The Power of a Plate of Rice -Leaderships Skills

 

Leadership skills 

The Power of a Plate of Rice 

-by Ifeoma Okoye

Read the short story 'A Plate of Rice' by Ifeoma Okoye and then answer the questions that follow.

I walked hurriedly to Mr. Aziza's office, breathing heavily in steadily rising anger. Aziza's The January sun was blazing in fury, taking undue advantage of the temporary withdrawal of the seasonal harmattan. As I arrived at the office, which was at the end of the administration block, I remembered one of mother's precepts: "Do nothing in anger. Wait till your anger melts like thick palm oil placed under the sun." Mother was a philosopher of sorts. Poor woman. She passed away before I could reward her for all the sacrifices she made on my behalf, forgoing many comforts just so that I could get some education, and for carrying the financial burden of the family during my father's protracted illness and even after his premature death. In deference to mother, I stood by Mr. Aziza's door for a few seconds, trying to stifle my anger, but failing woefully. Only an angel or an idiot would remain calm in my situation.

At last I knocked on the mottled green door.

"Come in."

Mr. Aziza's authoritative voice hit me like a blow, startling me. I opened the door and walked in, my anger still smouldering.

Mr. Aziza, the Principal of the secondary school where I was teaching, was seated behind a medium-sized desk made of cheap white wood and thickly coated with varnish. Books, files, letter trays, and loose sheets of paper jostled for a place on the desk. He raised his coconut-shaped head, closed the file he was reading, removed his plastic framed spectacles and peered at me.

"Yes, Mrs. Cheta Adu. What do you want?" His voice was on the defensive and the look on his ridged face was intimidating.

We were paid irregularly. Although it was the end of January, the salary in question was for the October of the previous year. Four months without any salary and yet we went to work regularly.

"Yes, I did, Mrs. Cheta Adu.' Mr. Aziza's small, narrow eyes pierced me like a lethal weapon. As one teacher had put it, he paralysed his prey with his eyes before dealing a death blow to them.

"What have I done, Sir?" I asked, trying to load the word 'Sir' with as much sarcasm as I could to indicate how I felt inside.

Mr. Aziza fingered his bulbous nose, a part of his body which had been the butt of many a teacher's joke. He was known to love food more than anything else, and one female teacher had once said that most of what he ate went into his nose.

"You were away from school without permission for four days last week," Mr Aziza finally declared.

My anger, which a few minutes ago had reduced to a simmer, suddenly began to bubble like a pot of ogbono soup when the fire under it is poked.

I said as calmly as I could, "In those four days, Sir, I almost lost my baby. I had already explained the circumstances to you. My baby became very ill suddenly. I had to rush him to hospital. For those four days, Sir, he battled for his life."

"And so?" Mr. Aziza intoned.

Someone knocked at the door and I turned to see the second Vice-Principal's bearded face as he opened it. "I'll be back," a thin lipped, hair-fringed mouth said and disappeared. The appearance of the bearded face was like a comic scene in a Shakespearean tragedy. Christmas and the New Year, a salaried worker was left with little money for the rest of January. And for those who had children in school, paying school fees and buying books and school uniforms for the new school year often became a nightmare. This year was worse for me because I and all the other teachers in the school were last paid in September the year before.

"I am a widow, Sir," I pleaded with Mr. Aziza. "I am the sole bread-winner for my family. Times are hard. My children cannot survive till the end of February without my next salary."

Mr. Aziza said, "I don't want to know, Mrs. Cheta Adu. My decision is final."

He stood up, hitched his trousers, up with his elbows, and walked to a window on his right and peered out of it. He was a small, wiry man, the type mother often told me to be beware of.

Helpless, I stood watching him, a man known for his inflexibility. I knew from my colleagues' experiences that taking my case to the State Schools Management Board would be futile as Mr. Aziza had ingratiated himself with the powerful and high- ranking officers of the Board. As the Principal of one of the elite schools in the state, he had helped their children admitted into his school even when the spoilt ones among them did not pass the entrance examination. I also knew that taking Mr. Aziza to court was out of the question. Where would get I the money for a lawyer? Besides, civil cases had been known to last for months or even years because of unnecessary and often deliberate court adjournments.

Mr. Aziza walked back to his chair and sat down.

