Once upon a time, a village was renowned for its peculiar food and fabric and how well-embraced it was by its inhabitants. Those who were familiar with the food and fabric from other lands said that the villagers only embraced the food they were given because they didn’t know better.
One day, a rich suitor from a far-off village showed up and promised cash and treasures if the village would give him women that would become great wives who’d make great clothes and food. The Stranger had learned about the village’s peculiar tastes and figured he could take their work to the next level.
Many families flocked towards the Stranger and he held meetings with several groups. After weeks of suspense, he named the lucky women who were to become his brides. Some of the village’s most beautiful, skilled, and ambitious women had attended many of the meetings. So, rumours had spread that these women were going to be the chosen ones. It made sense because these women had been praised by the village’s wise men.
The selection shocked everyone. The Stranger had picked women from the flashiest and noisiest of families. The noise generated had attracted the Stranger and there was nothing anyone could do but accept the Stranger’s choice.
Soon enough, the Stranger and his flashy wives relocated to an expanse of land the villagers sold to him, and things seemed to go well for the new family. The sounds of their happiness could be heard in villages far away. And some of the food and fabric they produced entered the market. They were sold for relatively higher figures but the Stranger’s reputation meant that these items were bought. Most of the villagers felt like nothing had changed in the quality of the goods they bought, no one could argue that the Stranger’s goods came in better packaging. The Stranger was also associated with the far-off village, so no one complained.
Seasons passed. And then one day, the Stranger began hearing whispers that his treasures were fake, that his money was useless, that he was producing stuff that wasn’t different from what obtained before. He couldn’t ignore the whispers because he himself had begun noticing things. First, he noticed that the money he gave his wives and their flashy coworkers wasn’t leading to better fabric, food, or clothes. His meals hadn’t improved since he landed in the village; the meals were merely coming in colourful plates. He had expected that with more money his wives would make better meals and produce better food, fabrics, and clothes, some of which he would sell to other villages. But other villages, especially the far off village he came from, rejected everything his wives produced.
The more money he poured, the more the food stayed the same, and the more only the villagers who didn’t know better consumed them. He stopped selling to other villages. The sales were not enough to justify the resources expended.
On some days, even the Stranger himself couldn’t eat what his wives produced. Indeed, sometimes he had to eat without meat even though he gave his wives money that could buy a dozen rams, chickens, and goats each. This couldn’t continue, he thought. He waited to see if his wives would change. When that didn’t happen, he took what remained of his treasures and fled the village.
His wives were unhappy but they couldn’t reach him. He told the horsemen not to tell them the route he took out of the village. The wives mourned but they had saved enough money from what he had given them to still live lavishly. They knew they’d find other suitors anyway. But they were consequences for everyone else.
The beautiful, skilled, and ambitious women were the most affected. They had dreamt that the Stranger would discover them once he realised he was being cheated by his noisy wives. That didn’t happen. Instead, he ran from the village. This was a massive blow to their hopes and dreams.
The villagers who were slowly getting used to marginally better food and soups were bereft. But many of them were raised on inferior foods and so had never developed a taste for anything better. They simply went to the market and continued imbibing what was available. This continued until a villager noticed that there was a section of the market where food and fabric were free. The section had always existed but its popularity grew in the absence of anything else. The section’s amateurish packaging was fine because the items were free. The only issue was that while the villagers waited to receive their items, other sellers would try to sell other things to them. That wasn’t a problem.
A few months after this section was rediscovered, it experienced an exponential surge in attention when a certain fabric, nicknamed Odogwu, came into the market. Suddenly, almost everyone in the village was wearing the fabric. In fact, only a tiny percentage of the villagers remembered that the Stranger had provided better fabric and packaging. The villagers were just happy to be receiving the free Odogwu fabric. As it was before the Stranger showed up, so it was again. Even if the quality of what was produced was rather poor, the villagers didn’t know better. Odogwu was enough. Even those who had never gone to the free section of the market before said Odogwu was the best fabric they ever wore.
But while the bulk of the villagers rejoiced, the small group of skilled and ambitious women and workers were depressed. They’d been ignored by the Stranger and it was happening again. This small group finally realised that in a poor village of cheap tastes, they would never succeed. Some of them decided to join the free section. Those who couldn’t or wouldn’t knew they had to go find success elsewhere.
Maybe one day they would come back to their village as the New Stranger. After all, the villagers had shown that the only way they would see beyond their cheap tastes was if a foreigner showed them something better.
