HER FRIENDLY STRANGER

Nafi smiled as she watched the figure come closer to her. She could not believe her eyes.

‘What was Mannie doing in Lagos?’ She asked herself.

Anyways, this was not the time to think. As soon as she was within earshot she screamed his name as loud as she could. She was surprised by the reaction she got. He stared at her like one would a mentally unstable person. Her face fell quickly however she consoled herself with the fact that he did not walk past her but stood to continue to stare at her. This means she would have to reintroduce herself. Oh! How she hated that task but for Mannie, that was the least she could do.

Mannie! The brother she never had. How did they get so close only to drift so apart? She met him just after her final Secondary School Examinations popularly termed “Senior WAEC”. It was one period that excessive boredom was the best adjective to describe her days. Her sisters said it was because she finished secondary school too early as if that had anyway of easing her boredom. She had tried to wait to sit for the University Qualifying Examinations as patiently as she could but that too was taking too much time to come. She was hanging out her clothes to dry on one of those days when she noticed him and his guitar. Actually it was the guitar she noticed first, at least, until she realised she would have to befriend him to play. The ‘befriending Mannie’ part was so easy. Their friendship took boredom away from her days and until she entered the University towards the end of the next year they were the tightest friends. The night before she went to the university, he swore he would visit her in school before that semester ended. This made her expectant throughout the whole semester. When the semester ended she rushed home to berate him for not keeping to his promise only to find that he got admission to a University in the North. His auntie with whom he stayed had also relocated to join her husband in the north. That moment she realised that she had lost a dear friend. Whenever he would filter into her thoughts, she would comfort herself that they would meet again, ‘After all, the world was a small place’.

Mannie!

Nafi finished her story of how we met and was disappointed that the face looking down hers was still bland, not even the least confused, just plain and devoid of any emotion.

“Sorry, I must have mistaken you for another then”, she said and made to continue with her walk until she felt his grip firm on her hands.

Then she heard the voice that used to leave her feeling so protected, the voice that shielded area boys off her on nights when she had to run late errands, the same voice that she had proudly referred to as that of her brother to her peers during her extra-mural classes in Sapele.

‘I am Mannie - Manasseh, No one has called me Mannie since I entered the university years back but these events you just narrated are events that I cannot recall. It’s weird, right?’

She feared this would happen. In fact her mother and sisters always warned her. Anytime she tried to imagine how their meeting would be in their presence, she was asked to expect that anyone of them could have changed. In fact, Khadi, her eldest sister always insisted that if she refused to change he would and that would definitely affect their friendship. Her mother had oftentimes lectured her and her sisters on how never to rely on old friends who disappear from their lives as the period of absence is likely to greatly change them as well as their values.

It was all happening before her. Each time her mother referred to how old friend could become strangers when they meet in future, she would quietly snort. Every time Khadi criticized the pedestal on which she place herself and Mannie’s friendship, she would snap back and reply that it would never be so with them. No, she never expected that it would mature into a monogamous loving relationship but he was her BROTHER. How could he look at her and deny almost two years of mutual day to day friendship? How could he erase everything about her from his memory? Was he sick at anytime in the last nine years that it blotted out an aspect of his memory?

She did not know that she had blurted out her last question until the answer came.

‘No, no, nothing of that sort. I have been well and very stable. I do remember my post secondary school days with my auntie at Sapele but you and these events you have mentioned’, he replied shaking his head, ‘Nada’

Nafi felt haze all around her as she walked away from him. Her eyes were all blurry. A tear dropped, then another followed, and another. As she wiped them off her face more tears followed. She did not want to be crying on the streets at all. This was not worth her tears. Okay, it was worth her tears but this was not the place to be a baby. She was glad when she finally got home. She reached for her bed as quickly as she could and let the tears flow freely. She let her tears mourn for the teenager that lost her friend, for the young girl that lost her brother, for the lonely youth that life stole a companion from. Nine years she searched for her companion and finally found him only to realise that he was the kind that was never to be found. Weird was an understatement of how she felt.

