text: YOU MUST GO! That was the annoying anthem that kept buzzing in my ear when I made the announcement that I won't be attending the luxurious party Aunty Maureen will be throwing at V.I next week Saturday. Everyone at home wanted me to go, everyone wanted me to impress "those village people" - as we we've been calling them - that will be present there. "They don't know who you are ,aunty. Go and show them that you just came back from Amelikah. The whole house bursted into laughter at the pronunciation of "America" my younger sister made. Well, I wasn't co concerned about that. I was brooding over the encounter I'd be having when I get to the railway. I was worried of its underdevelopment. I was concerned about that horrible odor that will sway round when someone fart in the train. I was concerned about the suffocation, of how bubble of sweats would store round my neck for six good dying hours. I was afraid of the Good Samaritans who will help you keep your things without your knowledge. I was afraid of insults that will hover around the air if one of the passenger stepped on the other's foot unintentionally while the train nose up to Kano. And now......... It was naturally different. The effervescent scents of Hyacinth running down through my nostrils made me want more of this trip - Like a forevermore journey to a wonderland. Oblivious of the rowdy conversations in the railway, my body was outside plucking those blooming flowers into my little pause...... And the more I took them, more the more they became so smaller as if I took nothing... so I sniffed them into my dot Like back then, days when rainfall was a respecter of none. Mama would tell us to rub balms in our palms, and then caress it round the bridge of our nose. As we journeyed towards the mighty river of Niger, I began to fantasize a lengthy adventure to paradise; an everlasting world of a glassy sea. The river was appealing to the face. Children were swimming, and making fun, lazing around a wooden boat bulked with caught fishes. The rivers waved left and right, splashing on each other as if they were competitive on who to visit The river goddess. I reached out for it but the waters were far away. Ashore, were fishermen so crowded like the evening Market-women in my village . Though their faces were fading in the sight, I saw joy of how well they've worked to get a hefty teem of fishes. Their hat curved with a handcrafted raffia made them look unique. It showed the agility and determined spirit of their fishing trip across the river. Once I was a child, I told Mama that I wanted to be a sailor; that I wanted to sail round the Pacific ocean and feel the serenity outta the soil of the earth. Pride and joyfulness clung over my optimism. But....Mama worried of the "Ogbanje" that will disturb me when I sleep. She said, "They will torture you in your nightmare, because they were one of the fallen angels Chineke shoved down to this earth. My brow formed vertical lines like the sea wave. She got my mind changed perhaps , for good. The train continued to journey to a far away distance where the world of nomads and herdsmen was a world of natural differences: cattles were so submissive to their masters; the herdsmen gibberish was a means of communication to the cattles; wheresoever the Fulani instruct them to go,even the Meadows and wild grasses were submissive as the animals match in unison. The moooooo! of cows was so boisterous that I had to block my right here. The disturbing train couldn't even overshadow the noise along the sweet lonely road. As we moved further, trees, tall and gallant like the Sequoias I took a picture of while I was in California. They waved left and right, that it made me picture the congregation in Church chanting the Hallelujah chorus - It was as if God wanted them to. sighing solemnly, I thought of The Creator's mysterious ways. I got lost into another realm where trees became human. And they looked beautiful beyond what human could phantom. Some slanted backward and some..... An infant cry intruded my imaginary world of nature. I toppled back to get my real self. The woman whose baby was whimpering, had tribal marks which denied her gorgeousness. She was obviously an epitome of beauty if at all she'd got no scarification. She cuddled her child singing MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB. In a twinkle if an eye, the little babe had slept off. Well, it was part of nature too. I knew getting to Kano was no less than few hours. I felt a throbbing in my leg. The pain was pretty much, but I wanted to feel what nature has got. The sun peeked it head out amidst the fluffy cloud. It grinned so softly that it's penetration into the window glass was tender to the skin. The sun's shape had no different of that one we used to draw in our Nursery school days. The one that used to spike out pieces of rays roundabout its surface and on its Head was a crown which signifies king of light. And now, sitting tired and famished, it began to set toward west..... There, upward, flakes of clouds formed an imaginary things that got me to wonder if God was an artist. Towards the north lies a mother cuddling her baby with an African wrapper. beneath was a formed Lion King roaring a rage of fire like a dragon and dogs were barking at the Lion King. At the Eastern shore of a dam were little children running away from a mother hen that was protecting her chickens from prey. The last figure in the sky that made me dumbfounded before the final halt of the train to our destination was a pig whose skin was made of a sunny-gold skin. It had a wing of an at the side. It flapped it wing into the sky and soared high that I squinted my eyes to fish it out from the heavens but I couldn't get it. What formed a smoky vertical lines was that of a spaceship piercing in skyward outta the earth. I wanted to reach out for the flying pig in the sky but they began to disperse like a bread soaked into water.... There I sat, so lost, into where nature brought me to wonder....And the wonder arrived when.... "Madam,madam", a masculine hand tapped me, I looked up. "You no go come down?". Is pidgin English was clear. It was made of nature. It was diluted with authority. Though I came back to life, I was hungering for another scene made of beauty in nature. In a rush, crowd gushed out from the train like waters from the rock. Fine linen flowed among these people of various tongues, the people of Africa. People made of nature.