The Irish Reverend Father walked through the camp with deep concern. They've been out of food for the past two weeks. He has heard news that three of the expected planes transporting much needed nutrition and medicine were shot down by the federal army. How on earth are we supposed to feed and treat these innocent suffering children, the Reverend thought. Thinking thus, a woman approached him with a little skinny child in her arms. She was pleading with him to help her, as her child was no longer responding. The child had Kwashiorkor, the terrible Diet Deficiency Disease. With horror the Reverend looked into the fainting sad eyes of the little dying child. Fear took hold of him as he saw that the child slowly closed its eyes and died. The mother began to cry and wail. This wailing always got the last of the Reverend Father. Quickly, after praying for the child and mother, and giving the woman a comforting pat on her shoulder, he walked off, back into his make-do office at the entrance of the camp. I'll have to see Faust and talk to him about this, he decided, maybe I can convince him of stopping this madness.
At the same time at a concealed building in Aihaumu, Faust just arrived from a four days war mission. He was completely tired, worn out and covered with dirt and blood. In the past one week he has had a mere seven hours of restless sleep. In the last two days all he had eaten was dried meat with some dried garri.
Entering into the building, he quickly walked into the secured area which was enclosed with thick concrete walls. Twelve stern looking, heavily armed soldiers on guard with fierce guardian dogs saluted him, and opened the main door to the inner rooms. There he was greeted by his house help Chioma, a young girl of fourteen years. "Welcome, sah" she said. "Hello, Chichi, how are you?" "Fine, sah". "Please, go and prepare me some eba and....ehm...I hope the soup with the cow tongue and tail is ready? "Yes, sah", Chioma replied. "Alright, please make everything very hot, and bring it into the parlour". The girl left and did as she was being told.
Faust sat down on the couch. He was too tired to take off his uniform. There was dried blood on his hands and arms from a fierce man-to-man battle with enemy soldiers. Thank God for my brave soldiers, he thought. After a couple of minutes of rest he got up, and opened his bedroom door, entered in and went straight to his portable mini bar which he had bought in Dnalgne in 1964. Pouring some scottish whiskey, which the WCC pilots specially brought for him, into a glass, he went back into the parlour. By now, Chioma had begun to serve the food: the soup was steaming hot, so was the eba. The scent of the soup filled the entire room. "Oh, very good - very good. Well done, my dear. Thank you very much" Faust said as he sat down. Slowly he washed his hands in the large bowl of water which Chioma had brought, along with a piece of perfumed soap and a fresh clean towel. It is good to have oneself in control at all times even in the face of hunger, Faust thought as he continued to slowly and thoroughly wash off the dirt and blood from his hands, occasionally using the soap. Chioma came back into the room with another bowl of fresh water. Faust smiled. He had thought her to do so. He continued washing his hands in the second bowl. Now his hands were clean. With his hands still wet, he began to eat. Taking a lump of eba, he formed a round piece with it, drenched it into the soup and ate it.
While swallowing, he felt some hard rough dry pieces within the eba. He looked at the eba on his plate, took another lump from it and analysed it closely. He saw that there were lots of dry round pieces of eba in the entire lump which was the result of the eba hastily prepared. Enraged, Faust bagan to shout Chioma's name. "Yes, sah", she replied with fear, as she heard the anger in his voice. "Chioma, don't you know how to prepare eba anymore? What are all these dried pieces in my food?" "I'm sorry, sah, I prepares the eba in hurry because...." "Because what?", Faust cut her short. "Take this useless eba and throw it away, and prepare me a fresh one immediately. How dare you prepare me such kind of useless food?" "Sorry sah, am sorry", Chioma said with fear. Quickly, she took the plates of eba and soup and headed for the kitchen, were she began to prepare another lump of eba.
Faust went back to his bedroom portable mini-bar, and poured himself another glass of whiskey. Going back to the parlour, drinking his whiskey, he spoke to himself in a loud voice, saying, "What kind of nonsense is this? I am the leader of this nation. I have to feed well in order to lead and guide my people. My junior officers would have flogged their house helps for such an offence". Hearing this, Chioma began to silently weep as she prepared the eba. After several minutes of rigorous pounding, the eba was fully ready. She took another plate and poured some fresh hot soup into it. Then she took the plates and returned into the parlour. She was not surprised to see Faust lying on the couch, with his uniform on, deeply asleep. He was always very tired when he returned from war operations. Placing the new food on the table, she went to her room. It was around midnight when she slept off.
posted
I am aware that many people, expecially those from third world countries like Nigeria, where the literacy rate is alarmingly low, find it awfully difficult to comprehend even the simplest of things. Therefore, for the benefit of these folks, I have written a little commentary on the above true story. Hopefully, with this commentary, you'll understand the main point of the story. The commentary is the form of the internet typical faq (=frequently asked questions) format.
Question: What is the meaning of the intro of the story, with "protecting the guilty" and who is Bon Scott? Answer: The message in the intro explains itself and requires no further comments. Bon Scott was the lead singer of the famous australian hardrock band AC/DC. Scott died in 1981 after overdosing on whiskey. He literally died drinking whiskey to the state of unconsciousness, and then suffocated and miserably drowned in his own vomit.
