Ohimai Sunny Daniel

Deepwater Resources Ohimai Sunny Daniel

'' Holiday period was a period of rest and enjoyment for our counterparts in the city, ours was full of hard labour in the farm and at home. I truly had not noticed how hard my father worked until now. Papa, everyday, woke up before all of us. He did not have any alarm to wake him up, yet he woke up almost at the same time every morning. He woke up before 5am every day. When he woke up, he checked around the house, possibly to see that everything and everybody was intact. When he came to our rooms, he pointed his touch light on our faces. He moved the brimming ray of the touch light from one face to the other like a doctor examining his patients. After Papa had examined his 'patients', and was sure they were in good condition, went back to his room. He would later go to the kitchen chimney to get his bitter leave dried root which he used as chewing stick. Papa would bring out this cane-like chewing stick, dip one end into his mouth, chewed this end for about five minutes like young grass cutters battling with cashew stem with their tiny incisors. Once Papa had successfully ground one end of his chewing stick into usable sponge-like form, he started to brush them rigorously against his cola-nut-stained teeth. At various intervals, Papa hit the chewing stick against his seat and blew out particles of the stick. He first stuck out his tongue like when my primary school teacher wanted to pronounce theater sound...''