I
lived in Calabar for 30 years and loved it. I chose my career and
spouse and raised all but one of my children there. There I got much
of my college education.
The
city tugs at my heartstrings with a force similar to my ancestral
village. Booted out of high in school at Oku Abak for protesting
against student-unfriendly administration, I looked to Calabar for
refuge. Then the city had a visionary librarian, an Efik princess who
used books to uplift her people.
Ms.
Eke was different from the crowd who pocketed public funds. An
innovative librarian, she found novel ways to reach her readers.
Turning trucks and vans into mobile libraries, she had them driven to
people who could not reach the municipal libraries.
I
took advantage of the resources she offered to home teach myself. Her
foresight prepared me for some important exams. After these I
qualified for public employment and later, admission into the city
university.
I
first worked as an information assistant in the state department for
Information. My work involved running around with the ruling soldiers
and writing and proofreading stories about projects they planned but
hardly executed! The work gave me privileged view into how leaders
routinely loot public funds.
Of
course any mention of the fraud in my report was dutifully edited out
by superiors scared of being fired by the soldiers. Frustrated, I
quit for college.
Upon
graduation I went to Lagos, stomping for employment. For months I
roamed the city unsuccessfully. Unknown to me, my professors at the
University of Calabar had put me up for hire as a graduate assistant.
For over three months they kept sending letters to my last known
address for me to report back to them immediately.
By
the time I got wind of the development, I had also received job
offers from an international school in Lagos to teach English.
Another offer came from a brewery with the incentives of taking home
several free cartons of beer weekly. Since some of my uncles were
already problem drinkers, my mother thought the job would be my ruin.
I would, she swore, only take it up over her dead body!
Since
Dad had died of dehydration a year earlier, I had no wish for another
death in the family, so I declined the offer. As for the Lagos job, I
was too much a country fellow to even consider it. The intractable
congestion of Lagos apart, there was also the persistent,
stomach-churning stink of many neighborhoods there that I couldn’t
stand. Furthermore, the crime rate in that city was too scary.
So
I went back to Calabar to work out my life passion.
Its
folk call the city Ediye Canaan. Calabar is a city with
compelling mythologies. So its prideful moniker, “beautiful
Canaan flourishing with fruits and honey,” is not without
substance. Long before Columbus set foot on the Americas, other
European explorers were already scouring the coast of Calabar.
According
to legend, the name Calabar comes from the phrase coined by Europeans
when they first contacted the place. As the myth goes, the explorers
were astonished at how calm and peaceful its coast was. The happy
contrast between it and the turbulence they survived in the Atlantic
caused them to call the land “Calm Bars.” With time, it
became Calabar for short.
Another
legend claims that the city’s name is an acronym meaning, “Come
And Live And Be At Rest.”
Thus
to locals Calabar is a paradise. It was in this sense that its most
celebrated musician, the late Etubom Inyang Henshaw, sang in praise
of his city charms when he crooned that Calabar is one city where
visitors are so charmed they never want to go back home.
Calabar,
which sits by the Atlantic, is like Jamaica, a land of many rivers.
She is hugged by the Great Qua and Calabar Rivers, both of which are
ancient, fast, deep and long-flowing. Close by is the Cross River,
whose creeks combine with an all year round rainfall to ensure the
city is perpetually leafy and lush.
On
the banks of these rivers, canopies of mangrove trees thrive with
aquatic life. The city has the added advantage of being situated atop
a cliff. Since the city is constantly awash with tropical monsoon
rains, litter that chokes most other cities in the country, drains
away to the sea. Thus unlike other cities with festering,
disagreeable odors, Calabar is frequently clean and its air filtered
and wholesome.
The
elevation also opens up arresting vistas. From where I lived, eight
miles away from the city center, one could on clear days see the tops
of Cameroun Mountains, the highest peaks in West Africa. On a good
night, too, one could see the lights of Equatorial Guinea far down in
the ocean.
Most
weekends I would carefully climb down the cliff to get to the Nsidung
waterfront to buy fresh fish. I knew most of the fishy folk by name.
I would get into their dugout with my kids and listen to their river
lore while haggling over the price of fish.
Sometimes,
when I underpriced their fish, they would hand me the paddle to their
canoe and dare me to get into the river to see just how difficult and
dangerous fishing is. I would take the challenge. When I paddled
ham-handedly, they would explode in laughter. From them I learned a
lot about tides, sea creatures and even how to survive in the event
of a mishap at sea.
They
taught me how the elements act retributively at sea. If I tried to
outwit them and someone else came forward and put me in my place,
they would say, “Ofum inyang akan inyang, inyang akan ubom.”
I could connect with that: “When storms overpower the sea, the
sea overpowers the boats.”
Their
thoughts offered so many insights into our political situation. “Iyak
esi to ibout oburuode,” a fisherman told me one day as I tried
to verify the fish I was buying was fresh. “A fish begins to
rot from its head,” was his remark.
He
showed me that looking at the gills of a fish one could tell if it
was rotting. That made sense more so in relation to our political
culture where decay flows from top down in a miasma that smears the
rest of society.
After
research, teaching and conferences, bargaining and bantering with the
food vendors at Urua Watt, the city’s major flea market, was a
quirk that puzzled my wife Livina. I would, holding hands, drag her
along the humming the city’s major flea market, much to the
scandal of the market women.
Public
display of affection is not one of the hallmarks of our culture.
Although we hug a lot, kissing in public or holding hands attracts
stares and verbal barbs. The vendors would shout mock insults at us
and I would respond in kind. Some would call out, “Hmmm, mbok
nso idie emi? Sese mbakara oh,” meaning, “What are we
seeing? Look at White folks!” Others would shout, “ima
afiop,” or “sizzling love!”
I
would hit back, noting I was never jealous when held their husband’s
hands. I would throw my hands around Livina’s neck. The gesture
always drew uproarious laughter from the vendors.
I
remember an old woman staggering up from her stall and wiggling her
backside in imitation of my spouse. She waddled up to me and put her
wrinkled arms around my waist in a mock attempt to incite Livina’s
jealousy. At the same time she was dragging me to buy her
vegetables, periwinkles, shellfish and mussels.
When
I playfully offered to pay less than her items were worth, she turned
on me and instantly made up with Livina. “Some men are so
tight-fisted,” she complained. She wondered aloud what such a
beautiful woman like Livina saw to marry in a money hugger like me.
Joining
in to chew me up, her neighbors decided men who accompany their wives
to the market were crafty. Such men, they added, do so just to find
out food prices just so they could miserly adjust their budget.
They
would tease me, saying my bald head was a sign of miserliness. As the
women jabbed with mock jibes, we kept tearing with laughter. The
market helped me to simplify and connect with the soul of the city.
Its vendors along with the fisher folk were enlivening experiences in
the city I love.
Imo Ben Eshiet was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Raised in his village, Uruk Enung, and at
several cities in his country including Nsukka, Enugu, Umuahia, Eket and Calabar, Eshiet is a
detribalized Nigerian. Although he was extensively exposed to Western education right from
childhood in his country where he obtained a PhD in English and Literary Studies from the
University of Calabar, he is well nurtured in African history, politics, culture and traditions.
Imo is currently a teacher in the high priests group in the Summit Ward of the Greensboro North
Carolina Stake.