!The Water Seller
by Faith Samuel Bassey and Deena Larsen
//''The Setting''//
This story takes place in Obodo, Nigeria, in 1988. This was a time of new beginnings, as the government and partners improved water supplies and disease awareness to help eradicate diseases and parasites like the guinea worm. Computers were just taking off in a few parts of government and industry. Cell phones were just begining to appear on the scene and were reserved for the very rich. In these interstices between old and new, Aiwa remembers her past and looks toward her future.
Please explore her story by clicking on each word on her image or click on the links below her image.
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//"The Story Line"//
[[The water she carries|The water she carries]]
[[The questions she asks |The questions she asks]]
[[The body she cherishes|The body she cherishes]]
[[The voice she uses |The voice she uses]]
[[The pain she knows|The pain she knows]]
[[The strength she understands|The strength she understands]]
[[The love she shares |The love she shares]]
[[The future she hopes for|The future she hopes for]]
<img src=http://www.deenalarsen.net/ws/water.png alt='a curved pot of water with text as The water she carries'>.
''The water she carries''
Aiwa, a water seller in Obodo Nigeria, carefully balances the water on her head in a curved water pot, hearing the familiar slosh and taking on the daily weight yet again. She shifts her neck to lighten the ache and arches her shoulders back. The only way to carry a load like this is to stand straight, her spine as rigid as steel. With each step, she thinks: “I am strong, I am worthy, I can understand this.”
These are the thoughts that her mother whispered to her as a little girl, when she had to get water from the river—walking the 6,379 steps from their home to the river and then back again with the jerry can on her tiny head, her two arms holding the load in place. “Count your lessons over as you walk, my daughter, my lovely one, my love. Then you can keep pushing on towards your dreams,” her mother told her over and over again.
Her mother had to whisper these words away from her father, away from the hungry bellies of her older brothers. Her mother and Dr. Lazarus had told her this a thousand times, ten thousand times. Dr. Lazarus had met her mother just as Aiwa was toddling, giving Aiwa a shot to prevent measles and polio in secret. Her father had told her mother not to provide the shot, to refuse the offer since herbs would provide more protection than any sharp needle ever could. But her mother had snuck out to see Dr. Lazarus at the edge of the village anyway. Surely a woman doctor, one who had survived so many trials, would know what she was doing.
When other children died, when her two younger sisters died, Aiwa had survived. Now her mother dedicated [[Aiwa's life|The future she hopes for]] to be another doctor, just like her savior. The doctor had lent Aiwa her first aid books, one after another, which she hid in the hollow of a corkwood tree, 349 steps into the daily journey—out of sight from any dwelling. If her father had found any of these books, he would have sold it for enough money to keep them all fed for a month.
But these books had grown to mean [[so much more |The questions she asks]] to Aiwa than food—even when her spine cried out in sharp pains, she hushed her empty body with the dream of becoming a doctor, of [[healing her family|The strength she understands]], [[her village |The voice she uses]] of more than that day’s empty stomachs. So, in each afternoon journey, she stopped first to read an entire page: memorizing and repeating what to do when someone can not move, when the pain is here or there, when the blood pressure is high, when it is low. In the early morning twilight, when the low-hanging moon was full, Aiwa stopped to read as much as she could. When it was too dark to see in predawn moonless skies, Aiwa simply reviewed what she had already learned.
Now, trudging through the streets of Obodo, [[her son Amadi|The love she shares]] clinging to her back, she still reviews [[these lessons. |The body she cherishes]]
--> [[The questions she asks |The questions she asks]]
<img src=http://www.deenalarsen.net/ws/questions.png alt='a beautiful headscarf over deep thoughtful eyes with the text as The questions she asks'>.