I looked hard at him and, without saying anything more, left his office. In a taxi taking me home, I thought about nothing else but Mr Aziza.

This was the second time I had found myself at his mercy. The first time was when, five years ago, I was transferred to his school from a secondary school in Onitsha where I was teaching before my marriage. On reading the letter posting me to his school - I had delivered it to him personally - he had flung it at me and had declared, "I don't want any more female teachers in my school, especially married ones."

"What have we done?", I had wanted to know.

"You're a lazy lot," he had said. "You always find excuses to be away from school. Today it's this child of yours becoming ill who must be taken to hospital, and tomorrow it's the funeral of one relation or another."

When he officially refused to give me a place in his school, I resorted to a tactic I had used always before. I kept calling at his office every day, often without uttering a word, until I broke his resistance and made him accept me. This time, however, I had the feeling that he would not budge, no matter what I did.

When I arrived home after five in the evening, my mother-in-law was walking up and down in front of my flat with my two-year old son, Rapulu, tied on her back, and four-year old Dulue trailing behind her.

"You're late, Cheta," my mother-in-law said. "I was beginning to think you were not going to come home." She looked weary and worried.

"Sorry, Mama, I have some problems at school," I walked to her after hugging Dulue, who had trotted to me. "And how is Rap?" I asked.

"He's ill."

I placed the back of my hand on my younger son's forehead. It was piping hot.

"You're not going to be ill again, Rapulu?" I said under my breath. Aloud I asked, "How long has he been running a temperature, Mama?"

"A short while after you left for school in the morning," my mother-in-law replied.

I helped her untie Rapulu from her back and took him in, Dulue trotting behind me. I stripped Rapulu of his clothes, put him on the settee, fetched a bowl of cold water and a towel and began to sponge him down. He yelled and kicked, but I ignored him. Dulue, with his thumb in his mouth, kept on mumbling that he was hungry, while my mother-in-law stood speechless, watching me.

Presently, I remembered that I should have given Rapulu some fever medicine. I ran into the bedroom in the flat and dashed out with a small bottle. Taking Rapulu in my arms, I gave him a teaspoonful of the bitter-sweet medicine and began to sponge him again.

Mother-in-law soon dozed off. Poor woman, she must have had a trying day. She was a widow too and I had brought her to help me look after my children. Bless her, for what could I have done if she had refused my offer? Another reason why I brought her to live with me was to save costs. I used to send her money every month to supplement the meagre proceeds from her farms.

We had a late lunch of yam and raw palm oil. It was the last piece of yam in the house. I skipped supper because I wanted to make sure that the garri and egusi soup which I had would last for two nights.

The night was a long one. First, I lay awake for fear that Rapulu might become worse, but fortunately the fever did not persist. Then I reviewed all that I had gone through since I lost Afam, my husband who was an only child, in a ghastly motor accident a little more than a year before. He was a brilliant banker. We were at the university together, he studying banking and I mathematics. As luck would have it, we were posted to the same state for our National Youth Service. We became engaged at the end of our service and married shortly after. He died a fortnight after our fifth wedding anniversary and, ever since, my life had become an endless journey into the land of hardship and frustration. I had, under great pressure, spent all our savings to give my husband what my people and his had called a befitting burial, and what I saw as a senseless waste of hard-earned money.

For the better part of the night, I worried over how I was going to pay the January rent, how I was going to feed my two sons and my mother-in-law, and what I was going to do if Rapulu became so ill that he had to be hospitalized again? I already owed two of my friends some money and could not see myself summoning up the courage to go to them again.

I borrowed money again and for two long weeks I managed to feed my family, sometimes going without meals myself. I became irritable, and students complained that I was being too hard on them. My good-natured mother-in-law became equally touchy and nagged me incessantly. My two sons threw tantrums, spending a great deal of time crying. Soon I had no money left and no one to lend me more. I had reached a point when I had to do something drastic or allow my sons to die of hunger.

On the 23rd of February, after school hours, I went to Mr Aziza's office and once again pleaded with him to pay me.

"You're wasting your time, Mrs. Cheta Adu," he said. "I never change my mind. You will receive your salary on the 28th of February and not even one day earlier."

