Stories I only tell my friends: Saved from an old woman’s hernia

Nigeria Abroad

It made farming difficult for her, she said, adding that her children in the city never cared how she fared. Working as a farm laborer at nearly 80 was a decision she took for survival. Even for the Christmas celebration, they had sent her nothing, she further stated. Her first son who lived with her and his own immediate family in the village, said there was no money for surgery. Besides, she was “old already”—money for such medical care, if it ever existed, had starving kids to feed.

Wincing and sighing as she told her story, her unintended emotional blackmail roused my philanthropy. Earlier, she had visited a local clinic, where she got an estimated bill of N19,000 for the surgery. I accompanied her home to discuss with her son and arrange for the procedure.

Her son, around 60 at the time, had loved me from childhood as an elder, as did his wife who received me that day. He was delighted that I wanted to help, and we had started discussing how to send him the money when his wife within earshot blinked repeatedly at me to warn me.

I paused and left, promising to come back later.

We met later that day, the elder’s wife and I. You’re a promising young man, don’t do it, she said in a stern low tone. Perhaps she hated her mother-in-law and wanted her dead, I thought to myself. Her advice just didn’t make sense and she was unwilling to elaborate, only saying she liked me and didn’t want me to get into trouble. Sensing my thought, she said she wanted the best for Mama and then asked me a stunning question:

“What if she dies from the surgery, what will you say? They will say you have used her for money rituals.”

The dawning was instant. A healthy woman was even agile enough for farming, until that good-for-nothing boy paid for her death in the guise of helping. Who asked him to? The imagination was not far-fetched. Such narrative is common in both rural and urban Nigeria, reinforced a thousand times by Nollywood. A friend from another state had a related experience.

While building his house in the village, he let a young man there handle the errands and handsomely rewarded the villager for the effort. In time, the fellow oversaw subsequent projects for my friend and soon became the plug for everything he did in his hometown. Then came a crazy twist.

During my friend’s visit to the village one period, the young man was nowhere to be found, though village sources often told him they had just sighted the youngster a while before. Calls to the youngster’s phone went unanswered. Was he avoiding his benefactor?

My friend’s sister-in-law who was married into a neighboring town was in a hairdressing salon when a fellow entered and started making small talk with the owner of the shop who seemed a friend. Said sister-in-law also lived in Lagos and so wasn’t known to the locals. Suddenly, the lad squirreled to a corner of the shop, hiding from a passing vehicle.

When the car was gone, he started telling the shop owner how the driver of that car had been looking for him since arriving from Lagos—exactly as “a prophet had warned.” The car owner was my friend, the youngster’s benefactor; apparently, he had been using the boy’s luck “to enrich himself” and was desperate this time to loot even some more. The luck owner was hiding to protect whatever was left of his asset—luck that prospered in the hands of another, just not with its rural holder.

Philanthropy can be that dangerous in a society riddled with pathetic myths.

It’s been 10 years since that hernia story came looking for me in the village. My family’s recent experience with surgery exposed me to how perilous things can go even for the safest procedure. It’s not for nothing that many Americans would rather take longer medical routes than have surgery.

It’s also why I’m grateful that the elder’s wife stayed my hands on that hernia intervention. The old woman is still alive and farming. I hear her ailment has become more understanding. A win-win for all parties: The hernia had dialogued with the host for a free, autonomous existence; my reputation and money intact; and the good Mama is rocking a nimble, geriatric life to her 90s.

This story first appeared in Nigeria Abroad