My Father and the Whiteman, by Dr.Tunde Oseni

It was a sunny day

My father, then a boy, joined his mates

On a stony pitch

Chasing around a ball

Just beside the hall

 

Then a call from the Reverend Father

A missionary man from afar

‘You follow me’

My father cleaned up the sweat on his face

And behind the white man he gently walked

 

The boys behind the White Man were now two

For an errand boy normally escorted the holy one

They got to the storey building

Opposite the Catholic Church

The first in our town,

That owned the school my father went

And the mission to the place was yet unclear

As my father held his breath till the end

 

The Holy One entered a room that was dark

Asked the Little One to climb upon a desk

And waved a cloth to him to hold

To be pinned to a little window made of wood

The Little One obeyed the Boss

Until the show came to a close

 

Just by chance

As the white man made to move

A little ray of light snaked into room

And my father got the tip;

It was the call of nature

That the White Man had come to heed

 

That was 1956 as I was told

In 1959 the boy finished at the school

Then in 1989, the son of the boy

Entered the college arm of the school

Where his father once held the cloth

*This is based on a true life story told me by my father.
Dedicated to Pope Francis I for his love for the oppressed and
tolerance for all faiths.