Her tears drove her to sleep. She must have slept for long because her room was in total darkness when she woke up. Then she heard her phone ring. She grudgingly picked it up and identified the caller registered as “MA”. She listened to the caller for a while before she spoke.

‘I saw Mannie’.

New Tastes In The World Of Tests

I did my HIV screening test today. Let me not sound like it was the first time I had been screened for the then-dreaded disease because it’s not. It was actually my third screening. That does not mean that I am faithful to the once-in-three month’s recommended screening dose. I am not so as I waited patiently for the result I felt all kinds of emotions running up and down.

The first of those emotions was disdain. I wondered why I had stopped at the volunteers’ desk. After all that was not the first in recent times I had seen them. I recall being accosted by them the Thursday before.

“It’s free, Please come and test for HIV”, the volunteer had said.

I shook my head vigorously and said I had already been tested. That was not a lie; I had been tested twice so I hated my actions more even now. If only I had not been concerned of how these ladies would react if I walked away as if I was already a confirmed carrier. Maybe it was because I knew both of them personally. I tried to calm myself down but it was pointless. Anyone who looked at me could tell how nervous I was from my shifty eyes.

I also felt fear creeping all over me. I think that was the deepest emotion of them all. I was scared and I was angry at my fear.

“What if I was confirmed a carrier?” I asked myself over and over again.

I thought about the countless things that would fill my to-do lists. I even thought the possibility of ignoring the result and the need for after-care. For someone who had worked as a volunteer with the Anti-Retro-Viral Therapy (ART) Centre in my hometown, I was obviously dealing with this very badly. I guess nothing prepares for anyone for dealing with HIV. And this has nothing to do with being a ‘good’ girl. When you know that you have been exposed, even to barest minimum, to blood, you can ask for the kind of mercy I was now seeking.

I watched as the Volunteer tore out a test script, I let my eyes rest on her hands. Even when she picked up that small needle, this did not change. The prick was slight. The last two times I have had to do the test, I had blood sucked out of me with a syringe. In those two instances, I did not even know that I was being tested for the virus. The first was when I was fresh out of secondary school. I had begun to lose my baby-fat at a very alarming rate. What was most surprising was that the fat I had maintained in the boarding house was beginning to varnish on my return home. My mother panicked and sent me off to the doctor as fast as she could with the mandate to get to the root of the problem. And so the tests began. For every visit I came back home with a bag of medicine and a syringe full of blood lesser. My pleas that I was in good health were ignored by both my mother and the doctor so I resigned myself to the treatments for who–knows-what sickness. The doctor stared at me one fateful day and said, “There is one last test that I’d need you to do”.

That moment I knew I was going to get screened. I waited for him to give me a name as I understood it to be my right. He did not tell me what the test was for until the results came out but I did not care. I was happy there was no cause for alarm.

The second was when I started this job in this company in the food sector whose policy was to run blood test for employees. Just tests - no information as to the nature. It was not until there was a health issue that the employee concerned was brought in. In other words, just give us your blood and go. Thankfully, my position gave me the opportunity to view my results.

Was I also scared on those occasions? Very!

The fear of the unknown is something alarming especially if it is for deadly diseases. I have long outgrown the age of looking at HIV as the deadliest of diseases so this has nothing to do with the name.

“Is my result not ready?” I asked impatiently.

I tried to read her facial expression as she peered into strip that was marked with my blood but read nothing. It was not until her counselling was halfway through that calmness found its way to me.

As I walked down to the building that housed my interim office, I thought of the countless tests that was recommended for me that I was yet to do. Ma always said that ignorant is bliss but I know that this is not sweeping in real life. As much as I would like to get through with some of them, I know they will always be medical tests that will remain outstanding for even the longest time. I hope my fear conquers most of them.

Keep faith...

TALES FROM A NEIGHBOUR'S DINING TABLE

It was nemesis treating him the same way again; messing him up like he always does to anyone he picks on. Why won’t he ever learn that nemesis was sure to come and pick up his pieces like an enemy would, flinging it all over and making sure it left him marks and injuries in places that hurt.

