As the plane climbed up in an awkward takeoff, my fear of flying rose again in my gut.  I prayed yet again not to die in an air crash.

I was going home for the Christmas holidays and wanted to avoid the nightmarishly slow and long journey from Lagos to the East.  And so, instead of traveling on one of the big buses, I had chosen to make the shorter journey by air.  This was despite the fact that one of my friends had once told me that flying in one of Nigeria’s planes, deathtraps he called them, was like issuing an invitation to death.  At the time, I remember arguing that the buses had even higher accident and death rates than airplanes with the extra and not unusual downside that one might also get shot by armed robbers even in broad daylight.    My friend countered, however, that at least one could survive an armed robbery attack or a motor accident.  Hardly anyone ever survived a plane crash in Nigeria.   Since we had that conversation two years ago, there had been three air crashes in one year.  While I loved my life, however, I also loved being able to get to my destination in one hour instead of seven hours.   I had even paid a tout to buy my ticket at the airport.  As usual for this time of year, there were too many people wanting to buy tickets and too few seats available.

“It is rather noisy, isn’t it?” the man sitting beside me asked. 

I had noticed the way he was looking at me soon after I sat down.  He was wearing a wedding band, but he sounded like he would not mind picking me up. For some reason, I attracted the adulterous type, especially on airplanes.  Normally, I would chat with them in a friendly but deflecting way.  Unfortunately for him, however, I had taken an unreasonable dislike to him as soon as I noticed that he was sitting in the window seat that I always preferred and I had to sit in the aisle seat.  So, instead of giving him an entry into a proper conversation which would probably end in exchanging complimentary cards or even in an offer to drop me off once we landed, I nodded yes and said nothing.  He gave up; he was apparently not the persistent type. 

But it was true that the plane’s engine sounded noisier than usual or perhaps my fear magnified the noise of the engines.  Whatever the case, I just shut my eyes and intensified my prayers.   To take my mind off the fear that we could crash at any minute, I daydreamed about getting home and seeing my parents whom I had spoken to severally over the phone but hadn’t seen in nearly one year.   My daydream was marred by the recollection that one day of the holiday would probably be spent finding out if the next year was going to bring my new husband home.

“Water, juice or tea?” the hostess asked me. 

I said juice. I had had nothing for breakfast, so I accepted the pastry they served.  It should have been meatpie, except that there was no meat in the pie and the crust tasted dry and old.   Still, I ate it, grateful that I had some sweet juice to wash it down.   The man who had taken my window seat munched his with an open mouth, his chewing motions so audible they nearly drowned out the noise of the plane, and I mentally wondered how his wife could possibly stand him.

The landing was even bumpier than usual and that, besides not being able to see the green vegetation and the tiny dots of houses from the window seat, a usually calming influence for me, tightened the knots in my stomach.   But we landed in one piece.   In the airport, the conveyor belt was not working.  Perhaps there was no electricity, or perhaps it was broken as so many things were in the local airport.  People milled around waiting for their luggage to come.   A porter asked me if he could help me pick up my bags.  I had just one suitcase, so I said no. It felt comfortable hearing so many people speaking our native Igbo.  I thought I heard the relief of being safely on the ground in their voices.  Eventually, the bags came and I picked up my luggage and headed out to the carpark where my mother was waiting for me. 

She hugged me excitedly.  “Ngonwa, nno.” Welcome. “How was your flight?”

“It was fine. You look well,” I told her.

“I am fine.  My daughter, God is looking after me.”  She watched me as I put my suitcase in the boot.  “You seem to have put on weight and you look darker, don’t you use any toning cream on your face?  You know the sun here just darkens your skin.  And you have to use more moisturizing cream now, the harmattan just dries you out.”  

Here we go again, I thought.  Not home five minutes and we were back to the old routine.   This was home.  This was Christmas.

*****

I have always loved spending Christmas in the village.  As far back as I can remember, we always went to the village for the Christmas holidays.  Now as an adult I remembered with nostalgia the dry, cold winds of harmattan and the rustling of dry leaves that had fallen off the trees.  The smell of smoke from burning grass from different farms, the dry red dust were all a part of Christmas, much like the snow was an intrinsic part of Christmas in other parts of the world.   Coming home this year was special for me because this would be the first time that I was going home for Christmas in three years, having spent over two years outside the country pursuing postgraduate studies.   In those two snowy cold Christmases in Canada, I missed the smells and activities of Christmas back home.

 This year I was traveling to the village with my mother, a departure from earlier years when I traveled in my father’s car if I could, slow driver though he was, because he would always sing us funny songs and buy banana and groundnuts at the Oji junction.  That I was able to come back this year was an absolute blessing, I mused, looking out of the window at the bread sellers who were rushing to our slowing car to beg us to buy their bread.

“Wind down your glass,” my mother told me as we drew near Awka junction.

“Ehn, ehn, no, no, we don’t want “kingdom” she shouted, referring to one of the types of bread on display, if you could call the many loaves of bread pushing into my face from the hands of up to five people a display.  The bread sellers were jostling against each other and each was shouting and asking me to buy theirs and that the bread was fresh. 

“Nne, get us “goodwill,” my mom says fumbling in her handbag for money.  “Make sure it is fresh.”  There was no sell-by date.  You could only tell that a loaf of bread was fresh by smelling it and squeezing it to make sure it was soft.

 “Have you chosen one?  Ok, make it three, we should give Mama Hyacinth one when we get home.”  When I chose three loaves from two different persons, my mother told the others to go away as they continued to shove against each other hoping that we would buy some more.   

This, too, had always been the tradition, buying bread on the way to the village, some of it for breakfast in the mornings, some for distribution to poorer relations at home.  We also used to buy cabin biscuits to share to children who would crowd the house as soon as we came in, shouting and following our car as we drove into our compound.     These days there were no children coming into the compound.  We had all grown up. So we did not buy cabin biscuits.

The journey so far had been pleasant.  My mother gave me all the news from home, including that Ada, one of my cousins who had left two marriages, was getting married again.   How was it, I wondered, that some people could find three husbands in a lifetime, and some like me could not find even one.  I was sure my mother had the same question in her mind, given how she desperately she wanted me to marry, but she said nothing.  Also, the oldest man in the village, Nna Nna, had finally died.  Nobody was sure of his age; registration of births was non-existent when he was born.  But he had been old for a very long time.  I remembered visits to his house with my father as a child; his completely white hair, his trembling voice and hands.  I was surprised to find that I was sad, it seemed that everyday my childhood was becoming more of a memory. 

“I am glad your father left before us,” my mother remarked.  “Everyday he drives slower than before.”