Simply Tripping

Tripping o’er Human Nature.
Even from a distance, I inhale drafts of roasted fish and fried onion scented air. I make a mental note to buy some after I conclude my visit to the slave museum at the Marina Resort in Calabar.
In one room is depicted a film showing a girl being captured by fellow villagers and handed over to the captain of a boat in exchange for a mirror. Viewers curse as if they wouldn’t have done the same thing if they’d lived in that era.
Slave sculptures stand half-naked awaiting auction, prodded, palpated, heads bowed in shame except for the lone slave whose jaw rests in the hand of the buyer inspecting her teeth like a dentist or mother.
Slaves being scorched with iron baring owner’s initials. Slaves working plantations, lips padlocked lest they taste the sugarcane. No shame contorts the features of the one whose bottom is being searched for hidden sugarcane. Only bleak acceptance.
I join the cries of righteous indignation by my fellow tourists, “we were victims!” my mind cries.
In yet another room, a slave- master on a horse pursues a slave escaping on foot. His whip won’t suffice because he holds a double barrel, his teeth bared red shot-eyed, dogs with blood stained teeth at his horse’s hooves in pursuit of the lone slave.
Skinned,hung, left to die; a lesson to others.
Whipped and sold if caught by kind owners. A milder lesson.
In another room, a woman counts her thirteen children. Fifteen children will, buy her freedom. Some mulatto, some slave-coloured. Rape is no crime in this room.
I rejoice in another room because the big slave stands, hands lifted, head facing sky, chains loosened at his feet.
In the last, portraits hang; Lincoln, Wilberforce, Crowther and Equiano. Eyes I didn’t realize were teary seek soothing from a manifest from one of the ships per chance I recognize a relative.
We women shake hands as we read Elizabeth Heyrick’s pamphlet that urged the emancipation of slaves, absolved of the role our fellow African’s played in the trade leaving the men to stand forever guilty until our guide points out that in recent times, women have played an active role in trafficking young women from Nigeria to Italy and other countries for prostitution and sex-slavery.
Neither Lincoln nor abolition laws have saved us from us.
I board the boat that will take me away from the Marina. I wave at a fisherman. His wave is hesitant, bewildered. I’m glad to be sailing this side of the Atlantic of my volition, waving without shackles.