Mr. Okoakpa was my neighbour back then so I was more or less an observer. We moved in the week his third wife moved out so we met a sore tale. He would lament on how there no good woman was left in the world and how he escaped being killed by her. He would continue with tales of his second wife’s witchcraft and how his first wife was all things less than a sweetheart whose main aim was to steal the whole of his fortune. It did not take long for my nineteen year old ears to become bored with his stories. Actually bored was an understatement. Irritated was what I had become with them, but my choices were limited. The house in question was what my father’s savings could afford as he always noted that his priorities then was to focus on the education of me and my four younger brothers. The fact that my parents lived in seeming harmony did nothing to lend credence to Mr. Okoakpa’s stories. If anything I did not want him influencing my father with his unwise ideas. I hated the fact that my father would spend Saturday evenings with him and did not hesitate to let my father in on how I felt. Of course, dear daddy did not listen to me. I also hated the fact that my 248 JAMB score was unable to get me to study pharmacy in the universities that I had applied to.

‘Ndudi!’ Mr. Okoakpa’s voice broke into my reverie one Tuesday morning. I let my gaze follow his voice through the fence until they rested on the woman who came out to meet him.

I could barely wait for my father to settle down before I asked him who Ndudi was to Mr. Okoakpa.

‘Oh, that’s his new wife’, he answered, dismissing me but I was not about to be gone so quickly.

‘Again’ I screamed, ‘He will mess her up just like he did the rest’.

‘What is your own in Oga Okoakpa’s business?’  my mother asked and I went into a tirade on how I hated the fact that the man would mess up any woman that came his way just because he was rich and that my own father subconsciously supported him by being his confidant and never telling him truth.

My father was shocked by my outburst. He apologised for his perceived role in Mr. Okoakpa’s affairs and said that he hoped Ndudi would be a soothing balm to the neighbour’s wounded heart. I knew that would never be. Ndudi was as sweet as any woman would be. She was probably too docile in my opinion. She would take care of Mr. Okoakpa’s two children from his previous marriages in spite of the fact that their behaviour was stinking to say the least. I even thought she must have come into the household as a slave because she said yes to everything thing that came out from her husband’s mouth. Even my father commended her humility to the disapproving looks of my mother. It was therefore a big surprise to everyone in the neighbourhood when Mr. Okoakpa married himself a fifth wife. Even my father, his best friend, was disappointed. That was the first time my father voiced his opposition to any of Mr. Okoakpa’s actions. That was also the time my father got to see Mr. Okoakpa for who he truly was. He insulted my father for daring to suggest that he did not need another wife. He even insinuated that my father was captivated by the chunks of meat that Ndudi Okoakpa always offered him when he visited. That was too low for my father to take. That evening after, he told us the news of the neighbour’s latest acquisition and the encounter that followed, I heard my mother say to him that it was time he faced his family. That was the last time my father went over to Mr. Okoakpa’s house.

Not totally the last, but the last for a very long time. New wife, Golden became the new swag. She was always with Mr. Okoakpa, even Ndudi attended to her needs and none of Mr. Okoakpa’s children dared to say anything unkind to her. She even represented Mr. Okoakpa in most events that he could not attend. This was something none of his other wives ever did. Perhaps it was because she worked with him in the same office.

With my father’s absence from the Okoakpa’s residence, one would have expected that I heard less from him but that was not to be as his blaring voice disregarded the blocks that demarcated both apartments. Most cases the voice sang the praises of Golden who changed his world. I was elated when my admission came through the next year and I moved into campus.

Then came the events that let nemesis in. I was late for my lectures that morning so I ignored the calls of my name that followed me as I ran into the lecture hall. She was there when I came out only I did not notice.

‘Dana’, she called again. This time behind me so all I needed to do was turn.

Golden!!!

Was I surprised to see her there? Sure. I did not even know she knew me by name. I did not have to ask what she was doing on campus, she volunteered that and more. She spoke of how much of a beast Mr. Okoakpa was and how he told lies about everyone around him. She complained of how he had turned Ndudi to a punching bag rationalising very punch by saying she deserved it. She left after he beat her one night simply because she offered Ndudi’s nephew that visited a meal earlier that day. She said she was ready to start over and needed my assistance to obtain a masters degree application form. I gave her directions to the Post Graduate Institute and decided it was time to visit my folks.

