Bene Ezeanya – The Storytela

Feb 1, 2022

Stories of My Mother- Saint Benedette…

Left behind?! Oh no!

My Mum had kept to her word and actually drove off to Church without us. Lol.

I can’t count the number of times this happened but as we got older, she stopped allowing us delay her and would drive off on Sunday mornings if we weren’t ready, leaving us to find our way to Church.

We grew up seeing our mother participate actively in Church.

Cleaning the Church was something the women did and it was allocated according to groups, my Mum rarely missed hers, except she was maybe under the weather.

She was an active part of the dance group and also sang in the choir for a long while before she finally stopped. She led in different capacities and mentored several younger Christian women.

She solemnly observed all the “no work” days and would make sure that we don’t cook with meat on the days the Church forbade eating of meat, telling us “Uka mabii anu taa”.

Like most Catholic Mothers, she ensured we were up to date on our sacraments and that we regularly attended the block rosary crusades. We never quite got around to attending the early morning masses but that was something she tried not to miss.

The Catholic Church was a big deal to her, she loved the ceremonial way the Mass was performed and actively contributed to Church administration as a lay member and they formed part of her community. After Mass, she would take time to greet her friends, exchanging short stories with some while smiling and waving at others, “ka anyi na nu”, she would say again and again, a kind of parting greeting indicating that she was heading home.

She couldn’t understand why we would leave the Catholic Church for “Uka warehouse” and “Uka Okpulu decking” (an unpopular way of referring to the Pentecostal Churches back in the 90s, when they didn’t have fancy Cathedrals or Church Venues like the Orthodox Churches).

She would lead us in praying the Rosary, something she did religiously, and also in reciting the prayers relevant for the time period. She had some songs that she would sing during such prayers;

Chukwu oma ka I bu,
Ife oma ka e ji malu gi.
Chukwu oma ka I bu,
Ife oma ka e ji malu gi, Chukwu o!

And we would sing after her, extolling the goodness of God and declaring that he was known for good things. Another one was like a chant;

Omelu ife nyilu mmadu omume,
Omelu ife nyilu mmadu omume…

Declaring that God did that which was impossible for man to do. I think it’s a song from the adoration ground in our village Uke, run by the popular Holy Ghost Priest; Ebube Muo Nso.

I remember it was during one of such prayer sessions that she found out I wasn’t a Catholic anymore. Her brilliant mind put two and two together when I didn’t say the “Hail Mary” after her or the other Catholic prayers.

I had just come back from University the previous day and she called for prayers that morning. She simply asked me after the prayers if I still attended the Catholic Church and I said “no”, not knowing what to expect. She was really disappointed as I had been a very devout Catholic and she blamed my elder sisters who had left before me.

I remember when she joined the Faith Alive prayer group, a group of women intercessors at the Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity. It was something she was excited about and we would often chorus their greetings; Faith Alive, I’m alive in the Lord! They referred to her as Sis. Bene.

My Mum is a huge reason my siblings and I are committed to the body of Christ, her unwavering devotion, which mirrored that of her father, was an outstanding example we just had to follow.

I remember coming back home on a Sunday morning and seeing her seated in her nightie, I immediately figured something was wrong because she always went to Church. When I asked her how come she didn’t go that morning, she waved aside my question, smiling and saying she would attend evening Mass. I would find out some moments later that her Mum, my grandma had gone to be with the Lord in the early hours of that Sunday morning.

It was a beauty to behold how the Church honored her after she passed. Her burial was beautiful with the array of Priests that celebrated the burial mass. Her beloved nephew, also a Revered Father, was one of them. We all talked about how happy she would have been and I could imagine her smiling and looking on proudly.

Cross section of Catholic Priests at my Mum’s burial

In Ever Loving Memory of my Mother,
Lady Benedette Ugwunwa Ezeanya
April 4,1959 – June 29,2019

The Storytela

Apr 4, 2021Apr 5, 2021

My Mum; A Three Pots of Soup Story.

She would have been 62 years today; my Mum and today, I choose to reflect on her memories with joy rather than sadness.

Today also being Easter, I remember clearly my Mum’s kitchen activities, not just during the festive period but when she has to do major food preparations. Like most women in her generation, my Mum had a large kitchen, not only in size but in operations, sometimes catering to about 15 people or more on a daily basis.

“A luo m ofu uzo olu”, she would usually exclaim after a hard days work in the kitchen or maybe when she’s done some major clean up in the house.

