Government College, Ahia
Eastern Region, Nigeria
October 15, 1947
Dear Dad and Mom,
I've spent just over two weeks in a quaint town deep in Igboland, and I cannot wait to tell you all about it! Dad, perhaps you've heard of the town—Ndikelionwu. It translates to "home of Ikelionwu," their ancestral king and founder. It lies not too far from Onitsha, though the difference between both places is like night and day.
To say I was frightened when we first arrived would be an understatement. There was no electricity. Instead, we relied on bush lamps of every shape and make, many of them reeking and oily. Water didn't run from any tap, and don't get me started on the toilets. But I survived.
That's how Emeka, your son, began his letter—typed on an old but sturdy Remington machine—to his parents in America. What followed, however, was a surprising twist from that rocky start. Emeka had written about how the simplicity of the people was matched only by their deep commitment to cleanliness. Every morning, each room was swept with care. Even the compound around the houses was regularly scrubbed and kept neat. Children were required to wash their hands and faces and brush their teeth before being served food.
Their culture, Emeka observed, was governed by layers of rules. Everywhere he turned, there was a code for conduct, a ritual for courtesy, a proverb for every step of daily life. The one time he reached out with his left hand to receive a glass of palm wine, an elder snatched it away mid-air. He had broken one of their most sacred norms—it was rude to accept or give anything with the left hand. He had been embarrassed, but the lesson was permanent.
By the end of his stay, Emeka could exchange basic greetings in the Igbo language, to the delight of the villagers. He had learned that his surname, Nwachukwu, meant "child of the Supreme Being." That revelation alone had filled him with a quiet pride.
He dedicated a paragraph of the letter to a kitchen adventure. In the absence of a fan, he had attempted to stoke firewood the local way—by blowing air through a thin bamboo pipe. His attempt, using only his mouth, had filled his eyes with ash and left him red-eyed for a day.
There was, however, one topic that Emeka treated with caution. It had nearly overshadowed the joy of his visit: his brief yet unforgettable brush with what he could only call "African mysticism."
It had shaken him to the core. The boy he knew from school—Ugochukwu, calm, clever, even shy—had apparently inherited mystical powers from his late uncle. A leopard was involved. At night, strange sounds. Then bruises. Then… that awful moment when Ugochukwu wrestled, not with anyone, but with something unseen. It was as if he were possessed.
Emeka could never have imagined that such things were possible. But he'd seen it. And more importantly, every adult around seemed to know about it. They didn't call it sorcery or witchcraft. They called it inheritance—nwaburugo, reincarnated legacy.
According to the teachers at the village school, rituals had since been carried out to "seal" Ugochukwu's powers. Emeka hoped they were right. He wasn't sure how to feel about returning to school with someone who might carry a beast's spirit beneath a schoolboy's skin.
Still, he spared the worst of these details from his parents. He knew his mother had been uneasy about sending him to Nigeria in the first place. He didn't want to trigger a panic, or worse, a decision to withdraw him from Government College. Because truth be told, he had come to love this land.
The people of Ndikelionwu had treated him like royalty. He was called onye ocha—the white one—and welcomed with dances, music, and an endless supply of kola nuts and fufu. He hadn't lifted a finger to do chores. And in one corner of his heart, a quieter story had begun.
He didn't mention her name in the letter. He wasn't even sure if it was appropriate. But she was there. Arinze, the brilliant girl from the village school.
It had begun with a note. Slipped to him quietly during one of his talks at the school. A poem without a name:
The cocks are crowing
The birds are singing
The sun is shining
The farmer is farming
The children are schooling
Everybody is happy
Except me.
Why?
Because Emeka is going.
Mr. Ebube had guessed right away who the author was. Only Arinze could write that elegantly, even in disguise. She'd written with her left hand, hoping no one would suspect her.
Later that week, she had visited Emeka in his small room at the teacher's quarters. The visit had been short and shy. She refused to sit on the bed, kept her gaze low, and spoke little. But in her eyes, he saw something honest and profound.
They had agreed to write letters. Emeka was already counting the days until hers would arrive. It was not love—not yet. But it was something delicate and true. Something worth waiting for.
The last part of his letter, which Emeka never actually wrote down, was the "re-entry ritual" at Government College. Both he and Ugochukwu had been suspended for their off-campus adventure, even though the reasons had been understood by the Principal.
As per college tradition, they had to be re-initiated into the school body. Two large steel drums—lined inside with the red college blanket—were brought to the parade ground. In went Ugochukwu and Emeka, head-first, curled up like newborns. At the sound of a whistle, a group of senior students rolled the drums across the ground.
Students clapped and cheered, the prefects oversaw the procession, and at the finish line, the Health Prefect performed a mock "medical clearance." Then came the official chant:
"They have returned!
They have seen!
They have suffered!
They are clean!"
The entire school erupted into a chorus of the school song.
Emeka had felt a mix of pride and exhaustion. He would never forget the sweat, the dizzy spins inside the drum, or the strange feeling of being born into something bigger.
But he left that part out of the letter. Better not to stir up curiosity about why they were suspended in the first place.
As he signed off his letter with, "Your loving son, Emeka," he paused for a long moment, staring at the blank sheet beside the one he had filled. Perhaps the next letter—to Arinze—would be the hardest to write.
But it was the one he looked forward to the most.