I left his office and waited for him in the outer room. At four o'clock he left his office. I followed him to his house, which was situated near the school main gate, and he turned and asked me why I was following him. I remained silent. He opened the door and walked in. Quietly, I followed him into his sitting room and sat down without any invitation to do so. The room was sparsely furnished. A black and white television stood on top of the shelf next to a small transistor radio. Near them, were a small dining room and a steel back chair.

Mr Aziza lived alone. His wife and six children lived at Onitsha about 100 kilometres away.

Mr. Aziza turned and faced me. "Look, Mrs. Adu, you'll achieve nothing by following me like a dog. You may stay here forever, but you'll not make me change my mind." He disappeared through a door on the right.

Presently, his houseboy walked into the room and began to lay the table. The smell of jollof rice wafted around my nostrils, reactivating in me the hunger which had been suppressed by anger, depression, and desperation. The houseboy finished laying the table and left.

On impulse I left my chair, walked to the dining table and sat down on the chair beside it. Removing the lid on the plate, I stared at the appetising mound of jollof rice. Then I grabbed the spoon beside the plate and began to eat. I ate quickly and not only with relish, but also with vengeance and animosity.

I heard a door squeak and turned to see Mr. Aziza walk into the sitting room. His jaw dropped and his mouth remained open as he stared at me.

"What do you think you're doing, Mrs. Cheta Adu?" he bellowed, finding his tongue at last. Disbelief was written all over his face.

I ignored the question and continued to help myself to the rice. I scooped a large piece of meat into my mouth, my cheeks bulging.

Mr. Aziza strode to the table, snatched the spoon from me with his right hand and with his left snatched the plate of rice away from me. It was almost empty now. I rose from the chair and moved a little bit back from him, thinking he was going to hit me.

He faced me, his eyes deadly. "Get out of my house, I say, get out!"

"Not until I receive my salary," I said calmly. Desperation had given me a form of courage I had not experienced before.

Mr. Aziza barked at me. "Get out. Go to the Bursar. Tell him I said he can pay you now."

I said calmly, "He'll not believe me. Why not give me a note for him?"

He scribbled a note, threw it at me and I grabbed it. Trying hard to suppress a smile, I said, "Thank you, Sir," and left the room, still chewing the rubbery meat in my mouth.

Action Will Be Taken - Empathy Skills

 

Empathy Skills 

Action Will Be Taken by Heinrich Boll

Probably one of the strangest interludes in my life was the time I spent as an employee in Alfred Wunsiedel’s factory. By nature, I am inclined more to pensiveness and inactivity than to work, but now and again prolonged financial difficulties compel me – for pensiveness is no more profitable than inactivity – to take on a so-called job. Finding myself once again at a low ebb of this kind, I put myself in the hands of the employment office and was sent with seven other fellow-sufferers to Wunsiedel’s factory, where we were to undergo an aptitude test.

The exterior of the factory was enough to arouse my suspicions: the factory was built entirely of glass brick, and my aversion to well-lit buildings and well-lit rooms is as strong as my aversion to work. I became even more suspicious when we were immediately served breakfast in the well-lit, cheerful coffee shop: pretty waitresses brought us eggs, coffee and toast, orange juice was served in tastefully designed jugs, goldfish pressed their bored faces against the sides of pale-green aquariums. The waitresses were so cheerful that they appeared to be bursting with good cheer. Only a strong effort of will – so it seemed to me -restrained them from singing away all day long. They were as crammed with unsung songs as chickens with unlaid eggs.

Right away I realized something that my fellow-sufferers evidently failed to realize: that this breakfast was already part of the test; so I chewed away reverently, with the full appreciation of a person who knows he is supplying his body with valuable elements. I did something which normally no power on earth can make me do: I drank orange juice on an empty stomach, left the coffee and egg untouched, as well as most of the toast, got up, and paced up and down in the coffee shop, pregnant with action.

As a result I was the first to be ushered into the room where the questionnaires were spread out on attractive tables. The walls were done in a shade of green that would have summoned the word “delightful” to the lips of interior decoration enthusiasts. The room appeared to be empty, and yet I was so sure of being observed that I behaved as someone pregnant with action behaves when he believes himself unobserved: I ripped my pen impatiently from my pocket, unscrewed the top, sat down at the nearest table and pulled the questionnaire toward me, the way irritable customers snatch at the bill in a restaurant.

Question No. 1: Do you consider it right for a human being to possess only two arms, two legs, eyes, and ears?

