Machine summary:
"In his essay "The Novelist as Teacher," Achebe advised his countrymen that a knowledge and appreciation of their own culture would assist them in nation building: "This theme –put quite simply- is that African people did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans; that their societies were not mindless but frequently had a philosophy of great depth and value and beauty, that they had poetry and, above all, they had dignity.
Julius went to the window that overlooked the great market on the bank of the River Niger.
This market, though still called Nkwo, had long spilled over into Eke, Oye, and Afo with the coming of civilization and the growth of the town into a big palm-oil port.
And they came bringing the produce of their lands--palm-oil and kernels, kola nuts, cassava, mats, baskets and earthenware pots; and took home many-coloured cloths, smoked fish, iron pots and plates.
Having passed his Standard Six in a mission school he had come to Umuru to work as a clerk in the offices of the all-powerful European trading company which bought palm-kernels at its own price and sold cloth and metalware, also at its own price.
'Some of the beautiful young women you see squeezing through the crowds are not people like you or me but mammy-wota who have their town in the depths of the river,' she said.
As Julius stood at the window looking out on the emptied market he lived through the terror of that night again."