It had been one week of longing as I sat under a bamboo tree and watched the birds flutter overhead. One of them a long tailed royal blue and black specie swooped down to my direct sphere of rest and tried to nibble at breadcrumbs on the floor beside me. The sky is overcast and it seems it might rain. It is wonderful to watch the skies change from a musty grey to a bright white and sky blue and the sun suddenly arrives mid morning bringing with it its assets of heat and discomfort. But the longing remains. I pack up and go inside. The weather is no longer clement for sitting outside. I take refuge inside the house although I miss the images and my companions outside.
I am in Kano where I have been for the past 5 months or so attending to a project very dear to my heart. I live alone surrounded by half-century-old trees in a house full of memories and I suspect built in the early Seventies. It carries the grandeur of an early place in Nigeria’s architecture but has retained its beauty and simplicity. I like it here. This house is exactly the way I want it to be, unhurried. I wake up every day to the sounds of chirping birds and a quiet household like it used to be in the past. The hustle and bustle of the ancient city of Kano does not get to me here. I am insulated which is good for the project I have at hand. I routinely have to go from Point A to B in the city dedicatedly spending hours at Bayero University Kano in tranches of 5 hours at least four times a week. But I am still insulated and when I am, I neither hear nor see any other part of the world. It is my catharsis and forces me to focus. Back home I resume sitting under the massive bamboo tree and old mango trees heavy from clusters of green fruits enough to soothe a tired being. My longing is for the he goat that has come to define my residential ecosystem, a self-contained brown specie of the goat family fully imbued with a goatee.
It is good for your spirit to stay away from the hustle and bustle of too much city life and just live in isolation within a city
It struts about the expansive compound like the landlord and more often than not will join me in a watermelon dinner, its hooves making loud sounds as it approaches me. It has come to learn my rhythm and once I sat under a tree, will walk towards me, a mischievous look in its eyes and approach me occasionally scratching its head in the sand. It has followed me around like a lost child and climbed low shrubs to show its physical fitness and also to get some chewy leaves.
It has watched me like a custodian and scattered my fruit plate when I am not looking. Like all men, it is fairly self entitled and would refuse to go away even when I shoo it away. It reacts very badly to aggression and once after shooing it quite loudly I discerned a hurt spirit walking away in a huff after what I thought was him giving me the eye. Last week I woke up missing he goat. I missed its burly figure walking with confidence around the compound. I missed his now well-recognised beats at two in the morning. I just missed the presence of that mischievous look, the protocol of a welcome and the amusing head butt to a shrub or a mould of sound.
Happily it returned yesterday and I am pleased to have him back.
My mornings under a tree looking outward to other trees in a morning ritual that involves exotically coloured birds, the swaying of mango trees and a He- goat whom I am yet to name is my go to psychological pick up after my prayers.
It is good for your spirit to stay away from the hustle and bustle of too much city life and just live in isolation within a city. I am in Kano having a blast. Me, the birds, and a lone he goat who is my friend.
The lesson for us all is that it is possible for one to create his/ her oasis in the middle of lots of noise and still be at peace. That nature is the best place to be with trees and unnamed birds, with goats and possibly chickens. I will open myself to noise again when I am good and ready. But currently, I am ensconced watching the sky go by, inhaling God’s own dust watching mango trees and their children in admiration, watching the birds in flight and having a conversation with a self entitled He goat.
