Learning From Spider
Years ago, when technology hasn’t gotten to Ojugun island, the major work the people of the town was doing was farming. Everyone within the island has their own farm. Virtually everyone within the town was making it from their farmland.
But there was a man called Iyanju, who has served his father faithfully for 20 years whom his father decided that it is time for him to be alone, thus the man set him free in his twenty-first year, that he should not work for him again but that he should go to the South portion of where the family’s land is which was bare with no plantation on it that he should go and start his farm there. His father, Pa. Jogeh gave him different kinds of crops to plant on the land, telling him that he will yet be feeding him until his farm produce comes out.
He was grateful to his father for what he has done for him and for deciding to get him established at that time.
That was what usually happened in the island then. When the children have served their father for some years and their fathers have been satisfied with their service, they will get them portions of land where they can start off their lives. What Pa. Jogeh did for Iyanju was not different from what other parents were doing for their children in the island after some years.
Iyanju examined the portion of land that his father told him to go to and start his farm there and discovered that it was a choice land, a land that is very rich. He started clearing the land, since he was not a lazy type, before long he had cleared a considerable portion of the land and he started to plant things on it. He was determined to be successful.
God really blessed the work of his hand that year and he was able to make it as if it has been long that he has been on his own. This makes him leave his parents’ house.
He was encouraged with what he reaped that year and has been calculating that by the end of the following year he would get married to a lady whom he has been going out with.
The following year the products of his farmland did not yield as he expected it to yield. The climate was not very good that year because did not rain much that year and this affected many people. Only few percentages of the people of the island really made impact from farm that year, those who made positive impact were those who has river close to their farmlands and who have cultivated the habit of watering their vegetables.
As those people water their vegetables, planted among some of the crops on the soil, there would be movement of the water from the region of higher concentration, the wet soil to the region of lower concentration and by this those crops would be able to draw water and other nutrients above to manufacture food for the plants. Those people’s crops were doing well and that was how they could make it. But for those who were not watering their vegetables and some who do not have vegetables at all on their farm, their crops were not looking well, their crops look frail and weak with many dying. Iyanju was one of those farmers who fell to this category.
Everyone within the island thinks well things will change the following year, hoping that there would be high rainfall the following year. they were however mistaken because there was no much difference from the level of rainfall the previous year and that year, and it affected some of the farmers too.
In the third year however, there was much rainfall that year such that rain destroyed many of the crops.
Sadly, Iyanju fall to the category of the unfortunate ones within the island. Things continued like this for this man such that he could not make ends meet again, the person who has been thinking of getting married could not talk about it again.
The lady he was going out with, Esinlu, could not stand what was happening to Iyanju again and he decided to leave the man for someone else because all her mates have got married and here she is, the person she was going out with is not sure of what tomorrow holds.
When people heard of what happened, some of them said, she cannot be blamed because ladies are like flowers, it is when they are attractive that they can move, flowers would be attractive in the morning when it comes out, but before noon, they would have lost their attractions and would wither off. She needs to take step when she still can, people were saying of Esinlu’s decision.
After Esinlu left Iyanju, things became unbearable for him, because as at then, people’s farmlands have been returning to how it was before with people making profits from their farm produce as they used to do before, because the climate change has been reverted to how it was before.
This could not be said of Iyanju, because everything he plants does not yield good products. He thought it was the kind of seeds he was planting and had to get good seedling from friends and colleagues, but things were not okay with him.
At a certain point he thought it was the land that has problem, but he discovered that when a nephew of his started farming on the other side of the same land, his products were always good while his would not be good.
Iyanju became tired of his life, "why me?" was the common rhetoric to him. “When I should be a source of joy unto my aged parents, I have become a source of sorrow unto them”, he said to himself one day, “everything looks bleak for me, what can I do? How can I escape this?” he asked himself.
When he could not readily find answers to his numerous questions, he decided that he needs to go and consult the most powerful herbalist in the territory, to ask from the gods what he needs to do to make changes to his life. The territory under which the island was covered about 60 islands in which his island was one.
He set out for the journey very early in the morning before the cook crows so that he will be able to get to the place early and perhaps return that day.
On getting to the herbalist, after explaining everything to the man, the herbalist, Abifajeun, talked to the gods for him and asked from the gods what the problem of the man was. The gods replied Abifajeun that Iyanju has no problems that the gods are the ones behind his plight because they wanted him to learn some lessons; they, the gods, wanted to teach him patience.
"Learn to exercise patience, after losing all that I have? When no one wants to be associated with me again? When people are fleeing me like a plague? Learn to exercise patience after about 20 years of fruitless and unproductive farming? Learn to exercise patience when my parents are tired of me and assuming they can disown me they would have. What is patience? If I may ask, Iyanju said looking worried and confused more than ever.
Abifajeun on hearing this, looking at how tired his client was laughed and said, I do not know how to explain patience to you, but what I will tell you is that you are not leaving me today, because you and I will need to go to a place tomorrow, there you will see something, from there you will be able to learn what patience is. This journey may take us days if not week, therefore, you need to be here so that we set out early. The gods told me to take you to a place where you will learn what it is called patience.
Iyanju who knows that he has no one asking after him after he has been neglected and forsaken by people decide to sleep with the herbalist that day.
The following day very early in the morning they set out of the house, Abifajeun took him to another village, he led him to the kingdom of the cobwebs.
When they got to the kingdom of the cobwebs, he asked Iyanju to look at a spider very well, that he should know what he will use to identify the spider among other spiders in the cobweb kingdom. After some minutes of looking at the spiders he chose one, he told Abifajeun the spider he has chosen, and the man said that is okay.
He now gave him further instructions that they should from the moment he has chosen the spider to be studying the spider to know how easy it will be for it to catch its prey.
