My boys got their share of the ụmụnna meat and felt happy -By Azuka Onwuka

At the 2018 AGM of my ụmụnna, I spoke against the trend of keeping children, including university graduates and people in their late 20s, away from the ụmụnna meeting. I promised to bring my teenage boys to the 2019 meeting, so that they would start early to know their roots better, and make it easier for them never to forget their roots.

The campaign worked.

At the 2019 AGM, some kinsmen brought their boys to the ụmụnna meeting. There was a surprise waiting for the boys: a cow was donated by a family member and it was slaughtered and shared to all present, including the boys who were not yet full members. My boys got their share of the “anụ ụmụnna” and felt proud to take meat home to their mother.

Because of the joy of having so many members of the ụmụnna at the meeting, two family members promised to bring two cows to the next AGM (by the end of the year).

I also suggested to the ụmụnna that next AGM will be held like a full board meeting. Rather than waiting for the end of the meeting for food and drinks to be served, each person will have a table with a table cloth in front of him, with small chops, drinks and other goodies on the table for constant refueling all through the meeting. That will make the boys know that this is not just “a village meeting where old men sit down for hours discussing what is not clear,” bit a place of enjoyment. Our people say that if a dibịa does divination on an empty stomach, he will be seeing only death and catastrophe🤣

My wife came back from the women’s AGM with her bag filled with goodies. My boys were jealous. Most women came with gifts which they shared to other women. It gave me an idea of what we should add to the ụmụnna AGM. Each person should be encouraged to bring some” Christmas gifts” and share to everyone at the meeting. It may be cans of malt drink, biscuits, writing pens, diaries, calendars, cups, etc. People love to receive gifts, no matter how small.

One terrible thing that happened in our community in the late 80s was that people jettisoned the communal life for individual life. High walls and big gates were introduced, making each compound look like a prison. People stopped taking their children from house to house, as it used to be, for fear that they would be killed or their destiny stolen! Children were made to see community things as “village things that are not for trendy and exposed guys.”

Nobody was asking: Who will take over from us in upholding the things of the clan when we are gone?

Today is the time for us to reverse this brainwashing that has been instilled in us. We grew up in these communities. Nobody stole our destinies. Nobody killed us. If our children in their teenage years and their 20s act like Yankees when they are in the villages and keep away from “village issues” and “village people”, when will they learn about the things of their communities? What will make them want to come back home in their adulthood?

©Azuka Onwuka
January 2, 2020