When I was a little child, we—my siblings and I—would travel to the village where my grandmother lived and where my father grew up. There, I was known by my grandfather's name, 'Jacob' (pronounced by village acquaintances as "jay-cup," with a slight matronly drawl) or 'Deacon,' (as my grandfather, although dead then, was a church deacon) because it was assumed, in the casual manner of village Christians, that I was my grandfather comeback. I was known, also, as a dancer, if the ludicrous capers or bounds into mid-air was good enough to be called dance. I would dance in front of the church with this boy, Makuo, to the clapping of the church congregation.

I danced in the house also. Whenever my aunty Ebere put a Chinedu Nwadike song (my grandmother's favourite) on the DVD player, I would dance with my siblings. My grandmother would clap and clap, saying, over and over, "Uregerede."

It was years later, when I was 17 or so, that I learnt uregerede was a sort of praise chants hollered to expert village dancers as they danced.

This page is, in a way, a tribute to my grandmother. For giving me the title of an expert, something I wasn't—and is not, now—but hope this page would help me become. Not in dancing (I'm now too self-conscious and ashamed to dance), but in writing.

Uregerede!