“I Paid Rent for This Body”: The Day an Ancestral Spirit Declined Eviction

We like to act modern. Soft life. Therapy. Healing crystals. French tips and emotional boundaries.

But step too far outside your city or comfort zone, and tradition will slap the edges of your enlightenment.

One minute, you’re doing SIWES up north with small Hausa in your pocket. Next thing, you’re being threatened in a language you almost understand.

Or you think your family’s village farm is just bush and sweat — until a python with spiritual clout tells you otherwise.

This is not fiction. This is not Nollywood.
This is real life juju in daylight.
Two stories. One shared moral:

The supernatural doesn’t care if you believe. You will still collect.

An Unforgettable Experience: I Saw Shege in Broad Daylight

They said SIWES was for learning, building experience, and connecting with professionals. Me? I went to the North and connected with premium shege.

Imagine being dropped in a place where everyone speaks a different language, and you’re expected to survive? My first few hours almost gave me trust issues and language phobia.

So here’s what happened. I decided to do my SIWES training in the northern part of the country. I was confident I’d manage, since I could speak small Hausa, but the North showed me pepper with full subtitles.

The drama started the moment I dropped at the bus stop. I tried boarding a bike to my apartment and politely told the first bike man in Hausa that I was new and needed help. His reply? “Ben seniba.” (I don’t know.)

I laughed, because I thought it was a joke.

Until I stopped the second bike man. And the third. And the fourth. All of them gave me the same response.

Then came the final one. I tried pleading with him to just hear me out, and he replied angrily, “Zen keri a ki!” (I will break you!)

At that point, I froze. I was so desperate he probably thought I was a trap sent to lure innocent bike men. I felt like crying.

I was tired of standing and already feeling dizzy, so I sat at a nearby stand, replaying everything in my head. Was it my accent? My grammar? Or the fact that I couldn’t speak Hausa? I sat there for another ten minutes before deciding to talk to a guy walking by.

I stopped him, greeted him, and explained my ordeal. He looked concerned and asked where I was headed. I said, “SABON GARU.” He gave me a weird look, and I already knew in that VDM voice, “You’re gonna learn the hard way.”

He paused, thought for a moment, then laughed gently. “Oh! SABON GARI?” he asked. I nodded quickly like, “Yes, that one.” He explained that SABON GARU doesn’t exist, and the mix-up was understandable since there are several places with “SABO” in their name. Then, like an angel on assignment, he stopped a bike for me and told the rider exactly where to take me.

I thanked him endlessly and got on the bike, still hissing and grumbling in my mind. What if bandits had shown up? What if a fight broke out? What if I fainted? I was ready to cry just to attract pity when this Good Samaritan appeared.

I told myself I’d never return to that city, but here I am, on a bus heading back. Why? Because the hospitality during my SIWES was too sweet to resist.

It’s a day I’ll never forget. Sometimes, I randomly laugh when I remember and people around just give me that “You’re not okay” look. And honestly? They’re probably right.

The Farm No One Wants

As children, we were fed tales of supernatural rivers that speak, forests that whisper, and beings that dwell between reality and myth. We believed them at first. Then we grew up, labeled them as folklore, and brushed them aside.

But sometimes, disbelief doesn’t save you. Experience forces you to believe the hard way.

When I was young, my grandfather told me about a mysterious river in our village called OPA. He described her as female, calm yet powerful. Her husband, ISASA, was a hunter from a neighboring village. ISASA wasn’t just any man — he roamed with fierce dogs and reared pythons. His river served as the boundary between the two villages.

We had a farm near the Isasa river, deep in the bush, too far to reach alone. One day, I followed my grandmother with my younger sister. Before we got there, she gave us a strange warning: “Once we enter the farm, don’t talk or call your names.” That always stayed with me.

We eventually stopped going to the farm — too many strange things had started happening. But what sealed it was my grandfather’s terrifying encounter.

He came home one day, panting and pale. He could barely speak. When he finally did, his story froze us.

He had gone to the farm, and on his way back, heavy rain forced him to take shelter under a banana tree by the river. When the rain stopped, the river had risen. He couldn’t cross. As he waited, a hunter approached with two dogs. The hunter asked him why he was under the tree. Grandfather explained, pointing to the river.

The hunter smiled strangely and said, “It’s not that deep. I can help you cross.” He even stepped into the river to prove it.

But something didn’t feel right. The hunter’s dogs didn’t bark, didn’t move. His eyes were fixed — too fixed. And the river? It didn’t ripple like usual.

My grandfather thanked him but refused to follow. The hunter insisted again and again, but he stood his ground.

The hunter decided to leave him and enter the river on his own. When he got to the middle of the river, he looked back at my grandfather with an expression that said, “God saved you,” then disappeared into the water.

My grandfather was so terrified that he later realized the hunter was ISASA, a supernatural being.

Because of the fear, he decided to lease the farm to a pastor who was also a farmer in our village. One day, the pastor came running back to our house, shouting, “Baba Ibeji oh! I’m no longer interested in the farm, you can have it back!”

When his shouting persisted, we calmed him down and led him to a seat. After catching his breath, he explained what happened.

He had parked his bike near the farm entrance. After finishing his work, he returned to where his bike was, only to see a tyre placed near it. Thinking it was a random object in his way, he tried to move it — but as soon as he touched it, the “tyre” started moving. It was a python.

He fled the farm, leaving his bike behind. In his panic, he even lost his shoes. The way he described it — his leg was practically touching the back of his head while running — made the scene sound like a man in a marathon with a lion chasing him.

It was terrifying, but also funny. From these experiences, I truly believe supernatural beings exist.

Still, I often wonder: what do they look like? But no matter how curious I am, I won’t cross the line. After all, as the saying goes:

“Curiosity killed the cat.” And I don’t want to be that cat 🐈.