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!