Here for the first lime I reaped the harvest of my pensive nature and wrote without hesitation: “Even four arms, legs and ears would not be adequate for my driving energy. Human beings are very poorly equipped.”

Question No. 2: How many telephones can you handle at one time?

Here again the answer was as easy as simple arithmetic: “When there are only seven telephones,” I wrote, “I get impatient; there have to be nine before I feel I am working to capacity.”

Question No. 3: How do you spend your free time?

My answer: “I no longer acknowledge the term free time – on my fifteenth birthday I eliminated it from my vocabulary, for in the beginning was the act.”

I got the job. Even with nine telephones I really didn’t feel I was working to capacity. I shouted into the mouth-pieces: “Take immediate action!” or; “Do something! – We must have some action – Action will be taken – Action has been taken – Action should be taken.”  But as a rule – for I felt this was in keeping with the tone of the place – I used the imperative.

Of considerable interest were the noon-hour breaks, when we consumed nutritious foods in an atmosphere of silent good cheer.  Wunsiedel’s factory was swarming with people who were obsessed with telling you the story of their lives, as indeed vigorous personalities are fond of doing. The story of their lives is more important to them than their lives, you have only to press a button, and immediately it is covered with spewed-out exploits.

Wunsiedel had a right-hand man called Broschek, who had in turn made a name for himself by supporting seven children and a paralyzed wife by working night-shifts in his student days, and successfully carrying on four business agencies, besides which he had passed two examinations with honors in two years. When asked by reporters: “When do you sleep, Mr. Broschek?” he had replied: “It’s a crime to sleep!”

Wunsiedel’s secretary had supported a paralyzed husband and four children by knitting, at the same time graduating in psychology and German history as well as breeding shepherd dogs, and she had become famous as a night-club singer where she was known as Vamp Number Seven.

Wunsiedel himself was one of those people who every morning, as they open their eyes, make up their minds to act. “I must act,” they think as they briskly tie their bathrobe belts around them. “I must act,” they think as they shave, triumphantly watching their beard hairs being washed away with the lather: these hirsute vestiges are the first daily sacrifices to their driving energy. The more intimate functions also give these people a sense of satisfaction: water swishes, paper is used. Action has been taken. Bread get eaten, eggs are decapitated.

With Wunsiedel, the most trivial activity looked like action: the way he put on his hat, the way-quivering with energy – he buttoned up his overcoat, the kiss he gave his wife, everything was action.

When he arrived at his office he greeted his secretary with a cry of “Let’s have some action!” And in ringing tones she would call back: “Action will be taken!” Wunsiedel then went from department to department, calling out his cheerful: “Let’s have some action!” Everyone would answer: “Action will be taken!” And I would call back to him too, with a radiant smile, when he looked into my office: “Action will be Taken!”

Within a week I had increased the number of telephones on my desk to eleven, within two weeks to thirteen, and every morning on the streetcar I enjoyed thinking up new imperatives, or chasing the words take action through various tenses and modulations: for two whole days I kept saying the same sentence over and over again because I thought it sounded so marvelous: “Action ought to have been taken;” for another two days it was: “Such action ought not to have been taken.”

So I was really beginning to feel I was working to capacity when there actually was some action. One Tuesday morning – I had hardly settled down at my desk – Wunsiedel rushed into my office crying his “let’s have some action!” But an inexplicable something in his face made me hesitate to reply, in a cheerful gay voice as the rules dictated: “Action will be taken!” I must have paused too long, for Wunsiedel, who seldom raised his voice, shouted at me: “Answer! Answer, you know the rules!” And I answered, under my breath, reluctantly, like a child who is forced to say: I am a naughty child. It was only by a great effort that I managed to bring out the sentence: “Action will be taken,” and hardly had I uttered it when there really was some action: Wunsiedel dropped to the floor. As he fell he rolled over onto his side and lay right across the open doorway. I knew at once, and I confirmed it when I went slowly around my desk and approached the body on the floor: he was dead.

Shaking my head I stepped over Wunsiedel, walked slowly along the corridor to Broschek’s office, and entered without knocking.  Broschek was sitting at his desk, a telephone receiver in each hand, between his teeth a ballpoint pen with which he was making notes on a writing pad, while with his bare feet he was operating a knitting machine under the desk. In this way he helps to clothe his family. “We’ve had some action,” I said in a low voice.

