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    Nadia Joelle
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    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    Download as pdf
    35 views9 pages

    A Private Experience

    Uploaded by

    Nadia Joelle

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as pdf
    of 9
    “I want to know house,” Nkem says. “If that is what you wane; about it” She gently turns hi There is nothing left IMITATION when 2 new hous ‘And the children need you," im around and continues to soap his back to talk about, Nkem knows; it is done Obiora says finally. “We'll ta eboy is hired in my > Bivona Chetees, cn brorecocenatian > old ledlets = | Tew pes gecnve A PRIVATE | EXPERIENCE ' hhika climbs in through the store window first and then holds the shutter as the woman climbs in after her. The | store looks as if it was deserted long before the riots started: the empty rows of wooden shelves are cov low dust, as, are the metal containers stacked in a corner. The store is small smaller than Chika’s walk-in closet back home. The woman climbs in and the window shutters squeak as Chika lets go of them. CI salves burning after the lunsteady run from the market in her igiSS gaa 1 wants to thank the woman, for stopping her 's hands are trembling, her s she for saying “No run that way!” and for leading her, instead, to this empty store where they could hide. But before she can say thank you, the woman says, reaching out to touch her bare neck, “My necklace lost when I'm running” BBE dropped everything” Chika says. “I was buying oranges * hs nd | dropped the oranges and my hands ‘shar the handbag was a Burberry, an original one that her ge The woman sigh and Chika imagines tet ei hinkngo “¥ "her necklace, probably plastic beads threaded on a piece of Yeo. A PRIVATE EXPERIENCE an sting, Even without the woman's strong Hausa accent, Chika “Riot Trouble is coming, oh! They have killed a man!” Then Gan tell she is a Northerner, from the narrowness of her face, people around her were running, pushing against one another, the unfamiliar rise of her cheekbones; and that she is Mus- overturning wheelbarrows fall of yams, leaving behind bruised sweat and fear and she ran, too, across wide streets, into this n hears is “She may have run to Uncle's hot “Close window” the woman say. it, billowing above her. The room is stuffy and smells nothing Jim, because of the scarf. It hangs around the woman's neck vegetables they had just bargained hard for. Chika smelled the now, but it was probably wound loosely round her face before, . ae garish pretins of cheap thing Chika WondeRs EE WOMBR |S AY che woman xf is looking at her as well, if the woman can tell, from her light eS She and the woman stand silently in the store for a while, complexion and the silver finger rosary her mother insists she looking out of the window they have just climbed through, its a ar, that she is Igbo and Christian RRSOIRA INEM at, 8° 9? squeaky wooden shutters swinging in the air. The street is q tM [is she and the woman are speaking, Hausa Muslims are hack- ¢ at first, and then they hear the sound of running feet. cS .6 [ing down Igbo Christians with machetes, clubbing them with " | |. (Dodi inoyesSSErenwintoweSERERE,

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