I BEAR THE PLIGHT OF A WOMAN EPISODE 1

By Bassey Ekpaha Silver

The disappearance of the sacrificial goat prepared for "eka ndem abri-kon" the goddess of children was something even the preacher man couldn't understand.

Nko broke into tears over the missing goat "if I had never carried a child in my womb, people would have called me barren woman.

I've female children yet the call me an incomplete woman; the say I am Awan nsobo who doesn't want anything good for my husband.

Now, I have decided to leave the the God of the white man and go back to the goddess of children and plead with her to
graciously grant me a male child and they have stolen the goat.

What else do the people of the world want from me?" Nko's plight was something not strange to the society.

It wasn't children that she lacked, she had seven, all girls. And desperately, she needed a male child.

Her inability of having a male child often brought her tears, sometimes she wouldn't eat.

When asked by Idoreyin her daughter why she has refused to eat, she replied: " Ayen let me die of hunger, if my life meant anything to my maker He would have given me a son like others.

Let me die of hunger so that those that mock me will sing my praise on my dead. They will call me a brave woman who died for what she wanted".

If the six other girls were around when their mother makes are her usual tears-filled comment, they will join her in
crying. Sometimes they wished they were male children.

It was only Idoreyin that understood that the society had move beyond the epoch were female children were disregarded as nothing.

She also knows that her mother's plight wasn't a male child; she is one who allows
the society to detect everything, she is a human pleaser.

Idoreyin just like her name was really a source of hope for her mother.

she would put her hands around the
mother comforting her with this words" FEMALE CHILDREN ARE NOT AS USELESS AS YOU MAKE THEM APPEAR MY MOTHER.

I PRAY SOME DAY YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THAT A FEMALE CHILD CAN EQUALLY FIRE THE GOD WHEN THE FATHER IS DEATH AND CLOSE THE WEAK EYES OF their MOTHER WHEN SHE DIES, SOME DAY YOU WILL KNOW THAT MOST FEMALE CHILDREN ARE
MORE REWARDING THAN MALE ; AND IT PAYS TO HAVE THEM.

It was on her way to ekondo river for
the sacrifice that the preacher man stopped her and advised her against it, that was when the goat got stolen.

Who could have stolen the sacrificial goat? Was it God that sent his angels to take it so that she won't