, rice, indigo, and cotton, and as more new world lands became available for European use, the need for plantation labor increased. This need precipitated a slave trade deal on the Nri slaves, between the Benins and the Europeans, for most of these high demand products were produced in Africa, especially Benin, and the slaves were used to provide manual labor on large plantation lands.

         The involvement of the Benin kingdom in the Atlantic slave trade of the 16^th and 17^th centuries brought more emotional distress to families whose relatives were sold away to the Europeans. In the heat of the slave trade, friends lost contact with their friends, and sadly, my case was no exception. I lost a friend who was so dear to my heart, one I have grown up to love and cherish, to respect and adore. It was a friend I have come to accept and appreciate.

         One evening after some of us had hungrily finished the meager bowls of porridge they served us; so meager my skin smelt of its poor quality, the leader of the slave guards came to inform us of recent developments. He was a huge, muscular bodied, dark man in his early thirties. He spoke with a voice deep enough to make our hearts flutter.

               ‘Tomorrow, some of you who are unfortunate would be sold to the white men. You would be taken away from your families and friends, and embark on your miserable journey to the white man’s land. For some peasant, insignificant low lives among you who are lucky, your wretched families might be sold away with you.’ He said letting out the venom which was accompanied by hisses, sighs, whispers and shouts.

            ‘Shut up fools!’ he screamed raising his whip, made of inter-twined strips of desiccated animal skin.

             ‘Hmmm, I can’t wait to get rid of some of you who have been a pain in my flesh.’ He growled with a terrifying frown.

             ‘What, pain in your flesh?’ I said to myself, whishing at this point he would drop dead for saying we were a pain in his flesh, and that he was eager to get rid of some of us. If I could invoke Amadioha and Kamalu, gods of thunder and lightning, he would have been long dead before finishing his last word.

      Early the next morning, before the crow of the rooster, while some of us were still asleep, a group of guards marched to the camp, flung open the cage doors, frightening most of us out of our sleep, and randomly picked slaves for the merchandise. Deep down in my heart, I prayed the gods would make Dimkpa invisible to these guards, even if his family was taken away. But the gods did not always grant the wishes of men. Before I raised my head, he and his family were already added to the others. Rivulets of tears rolled down my cheeks as I watched the love of my life being taken away from me forever. He didn’t even say goodbye and the mean guards didn’t let him turn his head to look with love into my eyes for the last time. At this point, I felt my whole life crumbling down. In so short a time, I have lost three people whom to heart I took. I became a moving corpse with nothing to live for in this cruel land of captivity. Uncle Agu could do nothing but console me with the words; ‘oga dim mma, it shall be well’, and, ‘the gods know why’. But I could not understand why the gods, whom I have grown up to regard and revere as just and caring, even if I didn’t see them, could let this calamity befall me. I wished I could talk to them, but they seemed to be out of sight, and indifferent too. They seemed to have been destroyed alongside their shrines, in the conflagration of my village. I felt if they could not save themselves, they probably cannot save me as well, after all, I never saw them save any body, all I knew of them were based on stories papa and mama told me. And although, papa used to say the gods fled the Nri kingdom to the land of the spirits when the Benins invaded us, and that they were sure to return when the kingdom is rebuilt and restored, I personally thought this was never going to happen.

        The Atlantic crossing, known as the Middle passage, was nightmarish for those slaves, who were poorly fed as usual, but to a greater degree, subjected to abuses at the hands of the crew, and confined to cramped storage holds in which diseases spread easily. While at the camp, we heard news of the death toll the Middle passage was taking on our ‘brothers’. On ship board, they were chained together and crammed into spaces sometimes less than five feet high. Conditions within the slave ships were despicably awful. Inside holds, these slaves had only half the space provided for indentured servants or convicts. Contributing mostly to the high death rate were diseases like dysentery, measles, scurvy, and small pox. Diarrhea was also widespread and like we were informed by the slave guards who always said we should be thanking our stars that we were not among those slaves, each time we complained of inadequate food or water, most slaves arrived the new world covered with sores, or suffering from fevers. Some even out of rebellion jumped into the sea, and got themselves drowned rather than suffer maltreatment. I could not help imagining how my Dimkpa was suffering. He might even be dead now I thought. I wished I could be at two different places simultaneously. However, shortly after the first group of Nri slaves were sold, an event occurred in my life which gave it a whole new turn and made it more meaningful.