My Mum paid great attention to the ingredients that went into her food, making sure they were sourced from the best, she paid even greater attention to the cooking process. When she’s in the kitchen, her theatrics could be major, especially on those days she would be cooking three different pots of soup at once; “Uzo ofe ito”. A pot of Egusi soup on one gas burner, a pot of Bitter leaf soup on the other burner and then we would be lined up somewhere slicing Okro for the upcoming Okro soup, my Mum was an “uchu!”; a term referring to someone working really hard at something.

Vegetables were hallowed things in my Mum’s kitchen. We were made to wash the Ugu or Spinach countless times just to make sure that there was not a tiny bit of the tiniest grain logged in somewhere.

“Gbanye mmili, gbanye mmili” she would say with every sense of seriousness instructing you to add enough water to the veggies. “tinye e nnu”; would follow, a reminder that you should add salt. And if she perceived you weren’t washing them hard enough, she would intervene, saying “chee ka m bia”, and take over the washing, shaking the leaves with her two hands in the water with the instructions to observe her “na ene m anya”.

It was clear to us that having sand in the soup was a taboo. I grew up imagining what it would be like to have the dreaded “sand in the soup” experience. Any movement in the kitchen at key points when my Mum cooked her numerous delicacies would probably be met with hushed exclamations of “Aja!”, Sand! as though mentioning it loudly might actually introduce the sand into the soup. If someone was pounding in the mortar and another person walked past; she would caution against sand “Aja! Aja!”

Mum displaying food at a catering practical

If cut vegetables or other prepared foodstuff queued up for addition to the soup, were placed on the work surface and you probably opened an overhead cupboard; my Mum would go like; “Hey! Aja oooo!!!” Till date, I inwardly duck when I open my overhead kitchen cupboard if there’s cut foodstuff on my work surface with thoughts of “Aja!” on my mind.

Then the process of washing dried fish; you had to first soak them in brine to extract the first layer of dirt/sand, then wash them delicately with a soft sponge to extract the remaining and then rinse them as many times as it would take to get all the sand out.

What do we now say to the washing of offals? The cow intestine also known as afo anu or roundabout, the rough part of the meat which we called “towel anu” but known as shaki in Lagos. Truth is, I rarely eat roundabout meat outside home and I can’t remember the last time I cooked with it either. You see, my Mum would sit down and strip that meat of every interior fat and dirt irrespective of the quantity she cooked, leaving it very clean and that’s the taste I’m used to, sometimes in ordering outside food, that care is not taken because it’s a time consuming process.

It is said that repetition is the law of deep and lasting impression and that’s how my Mum taught us to make some complicated Igbo soups in addition to the observation process. She would chant the steps over and over again so that it would sink in your mind and if you were at a loss on the next step to take, just repeat the chant. For Bitter leaf soup, she would go;

“I tinye ede, ede ghee, i tinye mmanu, mmanu suo, i tinye ogili, ogili ghee, i kwako nyi e ife nni”.

“Put the cocoyam, when it’s done, add the palm oil, when it boils, add the locust bean, when it’s done, then add the spices.”

While we loved to cook with Mum in the kitchen (did i really?) It was always great when my Aunties visited because they simply hung out in the kitchen with her and took over whatever it was we were doing in a very casual but firm manner and who are we to say no to such marvelous help?

The passing on of a Mum is something you never really get used to, some of my friends lost their Mother’s recently and I can just imagine the many memories flooding there hearts on a daily. We are grateful for the hope of the resurrection that Easter brings and we look forward to the rapture morning when the dead in Christ will rise up first and we’ll all ascend to meet the Lord.

Keep resting Fashion Mazi o, till we meet again.

The Storytela

In Ever Loving Memory of Lady Benedette Ugwunwa Ezeanya (4th April 1959-29th June 2019)

Jun 17, 2020Jun 29, 2020

My Mum, The Dancer

“Bia nu k’anyi kwulube okwu onu e! Enu uwa bialu n’ofu mbia”. “Come let’s have some discussion, we only come to this world once”.

The women sang as they flung their hands, tapped their feet, swayed their hips or shook their shoulders to the beat of the “igba, udu, ekwe, ichaka and ogene“; the traditional set of drums, wooden gong, beaded gourd and metal gong used to produce the vibrant African music they were dancing to.

We grew up watching my Mum dance, and it was beautiful, she had the body and she loved to dance, sometimes bursting some moves in front of the mirror. The fact that the Catholic Church was able to integrate the traditional dance into the Catholic Women’s Association is indeed amazing.

I remember at a point, my Mum was the President of St. Ann Chigozie, a Catholic Women Dance group from St. Dominic’s Catholic Church in my village, Uke. On this particular occasion at Christmas, they had a major dance outing which started with ‘Oso Egwu‘.