Question: What song is this which plays when I click on the link? Answer: The song is from the 1976 AC/DC album "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap". It is called "Ain't no fun waiting round to be a millionaire". It tells the story of how the AC/DC band waited and hustled patiently for years, playing music, until they finally hit big time in 1980 with their rock anthem album and title track "Highway to hell", which made them millionaires.
Question: What on earth do you mean with Planet Krypton? Answer: Krypton is a planet from outside of the milky way. Krypton's civilization is much more advanced than that of earth's. Kryptonians look just like human beings, have the same body structure, however, their DNS is much more advanced. The climate on Krypton is just like on planet earth. Kryptonians, just like human beings, require air and water to survive. By the way, Kal-El, also known as Clark Kent, is the famous Superman, who was sent to earth from planet Krypton. For more information about Krypton click here.
Question: Are you seriously implying that there might be other life forms other than human beings? Answer: Yes.
Question: What is the meaning of Irrewo, East-Airegin, Acirfa, Dnalgne and Aihaumu? Answer: These are geographic locations on planet Krypton.
Question: How is it, that when you write these words in reverse, you get names from earth? Answer: There is no human logical explanation for that.
Question: So Irrewo is not Owerri, East-Airegin is not East Nigeria, Acirfa is not Africa, Dnalgne is not England, and Aihaumu is not Umuahia? Answer: Yes, they are not.
Question: How come the Reverend Father is referred to as Irish? Isn't that an indication that he's from Ireland? Answer: No. On Krypton, there's an advanced country by the name of Irish-El-Aboht (pronunciation: ee-reesh-ehl-aboht. Irish is merely a short version. The full and correct way to describe people from Irish-El-Aboht would therefore be Ireshelabohtian. Kryptonians like to make things easy for themselves. Thus the term Irish, which is the short form.
Question: What about the "scottish" whiskey which Faust drinks? Isn't that an allusion to Scottland? Answer: No. On Krypton, there's a little country called Scot-El-Prokur. Again, in order to simplify things, Kryptonians use the short term "scottish" when referring to Scot-El-Prokur.
Question: Who is Faust? Answer: In the story, Faust is the leader of the kryptonian obi tribe. Faust plunged his people into a senseless war by seceding from the federal republic of Airegin.
Question: What else is there to know about Faust? Answer: Faust is the main character of the theatre play "Faust" by Germany's greatest poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe is the german equivalent and contemporary of the british William Shakespeare. Faust physically sold his soul to the devil, who appeared to Faust and revealed his name as Mephistopholes. The deal was that Faust sells his soul to the devil in exchange for riches, material wealth, power & influence.
Question: Is Faust a historical person? Answer: There was actually a german man by the name of Johann Georg Faust, who lived in Germany in the 15th century. He was known to be an alchemist and magician.
Question: The title of the thread talks about a personal encounter with a rebel leader. Is Faust this rebel leader? Answer: Yes.
Question: Could it be that you are subtly implying that Faust is the nigerian rebel leader Emeka Ojukwu? Answer: No, there's no subtlety in the story.
Question: So, Faust is not Ojukwu.? Answer: Yes.
Question: Who is this Chioma girl? Answer: Chioma is the house help of Faust. She's living in his house, and does the entire house chores.
Question: Is Chioma the handle Alchemist? Answer: No.
Question: If Chioma is not the handle Alchemist, whose "personal" encounter are we talking about here then? Answer: This is the story as narrated by an eye witness.
Question: Can you tell me more about Chioma? Answer: Chioma is alive; she's happily married with children and lives on the island of Zor-El-Rakur, near the great waterfalls.
Question: The story talks of Faust eating eba. So there is eba on planet Krypton? Answer: Yes.
Question: The story speaks of an ongoing battle between the federal army and Faust's soldiers. Can you shed some light on the conflict? Answer: Faust tries to secede from the Federal Republic of Airegin. The aireginians therfore have engaged Faust's soldiers in an attempt to bring the region which Faust controls back to Airegin. The conflict lasted for 31 months. At the end Airegin defeated Faust and his soldiers. A few days before federal troops entered into the heartland of the rebel enclave, Faust fled the country with his family to an unknown destination.
Question: What happened to Chioma? Answer: Faust left Chioma behind. She fled to the forest to meet up with her people just in time before the federal troops ransacked Faust's military compound at Aihaumu.
Question: Why is Chioma speaking broken english? Answer: For the benefit of bnw handle Tijani, it was decided that Chioma should speak broken english.
Question: Why does Chioma have an ibo name? Answer: For the benefit of ibo handles at bnw, it was decided that Chioma should have an ibo name.
Question: What's the whole point of the story? Answer: The story shows Faust as a cold heartless man throwing away food while hundreds his own people, whom he had plunged into a senseless war, die every day from malnutrition and starvation.
posted
Whewww! Well, forumites, it's back to grade school for us if we try to make sense of certain posts here at BNW. Only idle and immature minds can conjure up the insane and unmitigated balderdash that starts this thread. What sort of person concerns him or herself with fictional superhuman characters and wholesale soul sales to the devil but a clueless moron of germanic fascination. What a joker! This circus intellect is now hanging from the rope of his/her own making and invites us all to witness a comedy of ignorance courtesy of the inferiority and identity crises contracted by too close contact with all things german. This person needs to return home to Nigeria(Lagos) for a healthy dose of foot-in-rear medicine. It may be just the thing to lessen the delirium by helping to alleviate weinerschnitzel compacted bowels.
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
