Free Voice of America by E.C. Osondu Page A

austerity measures they introduced last year have made life doubly difficult.”
    “I will only be needing money for my one-way ticket back. I will bear the cost of every other thing, do not worry. I have disappointed you, I know, but I will make up for it,” Uncle Dele said and prostrated himself on the floor.
    “Stand up—you are my son, and as our people say in one of their proverbs, you do not throw your child to a lion to eat because the child has offended you. I will do the best I can,” Dad said.
    Uncle Dele was the son of my dad’s younger brother. Though I called him Uncle, we were actually cousins. My dad’s late brother was a farmer and lived in the village. He had gone to the farm one day with Dele; the farms were usually some distance from the village. As they were working in the farm, the sky suddenly grew dark, and thunderclouds gathered. It appeared a storm was gathering. They began to run to the barn to hide from the storm because they were afraid the storm could make a tree fall on them. Before they got to the barn, there was a sudden bright flash of lightning. Dele later told people that he felt like he had been struck on the face with a live electric wire. Dele fell down senseless. His father was knocked down too. When Dele woke up, the storm had passed. He touched his father, but his father was no longer breathing. His skin had grown very dark, and his body was stretched taut. Dele ran back to the village and called the village elders. They came and took the body back to the village. A distant cousin was sent to notify my father. There was a lot of crying. Dad wasstoic. “What has happened has happened and we cannot question God,” he said. Dad traveled to the village and saw to the burial arrangements. After the burial, Dele came to live with us. He always came tops in his class; some people in the village said he was brilliant because he had been to the land of the dead and back. Some said the lightning had ignited his brain. When I was still growing up, Uncle Dele won all the prizes in high school quizzes, debates, elocution contests, and dramatic performances.
    I WOULD WAKE up most days and see Uncle Dele all dressed, standing by the window, smoking and listening to Jimmy Cliff’s “Going Back West” and “Suffering in the Land” and “Vietnam.” It was from him I first heard that Americans were fighting in one far-off country called Vietnam. The track he played over and over again, however, was “Going Back West.” As Jimmy Cliff sang, he sang along with him, his fingers pointing in a westerly direction. He would drink his tea and leave the house for Lagos Island, where the corporate offices and embassies were located. It was also the location of the criminal enclave nicknamed Olu-wole, where people could obtain forged international passports and birth certificates.
    One day Uncle Dele came back and told my father that he had made some contact that would take him back to America.
    “What kind of contact have you made? You have to be careful—Lagos Island is filled with con men.”
    “These are not con men. I have made contact with a musical promoter, he is taking King Pago and His Rhythm Dandies on an American tour. He has agreed to take me along as a member of the band for a fee of one hundred thousand naira.”
    “Are you not going to go through an interview at the embassy?” Dad asked him.
    “The interview is just going to be a formality; I will be dressed like the other band boys and will be playing an instrument.”
    “But you are not a musician, Dele.”
    “I am practicing how to play the conga drums, I am rehearsing with them already.”
    “You have not given me enough notice—how do you expect me to raise such a huge amount of money within such a short time?”
    “Don’t worry about the money. I have already paid half of the money to them and will pay the remainder as soon as we get the visa.”
    “Oh, I did not know you came back with bags of money,” my Dad