It was not until the weekend that followed that I made the home trip. By then Ndudi had moved out and the tales were back. This time he added how Ndudi was forever making him out to be bad before strangers and how Golden wanted to turn him against his children. I hissed as I listened to him reel out his story to Mr. Oguche’s fourteen year old son. It is always about him. Never about how he beat up his women for the slightest things and how no one dared to correct him. Thankfully the neighbours remember what the sounds of beatings were like. My mother said he had been to our house twice to lament to my father what he went through in the hands of Ndudi and Golden but did not get his desired sympathy from my father.

I returned back to school two days later. I still remain glad that nemesis was still couched around him, making sure that he remains lonely. I will not be surprised if he marries more wives, tells more tales about them. There will always be that inner ache that neither the lies nor the beatings can soothe.

Keep faith...

* The story has been embellished to protect the identity of the persons involved.

MARKET PLACES

Confused was the best word with which I could describe her. Since it was a lazy morning, I let my eyes follow her until she came to stand before the woman I was making my purchases from.

‘Mo fe Rodo’, She said to the apparently impatient trader.

Her response was quick. “I don’t have rodo’ and she concentrated on attending to my needs.

The young girl did not move away. She stared like she was uncertain about something or had another request to make. She looked around the fairly crowded market before she turned to the tomato seller.

‘Please ma, where is the butcher? Is he not going to come today?’ she asked in quick succession.

The trader was apparently was irritated by now and told her off. ‘How am I supposed to know the butchers whereabouts’, she screamed at the young girl.

I continued to look at the girl. The look that resulted from the trader’s scream was devastating. She could not have been more than fourteen. I could tell that she hated to shop in an open market. Do not ask me how. I have been there too.

I hated to be in an open market when I was growing up. However, with the kind of mother I had, that was not an option. My mother felt that all her children must be comfortable in an open market, being female meant I had to take the informal tutorials she set before me seriously. Her feelings did nothing to change how petrified I was about an open market. I used to wonder why we could not get all we wanted in the super markets around us. I hated to haggle and proficiency in the market was determined by how much one could haggle and in my teens I did not think I had it in me. Infact, I still do not have it in me. I consider it a plus that thanks to the woman who raised me, I did not dread going to the market as I used to years back. In those days, going to the market was the major reason why I loathed Saturdays. The little snacks that followed shopping did little to ease the irritation.

Hmmn! Those were the days. As I look back, I raise more than my thumb for the woman who did not take note of all my useless wimps, wimps which if noticed would have only made me close to incomplete for the roles life threw at me today.

The girl looked at the trader again and asked if a particular meat seller would be at the market that day. The trader went into abuses. I had my tomatoes and peppers into my nylon bag and walked away from the scene. Weekend needed to continue and my staying at the stall was not helping the little girl and aside from the income it provided, not helping the trader too.

As I walked homeward I thought about my kids yet to come. I wondered how I will get them to like shopping in an open market. I have lost all clues of how the woman that raised me worked her own magic. Or maybe trends would have changed by then and goods displayed in the open market would have their prices stated in a way that haggling would be cut off and I will just rely on school curriculum to teach them the rudiments of bargaining. Well, only time would tell how things would turn up.

Keep faith.

Some Memories Last A Lifetime

We were young- teenagers. You came in at the later part of that year. I had come in the year before; two sessions earlier. We did not start of as close friends, we talked alright but we were far from being called friends. I admired you because you were bright and brilliant. I wanted you to be my friend but I could not force it on you neither could I voice it out because you were not close to anyone. The girls said you were stingy, I did not see that in you. They said you did not like the fact that anyone could do better than you; that was after you cried for being second best in a test. I did not like that anyways. I had cried in a similar situation some years back. I knew I would never do that now. It did not have anything to do with growing up; I simply did not trust my brains anymore. You were great in mathematics; I was a loser there but I thought you could teach me.

“Jessica teach you? You must be dreaming”, was what I got from some mates.

