We met a mermaid at the river

We grew up to believe some of the beliefs about the river...

They told us that mermaids are in the river because of the deity and these mermaids come out to the shore of the river when nobody is around or when it's night. We heard a lot of people testify to this fact

Just like the major believes of some part of Nigeria, that mermaids possess supernatural powers, people come around from different states to pay homage to the river and drop sacrifices. These sacrifices are not only done in the main source(source of the river) but also its extentions, which flows at the back of our street.

I've met outsiders(foreigners) coming to kill goat, fowl, drop cash and minerals to the river. One funny thing that happen is that, If the non scary people(those indigenes that are not scared of the gods) are around, they dive in to the river to collect the materials used as sacrifices and replenish themselves with the food items because they believed that spirits don't drink consume those food and drinsk Lol🤣.

Also, they told us that indigenes are not allowed to kill or eat fishes from the river because those fishes are the little children of the goddess or simply regarded as little mermaids. Hahah🤣. Truthfully, the river is blessed with fishes and they are seen in the river/water when nobody is on the water.

Though non indigenes do set fish traps and they catch a lot of fishes. These people are not allowed to sell the fish in the market, it's either they eat it or go to other Communities to sell.

How we met a mermaid in the river around 5:30am🧜🧜🧜

Lead image Source

Just like I said earlier, the river was our major source of easy water, as it's free of charge and you can fetch as often as you want. It doesn't get dried.

Fetching of water from the river was our early morning routine before setting off for school. We usually go there around 5:30am to 6:30am when the day is trying to form for brightness(day break).

That day, I and Ikechukwu set off to the river to fetch water, we were with two 50litres kegs and a bicycle. I can't totally recall the actual time we got to the river but it was still dark.

We go there and met a young lady. We got surprised because a lady is not supposed to be seen in that part of the river (the men's river).

For privacy reasons, we have different sections of the river, one for the male and the other is for female. The guys are not expected to visit the females section unless you are looking for trouble. The only time a lady visits the male's section is maybe there is emergency and permission is to be taken first. Why all these? N*k*dness is allowed in the river, except for general ones.

The lady was inside the river with buckets washing clothes, the clothes where packed on a stationed log of wood on the water.. We did the face cos it was dark and besides, her head was bent because she was washing. She was putting a white singlet and had rapper tied around her waist...we saw these from afar though.

We shouted at her and questioned her on what she was doing in the men's river. We weren't scared because it's our right and duty to chase away any lady found in the men's river. She kept mute and continued washing her clothe as if she didn't heard.

We dropped our bicycle and approached her a little bit.

Me: Are you new in this Community, don't you know that women are not allowed to step ?

She: Why? All I know it that river is meant for everyone.

Ikechukwu: Seems you are stubborn, don't allow us to insult you, you better pack your load and go away before people start coming or we are going to push you out!

She: I'm not going anywhere untill I'm through with my washing.

All these were said in our dialect

"The lady looked stubborn, how do we now bathe since we are supposed to pull off our wears?" We talked to ourselves.

We decided to get closer with the intention to make her see that we have capable of chasing her away.

We moved close to see that her legs inside water has a fish like nature(mermaid). We screamed and ran away leaving our bicycle and kegs.

The day had brightened up a bit. We ran to where people lives and tell them what we saw but no one believed. Some guys followed us back to see if it's true but when we got there, it was only the clothes on the log of woor in the water, no bucket and no lady.

They concluded that it was a false alarm, that we didn't see any mermaid. We asked them what about the clothes on the log of wood, at least those were still there and they saw the clothes, they said maybe they were clothes Someone forgot last nigt.

We gave many narrations but they Didn't believe.

And that's the end of this article.

Wondering if it's true life story or fiction? Well, the fiction part came in from the point of meeting a mermaid at the Early hour of the day. The other examples I gave about the river are 100% accurate.

A big thank you to @Vincent21 for the sponsorship!

Thanks for reading

26th November 2021