Broschek spat out the ballpoint pen, put down the two receivers, reluctantly detached his toes from the knitting machine.

“What action?” he asked.

“Wunsiedel is dead,” I said.

“No,” said Broschek.

“Yes,” I said, “come and have a look!”

“No,” said Broschek, “that’s impossible,” but he put on his slippers and followed me along the corridor.

“No,” he said, when we stood beside Wunsiedel’s corpse, “no, no!”  I did not contradict him. I carefully turned Wunsiedel over onto his back, closed his eyes, and looked at him pensively.

I felt something like tenderness for him, and realized for the first time that I had never hated him. On his face was that expression which one sees on children who obstinately refuse to give up their faith in Santa Claus, even though the arguments of their playmates sound so convincing.

“No,” said Broschek, “no.”

“We must take action,” I said quietly to Broschek.

“Yes,” said Broschek, “we must take action”.

“We must take action;” I said quietly to Broschek. “Yes,” said Broschek, “we must take action.”

Action was taken: Wunsiedel was buried; and I was delegated to carry a wreath of artificial roses behind his coffin, for I am equipped with not only a penchant for pensiveness and inactivity but also a face and figure that go extremely well with dark suits. Apparently as I walked along behind Wunsiedel’s coffin carrying the wreath of artificial roses I looked superb. I received an offer from a fashionable firm of funeral directors to join their staff as a professional mourner. “You are a born mourner,” said the manager, “your outfit would be provided by the firm. Your face – simply superb!”

I handed in my notice to Broschek, explaining that I had never really felt I was working to capacity there; that, in spite of the thirteen telephones, some of my talents were going to waste. As soon as my first professional appearance as a mourner was over I knew: This is where I belong, this is what I am cut out for.

Pensively I stand behind the coffin in the funeral chapel, holding a simple bouquet, while the organ plays Handel’s Largo, a piece that does not receive nearly the respect it deserves. The cemetery café is my regular haunt; there I spend the intervals between my professional engagements, although sometimes I walk behind coffins which I have not been engaged to follow, I pay for flowers out of my own pocket and join the welfare worker who walks behind the coffin of some homeless person. From time to time I also visit Wunsiedel’s grave, for after all I owe it to him that I discovered my true vocation, a vocation in which pensiveness is essential and inactivity my duty.

It was not till much later that I realized I had never bothered to find out what was being produced in Wunsiedel’s factory. I expect it was soap.

Source   https://myshortstories.org/action-will-taken-heinrich-boll/

Sem 3. After Twenty Years Full Story

After Twenty Years 

by O. Henry

For Audio visual learning click here 

The policeman on the beat moved up the avenue impressively. The impressiveness was habitual and not for show, for spectators were few. The time was barely 10 o'clock at night, but chilly gusts of wind with a taste of rain in them had well nigh de-peopled the streets.

Trying doors as he went, twirling his club with many intricate and artful movements, turning now and then to cast his watchful eye adown the pacific thoroughfare, the officer, with his stalwart form and slight swagger, made a fine picture of a guardian of the peace.

The vicinity was one that kept early hours. Now and then you might see the lights of a cigar store or of an all-night lunch counter; but the majority of the doors belonged to business places that had long since been closed.

When about midway of a certain block the policeman suddenly slowed his walk. In the doorway of a darkened hardware store a man leaned, with an unlighted cigar in his mouth. As the policeman walked up to him the man spoke up quickly.

"It's all right, officer," he said, reassuringly. "I'm just waiting for a friend. It's an

appointment made twenty years ago. Sounds a little funny to you, doesn't it? Well, I'll explain if you'd like to make certain it's all straight. About that long ago there used to be a restaurant where this store stands—'Big Joe' Brady's restaurant."

"Until five years ago," said the policeman. "It was torn down then."

The man in the doorway struck a match and lit his cigar. The light showed a pale, square-jawed face with keen eyes, and a little white scar near his right eyebrow. 

His scarf pin was a large diamond, oddly set.

"Twenty years ago to-night," said the man, "I dined here at 'Big Joe' Brady's with Jimmy Wells, my best chum, and the finest chap in the world. He and I were raised here in New York, just like two brothers, together. I was eighteen and Jimmy was twenty. The next morning I was to start for the West to make my fortune. You couldn't have dragged Jimmy out of New York; he thought it was the only place on earth. Well, we agreed that night that we would meet here again exactly twenty years from that date and time, no matter what our conditions might be or from what distance we might have to come. 

