The next labour had set in and Dyelnaan was getting theatrical. Her gait spoke volumes. She changes posture and facial expression like someone who was pierced by thorn in the wild bush to a person who was pressed with the urge to either urinate or defeacate. Just like a Tiv dancer from the middle belt of Nigeria, dancing the Su’ange Dance she twists and turns like a standing snake.

 

Njuh hurriedly brought the palm oil in a Rock Lager Beer bottle, having a corn stalk as its lid to his grandmother. He quickly handed it to his grandma and stood aside feeling the coolness of his knicker soaked with his own urine which he had suppressed not to soak him with his hands. He could even perceive the ammonia smell when he inhales deeply. He does not give a heck because the urine soaking his cloth is justifiable. Nhingkahm Nase instructed Paul Maktong to help his wife to a squatting position to enhance her cervical dilation and to position her properly, preparatory to her child’s delivery. She then went for Dyelnaan’s mouth and pressed hard onto her jaw sides to forcefully open her mouth wide. She then poured the palm oil in appreciable volumes down her throat, insisting more gulps until Dyelnaan said she couldn’t swallow it anymore. As she gulped the palm oil, the action stimulated emesis that brought about vomiting. The vomiting aided the push of the feotus. She couldn’t control defeacating as the crowned head of the baby protruded till the entire head was out then the cry of a baby was heard in the yard.

 

Dyelnaan just gave birth to her sixth child. Her cry automatically switched to a shout of joy and love to a child that was given birth to in the dark. Her face was wet with a mix of sweat, tears and mucous. But the outcome was worth the while. She assured herself.

 

Though, it was that dark, those who witnessed the delivery could perceive the stench of the mixed matter that polluted the air, all of which came out of Dyelnaan’s body. Nhingkahm Nase’s grandchildren; Njuh, Dazihin and Binan couldn’t stand the odour as they held their noses with their index finger and thumb to reduce the concentration of the odour that has filled the airways thereby saturating their olfactory lobe.

 

Nhingkahm Nase started cursing and abusing Paul Maktong as usual. Now that the deed is successfully done, she told him that henceforth, he needs to respect every woman he comes across as it is a woman that gave birth to him and a woman will give birth to his grandchildren. It is a woman world that we live in. Amidst tears of joy, Paul the Great gladly said “yes ma, I totally agree Nhingkahm’’. He knelt down and reached out for his baby’s genitalia, gesticulating and probing with his fingers like a blind man. His pulse is accelerating and his heart pounding fast and hard against his rib cage as he sought to identify the sex of his baby because the next huddle to cross for him is the sex of the baby. He was tasking his senses to identify it. He could verify it even with the slimy fluid (amniotic fluid) that has enrobed his hand. There was a tiny piece of an organ, it must be a penis he thought “It is a boy! It is a bouncing baby boy! He is my boy!’’ He exclaimed with joy and pride as he jumped up again and again and again in jubilation and shamelessly chanting aloud.