''The questions she asks''
As she walks the streets of Obodo now, [[selling her water, |The strength she understands]] Aiwa savors the memory of how she and Mbanu, oldest son of Abaeze, the king of the Obiokpo, first met. On that day, she was singsonging out loud as she returned to her family’s home in the village with the water resting heavy on her head. She repeated the words from [[Dr. Lazarus’ |The water she carries]] New School Chemistry book. Aiwa kept puzzling over the strange words, savoring their scent, wondering if she would ever know what they truly meant. Mass is the measure of the amount of matter in an object. Weight is the force that gravity exerts. What could matter in an object—and would that object include the water swaying from side to side in her curved water pot on her head? How did gravity exert force and would the weight of the water, the strength of gravity, be less if she walked on the face of the moon or maybe even by the shore of the ocean?
She giggled to herself as she asked her silly questions out loud like a teacher scolding a class. But then she heard someone answer her and nearly lost her hold on her water pot. Mbanu, his shoes dusty from crossing over the fields, had joined her on the side of the path. The path was only wide enough for one person, yet still he walked beside her. She stopped her singsong questions and stayed silent, her eyes down on the dust, seeing his feet as he kept her company along her path, watching his feet sinking into the loose dirt of the field, never even stopping when the stickers pierced his shoes. How had she learned to read, he asked her. She shook her head, silent. It would not do to talk to Mbanu, as he was the oldest son of the Igwa, the king, and thus the heir apparent to the Obiokpo kingdom. But Mbanu persisted. What did she want to know about gravity, he then asked her. Why did she want to know? She stayed quiet that day. But he returned, following her the next morning, his voice soft in her ears, a reassurance. “I won’t tell anyone,” Mbanu said. “Tell me. Tell me your story.”
And she did, naming her two older brothers and explaining how she listened to them over their lessons, how they taught her to read in whatever treasured light still remained after they came back from the school, writing with sticks on the ground, whispering what the teachers had said while they shivered for warmth far into the night. And then she asked Mbanu, “Weight is measured in new tons, but what would an old ton be? Why did gravity require new ones?” Mbanu laughed, his smile reaching far beyond his eyes. “I can tell you that,” he said. “And a lot more.” And so each day, he rose early to meet her on her way to get water—telling her his lessons.
Their love had grown with each new idea they shared, each new calculation of volume, each new smile when they had tackled a problem and succeeded together. Their lives would be like this, they thought, calculations and insights, [[a smiling achievement.|The future she hopes for]] And now [[Mbanu would confront his father, Abaeze|The pain she knows]]. For they wanted an equal union, [[something new.|The body she cherishes]] These were [[the memories that still |The voice she uses]] made her smile.
-->[[The body she cherishes|The body she cherishes]]
<img src=http://www.deenalarsen.net/ws/body.png alt='a Nigerian womans upper body with text as The body she cherishes'>
''The body she cherishes''
Now when a car honks, or another water seller or a vendor pushes her out of the street, or she just can't walk another step, Aiwa thinks of her true moment of triumph and keeps going on.
Mbanu had told her not to worry, that he would stand up to his father, the king, and ensure that they could marry, even though their stations were so vastly different. But Aiwa heard [[a different story|The pain she knows]] through the village gossip as she washed their clothes at the river, downstream and a bit farther off from the others, as befit her downcast station. The gossip story went like this:
//Mbanu had lost his mind over a simple girl, and worse, a girl who could read, a girl who the village went to for potions and bandages and anything that might be wrong. For her hands often healed. The gossips disagreed on how Mbanu could have gotten the courage to approach his father about marrying Aiwa. One swore he had seen Mbanu spend the night in an alusi shrine, consulting with the ancient deities. Others said, no, just Aiwa’s shining brilliance was enough to charge Mbanu with such a romantic notion–to make her his wife, his equal, rather than a simple hidden mistress. But the gossips all agreed that for Mbanu to even ask his father, Abaeze—that proud and traditional Igwe, the king— to merge his royal family with the family of someone so poor, of such low caste that even their neighbors avoided their shadows, would have [[taken more courage|The strength she understands]] than any of them would ever have had//.
The gossips detailed all of the fights that the palace maids and guards heard between the two. They had even heard Abaeze’s declarations that his only son, Mbanu, would never defile the palace with [[a peasant girl|The water she carries]] even as a mistress—let alone marry her as an equal.