I was dreaming but yearned for that reality. I felt a little more understanding will get me through. I saw you making very conscious efforts to please our mates but I did not think you got so far because you were true to yourself. I felt there was a little reservation in there. I had begun to put myself in your position and tried to see things from your angle. I found myself saying, “give her a chance.”

We would meet by chance and sit and talk about things, important and unimportant alike. I began to go to your class downstairs just to chat with you. You could use my notes and you let me use yours too. I remember an inscription you wrote on one of my notes.

It read “BEAUTY+BRAINS-JESUS CHRIST=HELL FIRE” and “BEAUTY+BRAINS+JESUS CHRIST= HEAVEN”

True saying and even though I would never have tolerated any writing on top of my books, I kept that one as a souvenir.

I remember the first time I gave to you. It was a key holder. It was at the time where I loved having more than one key holder but since you did not have I offered to give you one. At first you were surprised by that, and then overjoyed later. I guess in your joy you saw a true friend. For me it was one of the times I had had lots of “thank you” being said to me. 

You were not the only one who got things from me. No, ours was not a one sided relationship. You gave me anything you could give, from provisions to chips, which we would share in our prep time. With time you graduated to being my tutor.

“My tutor!” now it sounds funny.

I remember that day clearly. I had told you how lousy I was in mathematics and how I was scared of a resit in our forth-coming examinations. From that moment you made my success your responsibility. You taught me how to solve constantly. A dozen times I would tell you I was tired and a dozen times you would remind me of how little we had done. We would sneak out of the dormitory into the classroom or school hall and will not leave until I had gotten the necessary formulas into my teenage head. Our classmates were surprised that you had become my teacher. On my part, I realized that the equations were not so difficult.

On the eve of our examination you had said to me, “after all we have done, we will make it in Jesus name”.

We wrote and travelled home afterwards. When the results were released, I was successful, so were you.  However I never got to thank you as because you never came back. Your cousin told me that you had changed schools.

I regard our relationship as one whose seed was sown but did not get enough time to germinate. My gratitude remains though. You help to restore my confidence in myself. As the years go by, I have done better in mathematics. I never got around to love the subject but I realized that if I worked hard, I will succeed in it.

Passing years has not stopped me from wondering how you are doing. The internet age has even led me to Google your name a few times. It’s obvious I have not been successful with it. I wonder if I will see you again. And if I get to see you, will your memory have a place for the events that marked me? I do not expect anything but I am glad you marked me in this wonderful way.

Still keeping faith

Who Says Valentine Was Not Made For Man?

I was fresh out of secondary school and was looking forward to a different valentine celebration. After six years of picking names of housemates/classmates and presenting them with gifts previously bought on the fourteenth day of February, I needed something different. The fact that I was out of school was for me a license that I could celebrate with the opposite sex. It really did not matter that I was yet to receive my School Certificate result all that I was that legally of age?

The good lady who raised me burst my well thought-out bubble. 

 “No way! The town is going to be too rough. You cannot go out on Friday”

I don’t know how she came by that information but she held on to it so strongly that I found myself spending valentine that year at home. It was that time when I had to obtain formal permission to leave the house, so when the lady said to stay at home, there was no way around it. 

I do not know if it was that event that made me indifferent to valentines but I have never had a remarkable valentine day. I mean a valentine day spent with “le boo” and overloaded with gifts. The closest to that was a robust gift days before the main date because le boo (as he then was) had to work far from where I lived. I remember how my effort in trying to get special from valentine day had led my roommate and I to bake a cake for ourselves. It was one of those valentine days that found us alone after all other roommates had traveled for valentine day celebration.

You can say that I outgrew trying to get special out of St. Valentine’s day or even that I gave up when Special was not forth coming. You can also fast forward to fifteen years or so after that uneventful Valentine’s Day celebration with my siblings. My place of work would ensure that we had cakes and drinks to celebrate that day and I would after work hours retire to my apartment either to watch a movie or sleep. My love for sleep is a topic I would discuss on another occasion. My approach to this noble day which is also coined, “lover’s day” should not be taken to mean that the temptation to make it special does not come because it does. It come in form of that 'friend' who wants a different version of that celebration my roommate and I did years back to the endless red dresses on display in shops in the month of February and being worn on that day by almost everyone on the streets. I see those temptations and shake them off. The known fact that the streets and all notable public places are always rowdy makes the shake off very easy.

