Lord, I’m proud to be a son of this village-no matter what

Dear Father:

You know the other day I was invited at Uncles Sam’s residence here to go and eat some free food and welcome some of our brothers and sisters that had just returned from Uncle Sam’s Village-the book people called this kind of get together a reception.

The thing about such gatherings is you will always meet old and new friends or just say people of different backgrounds in society. Amongst them are usually people who want to boast of their experiences here but mostly elsewhere and in so doing sometimes they stepped over board and you wonder whether they really meant to say what they just did.

Yes, Father this was one of those feelings that I had when I listened to two of the young ladies at the reception discussing their experiences and from their discussion you can easily guess that they wish they were never from here.

One was among those who had just returned from Uncle Sam’s village the other though had just returned from one of our Eastern neighboring villages-that village has an airplane flying in and out of here.

Father, nothing about their conversations caught my hearing attention until the one returning from the East referred to our highly forested village as a thing. “…come back to this thing.”

The one from Uncle Sam’s village: “Oh I heard you were in …..”

“Yeah, I just came back,” replied the one from the East.

“How was it,” asked the one from Uncle Sam’s village

“It was fine and I really enjoy the place ba,” she said.

“Yes, we could see that because we saw all your pictures on Facebook,” the one from Uncle Sam’s village said.

“Yeah ba, when you leave the people fine, fine places then you come back to this thing (referring to our forested village),” the one from the East replied as both ladies laugh in unison mockingly.

So I turned around and said, so you are referring to our village as a thing? The both tried to bubble something in their mouths and I just left them.

But the point I am trying to make here is Father this is a clear indication of how some of the villagers here see this place-a thing not worth identifying with. Like many residing in Uncle Sam’s village see this place as a farm, to hustle and pay bills back there.

One of our big mouth auditor always use to referred to Uncle Sam’s village as a home-“I am going home to the family-he would say.

I must admit, our old, old people spoiled this place and left us in a forest, but if we continue to look down upon ourselves and think of others as better than us, trust me Father this village will go nowhere. It doesn’t matter how often we described it and castigate the actions of our forefathers.

This is the reason why many of them take visiting visas to Uncle Sam’s village and never return. And to tell you the truth they keep moving from one Fiefdom to another in Uncle Sam’s village doing nothing, yet some would open their loud mouth to talk nonsense like the two young ladies.

Father, I agreed 1000%, if there were any like that, but we cannot go on seeing our village and ourselves as losers because of what our forefathers have or have not done.

Their description of our village reminds me of the story line in Knvee Adam’s music-Mama I thank God for you.