But Mbanu had not told her any of this, [[only that he loved her |The questions she asks]] and he would marry her, no matter what. She was not sure who to believe. Perhaps they could elope, she said. Like Efuru in the Nwapa novels, the literature born of revolution, of changing times. “No,” Mbanu had answered her. “I will have you as my wife. I will pay the dowry price, and our families will merge. We will [[forge new traditions |The voice she uses]], [[new lives|The love she shares]]–keeping only the best and most noble of both the old and the Western.” Mbanu counseled patience, and they both waited, still meeting on the path to get the water.
At the New Yam, Iri Ji, festival, everyone gathered and danced and ate and sang, as they had for centuries past. As they were sharing the meal and laughing, Abaeze’s youngest son, Ugwunnaya, began to choke. Aiwa ran to his side and bent him forwards for five back blows and then the three abdominal thrusts, just as the first aid book instructed. Abaeze shouted at her in front of the entire village, “‘You can marry my son, you can do anything, just save Ugwunnaya.” Aiwa nodded, barely hearing these shouts. She kept up her blows and thrusts, and then the crumb shot out. Ugwunnaya lay on the ground and took in a rasping breath. Then another. As he sat up, Mbanu rushed to his father and said, “Thank you for your blessing on my marriage. Let’s go discuss all of the arrangements with your new inlaws.” Aiwa smiled and held his hand tightly. [[Oh so tightly.|The future she hopes for]]
-->[[The voice she uses |The voice she uses]]
<img src=http://www.deenalarsen.net/ws/voice.png alt='a Nigerian womans nose and mouth with text as The voice she uses'>
''The voice she uses''
Each night now in Obodo in the Widows Compound where Aiwa and her son, Amadi, slept, [[she would lecture. |The questions she asks]] The other widows who lived there with her would gather in her tiny room, perched outside to listen as she read from one first aid book and from another on chemistry,and even a battered copy of Efuru,a novel of a strong woman in the 1960s revolution. She thought about how she had whispered these ideas in the palace, smiling a bit at her subversion, [[her own sparks of revolutions. |The strength she understands]]
In her days at the palace [[after her wedding to Mbanu, |The body she cherishes]] the king’s son, Aiwa found her days empty–-all except for her books that she had kept hidden. The only person she could truly talk to was Mbanu, and he was busy now with so many new duties as the properly wedded first-born son. The elders had strictly instructed their wives not to converse with Aiwa. Her improper, upstart rise into the palace was upsetting Abaeze, the king, so much that any kind word or deed toward Aiwa would be met with a smoldering, suppressed fury that none of them dared to spark. Best to leave her alone, to ensure that the only ones who would speak to her were the maids, the underservants, the gardeners.
Ahh. . . but Aiwa did speak with the palace servants. She walked with girls who carried water to the palace, balancing her own curved water pot with them. [[As they walked, |The water she carries]] Aiwa talked of books, of the need to separate and clean water to avoid cholera or dysentery, of the need to avoid mosquitoes that carried the bone-breaking fever, dengue. She talked of how the guinea worm was even now being slowly eradicated by using these measures. She named the tiny, invisible creatures that lived in the water: //Cryptosporidium, Giardia, Cyclospora cayetanensis,// and //Entamoeba// and how to boil the water to ensure that these monsters did not crawl into their bloodstreams, wreaking havoc in their bodies. Abaeze wondered at the growing practices of boiling all water, of using clean cloths filled with fresh cilantro to filter the water. “Who taught you this?” he demanded. “Aiwa,” they replied, and he scowled.
She spoke with the guards, keeping vigils with them over the long nights, going over how crimes were truly committed, on the thoughts and steps involved in detective work. “Why,”she argued with them, “[[would a woman be thought automatically responsible for her husband’s death?|The pain she knows]] What if a jealous rival killed her husband? What if a sawtooth viper hidden in the grass in the fields bit her husband?” Traditional beliefs are important, but they need to be thought through, she begged them. “We should keep the best and toss the rest,” she kept repeating. Some of the guards nodded. Some wondered.
