Comprehension: Oliha’s Embarrassment

Topic Content:

• Passage: Oliha’s Embarrassment
• Text: New Oxford Secondary English Course for SS1 pages 26-27

Years after he had left home for the capital, first as a student and later as a struggling businessman, Oliha returned to his village, having been informed of his father’s failing health. He was amazed that not much had changed since he left home as a youth. Every experience shocked him: the coloured water with a strong taste, the eyesore of a dunghill which everyone excreted, the absence of electricity and so on.

As he went to bed late in the evening, after a meeting with his younger brothers on how he would pay his own share of their father’s medical expenses, he prayed for the early arrival of the morning. He decided to leave early and put the trying experience behind him.

But morning brought him the greatest shock of his life. Informed by his niece that there was a bucket of water for him in the bath, he hurried down there, half-dressed, holding a towel. He used his clothes and a large towel to cover some openings in the enclosure and started bathing. Then it happened. With every inch of his body thoroughly covered with soap lather, hardly able to open his eyes, he heard someone removing his clothes and towel. Hardly giving the matter a thought, naked except for the soap lather, he ran out and gave the thief a hot chase.

As he ran after the thief, he heard everyone shouting, “The lunatic has broken loose again!” But as soon as the people saw him everyone shouted, “Ah! Another madman has broken loose!” Men, women, and children all ran away, seeking refuge in their homes, and slamming their doors. By the time he realized what was happening, daring men were after him. Just as Oliha was about to beat a retreat, he was held by strong, muscular men who overpowered him and carried him to the quarters of the village’s foremost occult healer who alone knew how to cure lunatics.

(Source: WASSCE, May/June, 1995)