Voice of America by E.C. Osondu Read Free Book Online

to marry and have children. Mid came along with the elders. She explained the difference between a cataract and the girl’s condition. It was very possible that the girl would not recover her sight after the surgery; this might traumatize the girl, and she might even lose the gift of speech, which would be a double tragedy.They talked to the woman for a long time. The elders told her that they would gladly marry the girl off to any of their sons. She cried, and then she nodded and agreed with them.
    On the day the American eye doctors came, the woman and her daughter locked their doors and remained inside till the eye doctors left. Some people got new glasses; some had surgery. Everyone was happy. The girl and her mother were referred to as heroes who had put the interest of the town above their own interest.
    When the planting season began, people came to the girl with their questions, but alas, she had no answers. The stream had dried up.
    “It was not our fault. We should not blame ourselves for it,” one of the villagers said.
    “Whatever has a beginning must have an end; even the deepest ocean has a bottom. She was bound to stop seeing things one day anyway.”
    “It is the white man’s strong juju that did it, or don’t you know that white people are powerful?”
    “The blind girl and her mother should consider themselves lucky—if it were in some other village, they would have stoned them to death for possessing witchery powers.”
    And so life returned to normal in the village, and everybody’s conscience was at peace. Occasionally when a sheep went missing, the owner would be heard to bite his fingers and mutter, “If only that blind girl still had her powers.”

A Letter from Home
    M y Dear Son,
    Why have you not been sending money through Western Union like other good Nigerian children in America do? You have also not visited home. Have you married a white woman? Do not forget that I have already found a wife for you. Her name is Ngozi. Her parents are good Christians and her mother belongs to the Catholic Women’s League like me. Please do not spoil the good relationship I have built over the years with Ngozi’s family.
    I beg of you not to become like Kaka’s son who was sent to America with the community’s funds, only to come back with a white woman, and would not let his parents visit him in his white man’s living quarters in the Lagos government reserved area. He has large dogs and his white wife treats the dogs like her children. The only time he visited his family, he refused to sleep in his father’s old house, complaining that it was dirty, and took his wife to pass the night in a hotel. He stretched out hishands to shake the hands of the elders of the community and would not prostrate on the ground like a well-brought-up child.
    Or don’t you consider Ngozi beautiful enough from the picture I sent to you of her dressed in a long gown, holding a hibiscus flower? She attended the Catholic Women’s Teacher’s College and comes from a lineage of women who bear strong sons.
    Ogaga’s son who went to Germany only a few years ago has sent his father a big black BMW and has already completed a twenty-room mansion and is laying the foundation for a hotel. I am already in the evening of my days and want to rock my grandchildren on my tired knees before I go to heaven to live in the many mansions that God has prepared for me. I have become the laughingstock of the village because I sold my only stall in Oyingbo Market to raise money to send you, my only son, to America, and now I have no stall in the market and am forced to hawk my wares on a tray like a housemaid.
    Remember your promise to buy me a car and get me a driver, so I can proudly sit in the owner’s corner like the wife of a top civil servant.
    I am sure you remember Obi’s daughter. She went to Italy to work as a prostitute after you left for America. Just last year she came back with lots of goodies for her parents and has even