When Maduka, a favored elder, died of a snakebite, and Abaeze forced Somadina, his wife, to undergo the humiliating ritual test of drinking the water used to bathe her husband’s corpse, some of the guards demurred. Abaeze stared at the guards in utter disbelief as they explained quietly that this traditional test of the wife’s fidelity, her ultimate responsibility for her husband’s death, might actually harm poor Somadina and make her grief worse. Moreover, it wasn’t even at all needed for her husband had died so far away from home without any proof or even hint that Somadina had somehow been involved. Everyone knew she had had nothing to do with this death. Surely, the guards argued softly with Abaeze, surely they did not need to do this? “Who persuaded you of this!?” Abaeze yelled at them. “Aiwa,” they replied, and he scowled.
But Abaeze could do nothing except scowl, except threaten his subdued fury, as Aiwa performed her marriage duties faithfully, including delivering [[that precious first-born son.|The love she shares]] Even now in her exile, Aiwa smiles at these memories of [[a successful subterfuge. |The future she hopes for]]
--> [[The pain she knows|The pain she knows]]
<img src=http://www.deenalarsen.net/ws/pain.png alt='a Nigerian womans clothing with the text as The pain she knows'>.
''The pain she knows''
When she hears the angry shouts of men in the streets of Obodo protesting this or that from the government, demanding changes in the government, Aiwa cannot help but remember how [[Mbanu staggered |The questions she asks]] to their rooms in the family compound in their old village, coming from that fateful meeting with elders in council in the Igwe’s palace, his father’s house.
His father, Abaeze, the king of their village, had presided over the elders to answer the question whether Mbanu would take over as the heir apparent to the throne. “Yes,” the elders had said, “Yes, [[you had promised this when she saved your youngest son,|The body she cherishes]] the darling of your life.” But still, for Abaeze, even this was not enough. For perhaps Ugwunnaya, his youngest son, would have survived anyway. And even so, even with his forced blessing, it could never be denied that Mbanu had done the unthinkable: he had married Aiwa, a peasant girl with no royal blood. How could Aiwa, a girl with no formal education, no bloodlines, no nothing, ever hope to become the queen of the land? This could not happen, Abaeze protested. But the elders remained firm–it was tradition and Abaeze had given his word–even if it was only in the desperate moment when Aiwa had saved his youngest son.
Moreover, Mbanu insisted that this is the modern age, and that he would keep his wife and throw out the traditions. “We must move with the times,” Mbanu stated. His father leaned back in his opulent chair and simply shook his head, his fist shaking slightly on the side where Mbanu could not see it. Mbanu watched his father smile, seeing where the smile never reached his eyes. Abaeze leaned forward and poured out a measure of palm wine from the special flask by his side and handed it to Mbanu, who drank deeply to his satisfaction.
The cramps came almost immediately, and Mbanu felt the pain working in his stomach, churning and writhing in his intestines. Abaeze smiled cruelly as he saw the aconite, the monkshood poison, working in his son–he knew that his son would be dead in a few hours as the poison worked quickly. “You are ill, my son. Go home to your wife to rest. You will be fine in no time.”
Mbanu went to their rooms, his guts protesting the pain all the way. By the time he got there, he was too dizzy and confused to say much. Aiwa put him on their bed, but he soon gasped with his last breath: “Take care of [[Amadi, of my only son. I love you. |The love she shares]]”
Before Mbanu’s body cooled in their bed, Abaeze appeared, trailed by all of the elders. He cried out that Aiwa had just killed her husband. Aiwa could offer no defense–how could she contradict the king, how could she say anything to the elders, how could she understand what had happened? This was the way of her world. No matter what had happened, she would be blamed–for this was [[tradition |The voice she uses]]. How could she go against any of that? [[Her parents could not help her|The water she carries]] as they were elderly and weak now. And besides, with their downcast state, they would have never dared approach, let alone defy, the king at any time.
