The Sunbird , livre ebook

Langaa RPCIG - Fonkeng E.F.

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154 pages

English

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The travails of day-to-day existence notwithstanding, Scolastica is an ordinary woman in Tobeningo who has struggled to carve a fairly successful life for herself. She is not a novice when it comes to putting out fires, thanks to a bubbling teenage daughter, a sugar-daddy chairman of the local Native Authority and the sudden re-appearance of a former sweetheart. But when her son sets out to commemorate his father�s passing, on a false alarm, it is her life skills and sense of purpose that are tested to the limit. As the sole privy to the true situation, she is in a race against time to avert a calamity from befalling her son and her people. In her path, besides the vicissitudes of daily living, are the high-handedness and ineptitude of local politics, as well as the straightjacket and mysticism of both religion and tradition. How will she fare?

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Fiction

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Publié par	Langaa RPCIG
Date de parution	05 juin 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789956727650
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	25 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0808€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Sunbird

Fonkeng E.F.

The Sunbird

E.F. Fonkeng

Langaa Research & Publishing CIG Mankon, Bamenda

Publisher: LangaaRPCIG Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon Langaagrp@gmail.com www.langaa-rpcig.net Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective orders@africanbookscollective.com www.africanbookcollective.com

DISCLAIMER All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Langaa RPCIG.

Dedication

To you, Scolastica Who sped past Life, Not even the Mountains Bar the Memory Of a sister

Chapter One ami Nawaya shook Scolastica violently, “Get up, Mdwelling, she looked around and about her – in a my friend, do you see the time or do you not?” The time, what time? As if her first night in this bid to ascertain whether there was, indeed, a clock somewhere and anywhere. She coiled and uncoiled her body like a snake and slid out of bed, groaning. “And what is that nonsense?” her auntie inquired. “Nothing, auntie.” “It better be.” She proceeded to the window, opened it and the full glare of the morning sun hit her in the face. Unusual, she thought, for this time of year – in fact, any time of year – for a town with a reputation of nothing but constant drizzle, fog, dampness and cold. “Get away from there, you stupid thing,” she shouted at a sunbird that had settled on a dress she had washed and dried outside but forget to bring in the night before. There were bird droppings glued all over the dress, thanks to the soft rain the night before. As far as she was concerned, this bird was the culprit. The little bird quickly dispatched on its way, Scolastica set about her morning chores - feed the pigs, sweep the compound inside-out, go fetch water from the local stream, among others. She was thankful it was not market day in Burwandai! Throughout the day her mind kept looping back to the sunbird and its resilience before the elephant; it was one popular legend in these parts she had a hard time swallowing.

****It was an incident that had drawn the instant and generalized ire of Burwandai’s rumour mill. To its chief priestess, Mami Titi, it had the imprint of the nasty wizards and witches of Motombolombo all over it. And with it, Ekodinge’s fortunes took a dramatic turn. True, Ekodinge had been wrestling for many years. He was a good wrestler but nowhere near the town’s favourite prodigy. In fact, on many occasions, he barely made the cut for the Burwandai youth team. No one in Burwandai could, therefore, truly declare having seen this day coming – a day that would come to be engraved in Scolastica’s mind. How could Elempia have become the victim of such a freak trapping accident at this eleventh hour – just like that? A few accusing fingers were even pointed the way of Ekodinge’s father, who doubled as coach of his town’s squad. Not that any of this bothered Scolastica. In fact, upon getting wind of the news, she had run home, all full of excitement and broken it to her auntie. ‘I see, and I wonder how that should concern us’ was all auntie Nawaya had said, leaving Scolastica to ask herself how she could possibly be related to this woman -whose vital organs seemed to come to life only over insignificant matters. Meanwhile, try as hard as he did, not even Chief Nfombeng could get themukalato postpone this annual festival to give Burwandai’s favourite son time to heal. At stake was a trophy, the silver cup, and Burwandai would show up no matter what. To the people of Burwandai - indeed, the entire Native Authority area, wrestling remained one of the few pleasures they had left, themukala having suppressed and criminalized just about anything he fancied or that he, in his infinite wisdom, could not comprehend. Little wonder then that