We figured that in twenty years each of us ought to have our destiny worked out and our fortunes made, whatever they were going to be."

"It sounds pretty interesting," said the policeman. "Rather a long time between meets, though, it seems to me. Haven't you heard from your friend since you left?"

"Well, yes, for a time we corresponded," said the other. "But after a year or two we lost track of each other. You see, the West is a pretty big proposition, and I kept hustling around  over it pretty lively. But I know Jimmy will meet me here if he's alive, for l always was the truest, stanchest old chap in the world. He'll never forget. I came thousand miles to stand in this door to-night, and it's worth it if my old partner turns up." The waiting man pulled out a handsome watch, the lids of it set with small diamonds. "Three minutes to ten," he announced. "It was exactly ten o'clock when we parted here at the restaurant door."

"Did pretty well out West, didn't you?" asked the policeman.

"You bet! I hope Jimmy has done half as well. He was a kind of plodder, though, good fellow as he was. I've had to compete with some of the sharpest wits going to get my pile. A man gets in a groove in New York. It takes the West to put a razor-edge on him." The policeman twirled his club and took a step or two.

"I'll be on my way. Hope your friend comes around all right. Going to call time on him sharp?"

"I should say not!" said the other. "I'll give him half an hour at least. If Jimmy is alive on earth he'll be here by that time. So long, officer."

"Good-night, sir," said the policeman, passing on along his beat, trying doors as he went.

There was now a fine, cold drizzle falling, and the wind had risen from its uncertain puffs into a steady blow. The few foot passengers astir in that quarter hurried dismally and silently along with coat collars turned high and pocketed hands. And in the door of the hardware store the man who had come a thousand miles to fill an appointment, uncertain almost to absurdity, with the friend of his youth, smoked his cigar and waited.

About twenty minutes he waited, and then a tall man in a long overcoat, with collar turned up to his ears, hurried across from the opposite side of the street. He went directly to the waiting man.

"Is that you, Bob?" he asked, doubtfully.

"Is that you, Jimmy Wells?" cried the man in the door.

"Bless my heart!" exclaimed the new arrival, grasping both the other's hands with his own. "It's Bob, sure as fate. I was certain I'd find you here if you were still in existence. Well, well, well!—twenty years is a long time. The old restaurant's gone, Bob; I wish it had lasted, so we could have had another dinner there. How has the West treated you, old man?" "Bully; it has given me everything I asked it for. You've changed lots, Jimmy. I never thought you were so tall by two or three inches."

"Oh, I grew a bit after I was twenty."

"Doing well in New York, Jimmy?"

"Moderately. I have a position in one of the city departments. Come on, Bob; we'll go around to a place I know of, and have a good long talk about old times."

The two men started up the street, arm in arm. The man from the West, his egotism enlarged by success, was beginning to outline the history of his career. The other, submerged in his overcoat, listened with interest.

At the corner stood a drug store, brilliant with electric lights. When they came into this glare each of them turned simultaneously to gaze upon the other's face.

The man from the West stopped suddenly and released his arm.

"You're not Jimmy Wells," he snapped. "Twenty years is a long time, but not long enough to change a man's nose from a Roman to a pug."

"It sometimes changes a good man into a bad one," said the tall man. "You've been under arrest for ten minutes, 'Silky' Bob. Chicago thinks you may have dropped over our way and wires us she wants to have a chat with you. Going quietly, are you? That's sensible. Now, before we go on to the station here's a note I was asked to hand you.

You may read it here at the window. It's from Patrolman Wells."

The man from the West unfolded the little piece of paper handed him. His hand was steady when he began to read, but it trembled a little by the time he had finished. The note was rather short.

Bob: I was at the appointed place on time. When you struck the match to light your cigar I saw it was the face of the man wanted in Chicago. Somehow I couldn't do it myself, so I went around and got a plain clothes man to do the job.

                                                 JIMMY.

Extracted from

https://s3.amazonaws.com/exploros-shared-media/OER/ELA/Grade+8/ELA8.4.02.AfterTwentyYears.compressed.pdf