December, and the weather changing

Harmattan again, and the road grey again, and something else in the air this year that is not dust. Two weeks ago Kanu announced, from wherever he is, an armed network for the south-east. The Eastern Security Network, to protect our villages from the herdsmen, he says. Within days there were soldiers back at the roundabouts and helicopters over Orlu and everyone at the market talking in the low voice.

I want to write down what I feel, because I am going to be asked, one day, and I want to have thought about it before I answer. I understand it. Every village in Imo has a story about the herdsmen and about a police that did not come. I understand a people who were told for fifty years to forget deciding to arm themselves. And I am afraid of it, in the exact way I was afraid of the crowd at the junction: not of the enemy, of the relief. Of the party in it.

Mama's flag is still in the wardrobe under the wrappers. She has not taken it out this year. When I asked her what she thought about the network she said, I have seen what guns do in this land, and went back to her pot.

Twenty-three. Five notebooks. E. in Lagos, texting less. A sister who asked if I was happy. A country that shot its children at a toll gate and a region that is quietly arming. I do not think next year is going to be easy. I am writing that down so that I cannot say later that I did not see it coming.