EP 2

If you missed EP 1 click HERE
The night had passed as the cock crowed in the early hours of the new day, Ochie turned and thought of how wonderful a meal the cock would have made if only the fowl had started to lay eggs. A smart man he was, he had tied the cock and the fowl together in one nest and hoped that sooner or later the fowl would begin to lay eggs which would bear him more and more chickens which he had planned to use for his survival in his new found home. He stood up quietly like he was trying to avoid making a noise as he gently untied his belongings from the wooden truck he had made particularly for this journey.

Everything he would need to survive for the next couple of days was neatly and tightly packed into the truck. He brought out his cutlass and slashed the coconut fruit open. Like a hungry child beckons for his mother’s breast milk, he quickly pushed his face towards the rushing water from the inside of the coconut as he drank in great pleasure.

He stood for few seconds and gently started out to mark the trees setting a big boundary mark for the new place he had decided to call home. He had counted 5 tall trees and decided that will be enough to make himself a hut with a good inner chamber not too far from him were no so tired looking bamboo sticks which were his target for pillars for the hut. He gradually gathered the bamboos together as he made very deep holes in the ground and secured them with the red sand of the earth. He was making good progress till his stomach began to cry for food at this time, he decided to get some rest as the sun had come out to play. He found a shade under the pawpaw tree behind his yet to be completed hut and made a small fire with little firewood and the fire stones he had brought with him. He gazed up again at the cock who was now roaming around the new area; he made one attempt to catch the already alert animal that fled the area immediately in a race for its dear life. Ochie was not a man of many patient nerves as he stood up immediately and began to pill some yams. He had been feeding on mostly wide fruits and fresh herbs he came across through his journey and the yams he had come with where beginning to look like they will spoil in the small barn he had made. He fixed the yam gently beside the fire place and laid his back against the tree trunk he looked up at his yet to be finished hut and smiled with so much pride in the works of his hands.

Slowly the sun began to hide its face and ochie gathered his things together, he put the chickens back into their home. He made a bed from thick pawpaw leaves and laid there quietly listening to the birds of the sky and the emptiness of the bushes and lonely surroundings; he said a little prayer to his chi and hoped to complete his hut before the sun rises the next day. That was his plan and he was sure to achieve it the following day.