I wish I can predict how my Valentine will turn out this year. I have an idea though. Being a Saturday, it is obvious that there will be no official cake and drinks. It is possible that most one day lovers would not be able to celebrate the as they used to. Fast food joints and other recreational hang-outs will be empty for most part of the day. This is all thanks to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Most adult Nigerians will be at the polling booth to decide who presides over the nation that day. If we are lucky, there will be no violence to characterize the day dedicated to love. And even if one decides not to vote, the best option will be to be confined to any neighbourhood activity-nothing public. Political sympathizers will be so caught up with election fever to even bother that valentine has been effaced. Oh need I mention that some people will be glad that INEC came up with this arrangement? 

I do not envy those who would want to make sure they celebrate “publicly’. Knowing the town I live in, all public places will be over crowded that day. I mean ALL, without any exception. Even places that do not have cold drinks will have its own crowd. I hope to have new stories to tell. I hope also that this day of love produces for my country a president that loves us.

Let’s Keep Faith as we vote.

Always A Roller Coaster Holiday

Holidays are my thing. I believe I truly own them; over and above every other person. I know that almost everyone in this country loves holidays but not as much as I do. It is like I live for it. It has not always been this way. As a child, I hated the fact that there was a day that I would not go to school, except of course, it was Christmas or New Year. I loved to play and holidays were like a pause to that attitude. The fact that I had to wait until 4pm for the television programs to start running helped me to further detest holidays. In Boarding house, my attitude towards holidays was conditional; if it was in-term because it meant more work, more reading time, more sleep and no added play time so I hated it. Mid terms and end of term holidays was a big hurray.

I am glad time passed. Or should I say my perception of holidays changed and appreciation developed.  My undergraduate years worked that wonder. It did not matter if holidays meant more sleep or more reading. I wanted more of them together with more play of course. Play meant more now. Even if I was visiting friends and talking about hairstyles, it was playtime to me.

With every holiday came increased appreciation. By the time I got my first job, I was nothing but thankful that word existed in the English vocabulary and whatever vocabulary that allowed it. 

End of year holidays were typical for me. It meant home to family. I mean home like home- place of origin. In my thirty something years it has always been same location. Okay houses might have been changed but that makes little difference. Leaving away from family has helped me appreciated the people I spend it with however I could not say the same for the location. So it did not matter whether I had money or nay, whether I was in between jobs or lived in a city that promised extra-ordinary fun.

One notable thing I hate was the road trips that led me home. The buses were too full, the luggages that holiday makers had to travel with were humongous and barely manageable, and on top of that, the roads were pathetic. Most times I think the roads were my biggest scare. Years ago, when the Benin by-pass came to be, I thought the road agonies were over. I was an undergraduate then, my contemporaries and I was overjoyed that the journey to Lagos would take not more than four hours. We were happy that Lagos would no more be so far. When I moved to Lagos, I realized how wrong we were, that thanks to the road, you can actually start out one day and get to home on the next.

So this time I started out again with a prayer that nothing unusual elongates the unnecessarily long journey. I started out early as was usual with wayfarers on this route. They say it was the best known way to avoid the jams on the road. I was not so lucky though as the vehicle I boarded ran into one. The equally not so good in roads through the villages saved the journey but not without bumps, some hours at the mechanic fixing the damages caused by the bumps and the sight of this means of transporting

water. I did not even know they still used it. The last time I saw it being used must have been twenty years or more. It gave me something to reflect about but as soon as the welcoming screams of family filled my ear, I forgot about the pail- bearer and let myself hug and be hugged by folks who did not mind that my body was all covered in harmattan dust.

As a new year starts, I cannot help wondering how my next holiday would turn out. Even though I live for the laughter on the faces of my family, I long for something different. Hopefully I would get a destination



Keep faith!