LIFE OF A BARRACK BOY EPISODE 4 Bail Ya Goat There are many advantages of living in the barracks; or let me say, growing up in the barrack. One was the fact that it was a perfect representation of what the country is. That is you have people from every part of the nation in one single community. So it was easy to come across diverse culture, language, religion, and belief system. It was one of the best things that happened to us as children. Even though we never traveled to many parts of the country, we knew how someone from any part of country would act or react to things. It afforded us the luxury of understanding the very commonly used words of most languages. And if you easily slide into the matter, you will already know what I meant when I say ‘commonly used words’. Unfortunately, this episode is not about words, or must used slang in the barrack. It’s about the relationships and fun we had together as not just children, but barrack shildren. Leggo Our closest neighbour who was the Chief Medical Officer of the division had (and still has, I think) two wives. We sometimes called him Doctor. Not that the two women lived under the same roof, or the same city for that matter, but all his children lived in the same house with him. So, ‘many’ wasn’t a word that was used to say the number of children that lived in that three bedroom duplex of our neighbour’s house. We used ‘plenty’ and sometimes ‘numerous’, though the only difference between them and us was that they were all siblings, and we were a mixture of siblings, cousins, nephews, and house helps. Because we shared a very large compound we had many things in common. We shared a huge two hectares of cassava and maize farm; we shared security; we shared a plot of green lawn turned soccer pitch, plus a few other luxuries. And responsibilities. Because of what we got from farm and vegetable gardens, we didn’t necessary visit the market everyday just to prepare a pot of soup. Remember we had a poultry. But with all these came a huge challenge: securing the farm. Because we were on holidays, we took on the task of building bamboo fence around the farm. As soon as Doctor saw our little initiative, he made it a law. A rule. So with the help of a few friends and tenants, we drove the stakes deeper, and raised the fence higher. What we intended to do as fun became work as soon as Doctor got involved. All our effort though didn’t stop the goats and other ruminants to break in and destroy the cassava and maize stems. So we thought of what to do: we set traps, and built cells to keep any goat and sheep caught within our farm. So once again we had some fun to wake up to, apart from the morning and evening sessions of playing football. We took shifts at the ‘gate house’- the entrance of the farm; we patrolled round to check for any break-in of some sort. Even our dogs, Whiskey and Motty had some chasing to do. Trust me, we caught many goats. Many many goats. That made Doctor feel good that we were busy doing something worth it during the holiday. Soon, our cells were full, which resulted in another problem. We hadn’t really thought of what to do with the goats except to starve them to death. But after a little over a week, we had over fifty goats, and of course an awesome idea. People started coming to our house to beg for the release of their goats. After our parents were gone to work, we would host and receive a number of pleas from the barrack men and women alike. “Come when Doctor is back from work,” was always our respond. It was just fun seeing people come to our balcony every morning and afternoon. Some begged, some cursed, some cried, and some just stood there looking straight into our eyes like they wanted to hypnotize us. Of course, we were afraid that some of those women were witches, but my cousin Mudiaga and one of our neighbour’s son, Ochuko gave the rest of us the boldness to continue with our mission. To create more fun we asked some of them to write guarantor’s letter promising that their goats would never stray to this part of the barrack again. It was a whole load of fun reading requests and appeals from these wonderful women. We would laugh over grammatical blunders, and ask them to come back later in the evening when Doctor was back. Although many of them swore to come back, but we never saw anyone come around when our neigbour’s father came home. We were sure their soldier husbands warned them not to. I can’t remember exactly, but I think it was Mudiaga, my cousin who brought up the idea that we released the goats on bail. Four days down the line, we had made a little fortune for ourselves, our parents not knowing exactly the details of what we did. As long as we told them that we were simply trying to guard our precious farm, they didn’t push for any major detail. To spice the fun, we would take on ‘flogging sessions’, where we spend some times beating the goats to the point of coma. Ochuko was particular with breaking their horns, or breaking one of the legs of the animals. It was a brutally enjoyable experience for us. Sometimes, we would deliberately release one of the goats and let it run around the compound, then we would chase it as a form of game. In the space of three weeks our notoriety had spread around the barracks, and we were beginning to have enemies and fans alike. After the fourth week, the little group had become a club where membership was extended to other ‘quarters’ boys and privileged fine barrack babes. Our effort at chasing and stopping the goats from entering into our farm was hugely appreciated by Doctor who one day bought everyone of us catapults. But even the few goats that remained in the barracks had stopped coming anywhere close to a fifty metre radius of our compound. Soon splinter groups came out, and before we knew it there were no more goats in the barrack again. But the game had to continue, the rave dared not seize. At this point, we resulted to go hunting for goats wherever the goats hid and brought them into our compound. We marked their bodies with paint so that should the goats find their way to the hands of the opposition, we would have a just course to embark on an invasion of our opponent’s territory. It all got to the stage where we organized goat- fighting competitions within the barrack. There where the feather weight, middle and heavy weight categories; which resulted to us giving the goats names like Idiamin, Babangida, Maradona, Hulk Hogan, Undertaker, etc. I think it all came crashing down when schools started resuming from the long holidays, and our siblings and friends who attended federal schools started returning one after the other. I remember vividly the face of our special goat, Otegi, which got to the semi-finals of the competition… That was the first and only time I ever saw a goat smile. Washaaut for the next episode of The Life of a Barrack Boy Target: 5 likes
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 09:05:20 +0000
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