‘Oso Egwu’ was a dance outing to the house of a prominent personality to showcase their newly learnt dance routines. This meant that they learnt new dance steps, usually created by them or learnt from another dance group. They also learnt the songs and the beats, it was usually an all women group, so they did everything, though the men might assist with the beating of the drums.

The name of the dance they learnt that year was Opuruiche meaning Different, it was taught them by dancers from Isseke and after they had finished the ‘Oso Egwu’ which could be several, they scheduled the grand finale or major dance outing/release at the grand square in the town.

The grand square in our town was known as Union Circle, a large space circled with sitting areas where shades were erected with aluminium roofs supported by metal pillars. Rising staircases served as seats like you would find in a mini-stadium.

A few days before this major dance outing, the announcer went round all the villages in the town with his megaphone shouting ”O ga akpotu akpotu na Union Circle’‘ basically hyping the event and creating awareness so people can attend. Usually the patrons, sponsors and the VIPs would have been given special invitation cards.

On the d-day, the women were dressed in their dance uniform, which was usually a white blouse, beautifully braided hair and a coloured wrapper. They wore heavy waist beads or jigida and the bell-like ankle dance chain graced their legs. Their wrists and necks were also decorated with colourful beaded bangles and necklaces. They held clean white handkerchiefs in their hands which they swerved when they danced and a few among them carried the ‘Nza’, made from horsetail tied to a stick.

Mum, at a dance outing tying the popular kili kili star wrapper

“Ora nnoo nu nnoo, Ora bialu ije, nnoo nu nnoo”,
“Welcome dear guests that travelled down here”.

The singers would chant, while the dancers sang as well but focused more on doing the captivating dance routine with smiles on their faces.

The patrons, matrons, sponsors, VIPs and the husbands to the women would troupe out to spray naira notes on them, the monies sprayed would be immediately picked by select young women. At the end of it all, more pledges would be made to support the women group.

This was obtainable in the city as well. Here, my Mum was the Vice President of CWO Zone B and they usually had dance-offs or dance competitions amongst the Zones. The winners went home with trophies and cash prizes.

There was this occasion when my Mum and her troupe worked so hard, it was like they were preparing for a major sports event. We were glad when they came back with a trophy. They took the first position and were so elated that they danced from street to street, singing;

“Nekwa ndi nwa, nekwa ndi nwa a na-ekwu o, otu Chibuzo a bia nu, agbala na-aka ibe ya”

A victory song that pointed to them as the winners. Their group was known as “Otu Chibuzo”

One memory that sticks so clear was the ‘Oso Egwu‘ or dance outing that was had on our street then; Ideani Street, Omagba at Onitsha. I remember, they would call the lead dancers by their name and they would dance out and perform a complicated dance routine. When it got to my Mum’s turn, they chanted;

“Fashion Nwanyi nwayo kwa”, and the response “Obodo n’egwu anaa”;

“Woman of Fashion take it easy,” the response “my people the dance is ending”.

And she stepped forward with her horsetail held high, waist in a slight squatting position, shoulders quivering, waist and hips vibrating as she took rhythmic steps towards the patron and VIPs that day. It was beautiful.

My Mum danced into her years as a Grandma, she took part in the Egedege dance, a very energetic dance usually done by young maidens!

I remember when I visited home for an event, and asked her about the dance and she mentioned that it was still on, though at this point, they had also introduced the modern dance done with band set in addition to the traditional dances.

Mum in her band uniform at the Catholic Church in Onitsha

During my Mum’s burial, there were about 3-4 dance presentations in her honour by her dance troupe, St. Ann Chigozie. The women were colourfully dressed in their regalia as they bade a final goodbye to their colleague and dancer in the language they knew best – Dance!

I would like to add that this dance was greatly therapeutic, the women in my Mum’s generation don’t have a lot of the priviledges that we do now but they had community, they had fellowship, they had the dance or the choir or the meetings where they could go without their plenty children or husband and be women, be leaders, express their creativity and achieve something.

I’m glad my Mum had her dance groups and I’m glad we joined in that final dance.

And as they would sing in one of their dances;

“Anu bi na mmili biko senyite, senyite n’enu ana k’anyi bulu gi lie,
onye no n’uwa na-elikwa ife di nma,
onye nosia n’uwa na o ga-ana ana.
Iyo iyo”

Which was generally a song calling on the sea animal to surface and be used for food because the people on the earth deserve to eat good stuff.

And the last line goes “He who is done staying on earth would return home”….

That was exactly what my Mum did on June 29th, 2019 when she took a peaceful bow and exited the earth.

Adieu Mummy.

The Storytela

#LadyBeneLivesOn

#InEverLovingMemory