They started monitoring the spider, they couldn’t sleep lest they miss the time it will catch its prey.
At the expiration of the second day, they discovered that this spider has not catch anything, yet the spider did not relent in trying to catch animal that it will feed upon. They continued like this until the fifth day when the spider catches an insect on which its venom was poured, killing it and started doing justice to it. After seeing this Abifajeun told Iyanju that they can now leave for where they have come from.
Abifajeun after leaving the place started explaining to Iyanju how the sight they saw looked like. He told him that he knows that some of the animals flew into the net of the spider, but they escaped the spider’s venom, because before the spider could release its venom on those animals that entered its trap they would struggle and get out of the trap before this is done. You should know that unless the spider releases its venom on its preys, the spider knows that it has not made a catch, that there is no food for it. Thus the spider would keep trying, keep waiting, keep tightening its web until it becomes strong such as to catch an animal that would not be able to struggle itself out of its net until the venom is released on it, paralyzing its power and thus killing it and then he would be able to feed on it.
Assuming after the first trial, second and other trials that we eventually lost count of, if the spider relented would it have made a catch? Would it have had something to feed on? It definitely would not. The spider patiently waited, kept trying, never lose hope, trusting that the god who provides for others would one day push an animal to enter its net and this eventually happened on the fifth day.
This is what the gods want you to learn from the kingdom of the spiders, to know that as long as you are alive you must not lose hope, you must keep trying, if you do not get what you want once, try again, try again and again until you get what you want.
It was night before they get back to Abifajeun’s place, therefore Iyanju could not leave that day for his island again. The following morning, he set out for his island.
All though the night he kept on thinking so, animals too are patiently waiting for what they will eat. Though others may have gotten theirs but that is none of their business their business is to keep waiting, keeping vigil until what they wanted to get to them. I will try and exercise patience too, I will not relent in waiting for what I desire, I will not relent in trying. If anything eludes me now, it means those things have not been desired to be mine from the outset since I am not lazy.
He returned home, with this in the back of his mind, he decided to go and clear a new portion of land for farming that planting season. For the fear of not making it as it has been happening before, he didn’t clear large portion of land. When he finished the clearing, he planted on the soil and the land yielded good fruits for him that year in folds such that he started saying had I know I would have clear large portion of land.
In the whole neighborhood that year, he was the one who planted beans and guinea corn in large quantity, others did not plant beans as he did that year, thinking the weather would affect the produce that year. But they were mistaken as the weather of the year favored beans and guinea corn plantation.
He harvested the products and sold them. Because he had it in large quantity, he could control the market of the sales that year and that was how his life started receiving a change.
The following year he told himself that he would not change his hand, he would not plant something else for who knows this may be what I have been designed to be planting he told himself. Thus, he got his land expanded and planted more of it. People were saying the sales of a farm product does not follow year to year thus they did not plant beans and guinea corn much that year, it was him alone that planted it, now in a very large scale.
Behold, after harvesting it and the barns full, he had to make new barns to store the products into. People from the neighboring islands started coming to their island to buy these products from him. By the end of the year’s market session, it was clear that his time has come because he was the talk of all the territory.
He returned to the herbalist to appreciate him for telling him to wait for his time. He thanked the gods of the herbalist for their instructions. He gave the herbalist baskets full of guinea corn and beans.
Abifajeun said, “when roads are rough, when we are failing, when we have even called ourselves failures, we should always remember that we are no failures if we can exercise patience and continue to put in our efforts, however little it is, we shall soon get to where we are going and in fact may exceed the point. Son,” Abifajeun called Iyanju, “when I also started this work of my great grandfathers, it took me over 30 years before things started changing for me. No one recognizes me in our island again not to talk of the territory, but I have always known that what I have gained from my grandfather and father would one day stand me out. And it was at the expiration of my thirtieth year in a position that the situation changed for me. Do you know what brought about the change?” he asked Iyanju and he replied that he don’t know that he should please tell him.
Abifajeun said, “what brought about the change was the climate change that happened about 20 years ago. I told the farmer in my island that the gods said there would be a climatic change that would affect all farmers all over the world, but that if our farmers could be planting vegetables and be watering it, they would escape the drought associated with the changes. Many of the farmers did not believe me, saying I want easy popularity, but those who believed me made it remarkably that year and that was how everything changed for me and people, farmers started patronizing me. Those who even had other associated troubles started coming to me, and bit by bit, my fame started growing until I become one of the hot cakes among my contemporaries in the territory.”
“Uhm mm”
Some of them envied me, some even tried to attack me on so many occasions, but they fail because I have weathered different times and the gods are behind me. When they see that they cannot do anything to me, that is when they started backing off, with some saying the power that his father has given him no one can unfold. Women were sent to track down my source of power, but all those women sent to me failed because they did not see anything extra-ordinary in what I was doing, all I was doing was simple and natural, they are straightforward things. After they have failed in all the known ways, I have been left alone and many of them now seek my hands in friendship and all I tell them is, I have not been fighting you, I have not been competing with you, because I know it is the gods who raise up and it is their duty to abase, whomsoever they lift up no one can put down. Son,” he called Iyanju again, saying, “I hope you are not sleeping?” Iyanju answered him that, “no, I am not sleeping sir, I am alive and alert to all you are saying”
“Keep doing what you are doing, never ignore the position of patience because the gods know when they will bless individual who could trust in them without wavering”
Iyanju appreciated Abifajeun again and left for his island, by the end of the fifth harvest session, Iyanju has servants under him, many farmlands, he hardly does hard work again all he does was supervising, and he has included animal husbandry into his farming which makes him one of the wealthiest farmers, if not the wealthiest farmer in the whole territory.
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