The native strangers

By Uduma Kalu 

Are we not becoming strangers in the land we are born, my brother. Western civilization, as you said, is upon us.

I remember returning home in 2015 to the East and I knew I was among strangers. Their ways full of force and hesitant but kind. In business, very slippery, secretive and tough. I am not a business man. And the business man's ways still remain strange to me. I did a poem then, The native stranger.

I'm trying to memorialize our past for the future.

Ogbarali still springs from the rocks. But Gwogwo. Hmmm. After over 30 years, I visited to show my son one of the wonders of Isiugwu Ohafia. I didn't hear the Gwogwo sound that gave it the name. Forest all over. The spring is like a thread now. The heavy weight of water is no more. The cave is a little hole. There was no python. I showed and told Kalu, my son, the story of Gwogwo.

But its glory belongs to another time. Will my son appreciate Gwogwo the way I did? I don't know. We are native strangers today in our land.