Issues That Showed Me When I Needed A Wife By Collins OkoloChukwu Obodo
Issues That Showed Me When I Needed A Wife By Collins OkoloChukwu Obodo
“I AM SORRY” is a sene qua non for a stable, sustainable and successful Marriage School”.
According to the Holy Bible, the Apostles once asked Jesus to tell them the signs that could help them to know that the end of the world was at hand. To that effect certain happenings such as the emergence of false prophets, plagues, wars, etc were mentioned. Similarly, there are certain indicators suggestive that a bachelor is actually in dire need of a wife. The elders say that, “When a bachelor begins to find it very difficult to get near the fireplace or to clear the old ashes there, it is obvious that he wants to settle down for a married life.”
Similarly, at a particular stage during the time I was teaching in the Community Secondary School Aguobu Iwollo in Ezeagu Local Government Area of Enugu State, precisely in the year 1986, I suddenly began to feel very reluctant and also uncomfortable to get down and prepare food for myself, even when I was terribly hungry and also got enough food in the house to cook. There was a particular day I brought out some rice and the necessary ingredients and also brought out my kerosene stove to start cooking, only to take them back and opted to take a bottle of beer in an empty stomach. At some other times I trekked to Akama Oghe, a distance of about 4 kilometres to eat food in house of my brother Mr Fidelis Onoduamu, who was running his business there. Sometimes I would contract some of t
the women who sold Bambara food (Okpa) to supply same to me every morning for my breakfast. However, I was quick to discover that such readymade delicacies were not available for me for my Dinner or Supper.
One particular day a lady visited me and elected to prepare food for me. I showed her some rice and the ingredients which I bought some days ago. I suddenly fell asleep while waiting for the meal to be done. Surprisingly, however, in a matter of 30 minutes or so, the lady was done with the cooking and I was invited to the table. It took me only about 5 minutes to declare that I was through with the eating too, albeit still feeling very hungry. Nevertheless, I praised the volunteer cook for her wonderful meal and for her kind gesture. She left my house feeling highly elated that she had prepared food for “Master” and that she was also appreciated.
The English proverbs admonished that, “A gift horse is not looked in the eyes.” What if in your attempt to probe the horse’s face you found out that it has a squinted eye? Don’t forget it was freely given to you. I guessed the poor girl mistakenly got the grains poured on the ground, and to avoid wasting the food of a “poor teacher”, she tried to pick up every grain from the ground. That was the time it was widely believed, particularly among the villagers, that teachers were so poor that they had to measure yams with the tape and ruler.
However I was lucky enough to find a standby little black dog anxiously waiting for my invitation to help me do justice to the sandy meal, though the dog was a regular visitor to me. You know that dogs only visit places where they benefit. So I emptied the pot to my uninvited visitor and in less than 5 minutes the pet left my house feeling very grateful to me and gratitude to God who caused the meal to go awry. When I looked back at the little departing black dog, I remembered the saying that, “Every dog has its own day of glory,” even though I still wondered how it had managed to eat all the sands in the food?
That evening I had no energy left in my body to visit my farmland behind Umuezemowa village. Worst still, I was unable to close my eyes even for a minute in the night, as my empty stomach kept making some strange disturbing rumbling sounds like the thunderstorm. I tossed round and round in the bed as I kept vigil till daybreak. Even in the classroom I was a ghost of myself and I guessed that my students must have noticed that all was not well with Master. That episode made me to aske myself: “Mr Obodo Cornelius, for how long will you manage to continue this way?”
That afternoon I proceeded to Akama Oghe, as usual, to eat food at Mr Fidelis’ house. I patiently waited for the food on the fire to be ready to appease my stomach, not that I had any other option, anyway. Just then, a beautiful fair skinned slim fitted girl in her late teens gracefully walked into the medicine shop ran by Fidelis, to buy some drugs. As the pretty girl greeted me politely, I temporarily forgot everything about my biting empty stomach and switched all my attention to the unknown Angel whose name was also Angela. When I sought to know where she came from, I was informed that she was the youngest sister of Mr Richard Ifoh whom I knew very well. I then requested my brother Fidelis to take me to her family.
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After introducing me to the family, Fidelis tactically left to attend to some customers in his shop. I seated myself comfortably on a black leather padded wooden armchair given to me. Following her mother’s instruction, the young girl quickly prepared and served me a very delicious meal. It was then I understood that one of the best ways to arrest a man was to first arrest his troubling stomach. Soon, afterwards, I also discovered that my young host was a very nice cook and a perfect wife material as well. However, the rest is now history, as I ended up taking my people to her family for the fulfilment of the traditional marriage rites.
That was how two of us found ourselves in the Marriage School through Direct Entry rather than through a Go – between. We did not subject ourselves to the unnecessary long period of Testing and Fault-finding, so called Courtship by the new generations of lovers. Yet since 1986 to-date, we did not have a single cause that could warrant the intervention of the Third Parties, not even our own biological parents till now. Since such did not happen when the blood was hot, it is not likely to reer its ugly head now that we are Grandparents.
However , the Marriage School we found ourselves was quite different from the other schools we used to know before our marriage. In the previous schools we were granted admission on individual basis. We could be punished if we did combined work with anyone. Whenever we did our assignments alone we got good pass marks. At the end of a specified period we graduated from the schools.
However, when we entered the Marriage School everything changed automatically and became different from the status quo. First, they refused to offer us admission unless as co-School Partners. Two us thus became classmates and were given a single joint admission ticket in the school at the same time and the same day. We also discovered that we could only score passmarks when we two did our home-work together as a combined work. It was only then we got nice results.
Another interesting thing was that we were given Admission (Marriage) Certificate on the day of our admission but no Graduation Certificate was approved for us. In other words there was no specific time for
End of Course or Graduation time in this school. New lessons kept coming up and we kept learning and getting more ideas and wider experiences. Even as we attained the old age as Septuagenarians, they still refused to graduate us, saying that we were still students. Then we presented the 6 Pass Marks we got through our combined work, yet they refused to pass us out from the school, arguing that we were still learning and acquiring more experiences in the school. As a matter of fact, no one had ever graduated from the Marriage School since its inception during the time of Adam and Eve.
In the Marriage School there is one Area of Study that needs to be continuously practised until it becomes a habit, regardless of how long the two school partners lived together. That area of study is about saying: “I am sorry” whenever each partner is wrong. This single practice, if properly cultivated by the schoolmates, is capable of saving many marriages from the prevalent cases of divorce involving the present generations of couples today. Sincerely saying “I AM SORRY” is a sene qua non for a stable, sustainable and successful Marriage School.
Collins OkoloChukwu Obodo also know as Onizulike is a Deputy Corps Commander Rtd, hails from Ogui Agu Eke in Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State.
Issues That Showed Me When I Needed A Wife By
23/03/2025
