FLASHBACK

         My name is Okonkwo. I am the strongest wrestler in the nine villages of Igbo community, I was known not only because of my strength but also because of all the personal achievement that I had gained through the years that had earned me wealthy, fame and titles and power. 

          But my life wasn't always like this, before I had succeeded in life, I had spent my entire childhood live in humiliation of hearing other kids called my father an "agbala" (a title use for women) for he had no titles in the society, and no wealth that he can give to his children. In other words, he had nothing that he can inherited to me. The process to build my own place in the Igbo community are slow and pain as with a father like Unoka, I did not have a start like many young men did as I does not inherited any barn or a title from my father, and not even a young wife. I started to build my barn by sharing crops with other people like Nwakibie one of the wealthy man in my village. Sharing-crops by all mean is the slow way for a man to building up his own barn as one would only get a third of the harvest after all the hard worked been done. But in my cases I had no other choice and to add it up, I still need to support my mother and sister with my meagre harvest. I was a fierce fighter, but the year I received eight hundred seed-yams from Nwakibie was the worst year ever. That year, I was faced with drought that destroy most of my harvest, and later the rainy season that give out bad harvest.

           Whenever I remember that year, I always said to myself that "since I survived that year, I shall survive anything".