Her tears didn't change anything. She would have to undergo the ritual, the traditional punishment for women whose husbands had died: commanded to drink the water used in bathing her husband's corpse to prove her worthiness to live after her husband's death. She could either refuse to drink this and be stripped of all her belongings–allowed to leave the village with just her water pot and perhaps her child. If she did drink the water and died immediately, perhaps Abaeze would even persuade the elders and the village that they needed to kill her child to join her in death as that would prove that his grandson was also not worthy to stay alive. If she did not die immediately, she would still be forced to leave the village with nothing. And everyone knew that drinking that cursed water would kill you eventually–in a few months or years. The time you lived from then on would be marked, would be awash in the death water, and no amount of any other water could wash away that curse.
Aiwa could not face being forced to undergo this horrible humiliation. This ordeal would mean the end of any shards of respect that the villagers still had for her. If she lived through it, she would be forever marked as one who had drunk the corpse water, as one who should be shunned. If she did not live, then who would fulfill her promises to Mbanu, who would care for her infant son? No. She had to live for her son. And thus she had to leave the village in secret that very night, before the ritual, with only her son, her curved water pot, and the one hidden last book. Aiwa felt for her parents, as there would be nothing left for them. But she did not even dare stay for the burial. She saved her tears for [[the road ahead. |The future she hopes for]]
--> [[The strength she understands|The strength she understands]]
<img src=http://www.deenalarsen.net/ws/strength.png alt='an upraised arm with the text as the strength she understands'>
''The strength she understands''
[[Her only son, Amadi,|The love she shares]] tugs at her shoulder, her “latissimus dorsi,” Aiwa thinks as she names her muscles, her veins, her bones, as she memorizes her anatomy texts along her journey to and from the water tap. Her arm steadies the water she carries now, her back straightens as she recounts her gratitude to the [[Widows and Orphan’s aid organization|The voice she uses]] in Obodo that had helped her after all.
[[After her husband’s death,|The pain she knows]] after being chased from the village with nothing, she had walked to the nearest city, Obodo. She gave Amadi what little she could find to eat along the way. All she owned was her water pot and that last book that Dr. Lazarus had lent her with some scrawled addresses of aid organizations on the fly leaf. “I wish I didn't have to leave you like this,” Dr. Lazarus had said, about a year earlier, right after Aiwa’s marriage. Dr Lazarus had left to travel to Lagos, a bigger city in Nigeria, to learn more modern techniques-–and to see if anyone could sponsor Aiwa and her husband Mbanu to study at the university there. Dr. Lazarus had urged both Aiwa and Mbanu to flee the village and study somewhere else, as she feared that the village elders and Mbanu’s father, the king of the village, might resent their quest for knowledge, for new techniques. “I do hope that everything goes well for you here, that you can continue to study. But … well… just in case.” were Dr. Lazarus’ last whispered words to Aiwa as she pressed this book into Aiwa’s hands. And indeed, Aiwa had had to flee her village and her father-in-law’s scorn well before Dr. Lazarus’ promised return.
One of these addresses, of the Widows Aid in Obodo,had proved to be a safe haven–a place she could get help. In a larger city like Obodo, she could now live away from the staring eyes, the baseless accusations from her father-in-law that she had caused her husband’s death. She brushed the painful memories of those accusations and the forced humiliation of being given that traditional choice between drinking her husband’s corpse water or being thought somehow responsible for his death.
In Obodo, Aiwa had found work as a water seller (mai ruwa). She got the water from a public tap at the edge of town and then walked through the town, going from house to house. She filled house bucket after house bucket, always keeping her money close. Throughout her long days, her arm stayed steady, balancing her load, her child nestled on her back, too precious to be separated from her for even a moment. Though tired, she now keeps forging ahead, step after weary step. [[Her resolve strengthens|The future she hopes for]] with each step, her goals outlined in each cell of her bicep, tricep, deltoids, serratus anterior.
Every day, every hour, she keeps at her work, [[never shirking her duty.|The body she cherishes]] Her feet bleed and she wraps them in rags. Her shoulder aches from the increasing weight of her child, and she struggles to keep balancing the growing load. Her strength resides in God, who holds the cosmos. She smiles at her son’s growing heaviness, as her steps make it possible for him to eat, for him to thrive. Soon he will be able to walk beside her. Soon she will teach him [[all of her lessons,|The questions she asks]] and soon, they can share a glorious future together, healing themselves and everyone who needs their help.
--> [[The love she shares |The love she shares]]
<img src=http://www.deenalarsen.net/ws/love.png alt='a Nigerian child clinging to his mothers back with text as The love she shares'>
''The love she shares''
After her nightly reading to the other widows in [[Obodo’s Widow Compound,|The strength she understands]] Aiwa tucks Amadi, her only son, into the thin covers with her. She [[whispers |The voice she uses]] in his ear all that Mbanu, her husband [[had taught her. |The questions she asks]] And Amadi giggles at her voice.
Amadi is the child of the future, she thinks. She wonders exactly how or when she will tell her son [[how his father died|The pain she knows]]. Will her words ring of the poison still swirling in her soul from her father-in-law's treachery? Will she whisper about what she suspects: that her husband may well have been killed to sweep her aside and to deny her son his inheritance as Igwe, as king in that village? Would she ever ask Amadi to return to the village?
And then she hears Amadi's gentle breathing, watches his tiny chest rise and fall. No. Bringing more hatred and suspicion into the world will not help create the world she wants him to live in. She wants a world of hope, [[of promise,|The body she cherishes]] of merging the best of the old traditions, the love of family, and the love and respect for all. A world free from venomous accusations. This is what [[she needs for him.|The future she hopes for]]
In a whispered voice, she sings their nightly ritual lullaby to him. “I love you, my son. More than water itself. More than words.” And her son reaches out to stroke her hair, [[over and over. |The water she carries]]
-->[[The future she hopes for|The future she hopes for]]
<img src=http://www.deenalarsen.net/ws/future.png alt='a dark space in the left raising to a bright corner of headscarf with text as The future she hopes for'>
''The future she hopes for''
And now, as she walks through the dark streets of Obodo, Aiwa still intones the mantra her mother instilled in her. With each step she thinks: “I am strong, I am worthy, I can [[understand this |The questions she asks]].” She has said these words to herself so many hundreds of thousands of times that the phrase now fits snugly in her mind like smooth coral prayer beads, each precious bright bead now worn down from a lifetime of fingering it, each one filled with the memories of her endless, daily journeys for water. She turns to her lessons to review as she balances the [[curved water pot|The water she carries]] on her head, her [[precious son |The love she shares]] on her back.
Her lesson today covers these well-traveled thoughts with a sheen of newness: memorizing the chart of normal lab values from theTextbook of Medical Physiology. This new knowledge overlays all of the books her childhood mentor, Dr. Lazarus, had lent her. Aiwa will meet Dr. Lazarus again, and will thank her. But for now, she will everything she can as a tribute to her mother’s friend, the doctor who saved her life as a child, the doctor who grew her mind. “Be a better doctor,” Dr. Lazarus had told her, time and time again. “That is the only repayment I would ever need.”
Aiwa had just saved enough money to pay for her O level graduation exams, those critical tests which could pave her way into medical school. The women in the [[Widows Compound |The strength she understands]] where she had fled to after [[her husband’s death |The pain she knows]], were collecting a library of study notes. And one of the other widows, Sarah, was already in the university. Sarah was helping Aiwa by reviewing all of her lessons in the evenings. Now Aiwa repeats these lessons softly to herself every day—a singsong pattern as she goes through her steps, carrying the water from house to house, and then back to the water tap again and again. She can pass the exams; she knows it.
Every night, she carefully counts the thin sheets of naira, feeling the shine of the money as she adds it to her stash beneath her pillow. Every other week, she walks the ten minutes to the bank, counting and recounting the money, figuring what more she needs.
For she [[can create the future. |The voice she uses]]
--->[[begin |The Water Seller]]