When is it the right time?

A relative was being courted intensely by some dude. He wanted to marry her and all. In fact, I guess that as far as he was concerned it was a done deal. I am a little sketchy on the details about how they met but they certainly had not known each other for long.

Anyway, in the getting-to-know-each-other process, she mentioned that she had had a child about 4 years before that time. Said child was in Nigeria living with relatives while she was pursuing her education. Truth be told, she was so young when she had this child that said child was given to childless relatives to take care of. I am waiting on the end of that story but back to this one: His reaction? He dumped her. No more marriage. No more I love you.

Her grandmother claimed that she told him too soon. That she should have waited to get married to him before she broke the news to him. In other words, trap the fish and deal with the problems later on.

Y’all know I am a single mum. I am always upfront about that. Not ashamed of it. And although I have not dated a lot since my last relationship (does one date in 3.5 years count as “not dated a lot?” lol...), I mention my daughter almost immediately to anyone I am introduced to. I have been told to wait a few weeks, months, heck never mention it till he puts a ring on it.

Now I am curious, when is it the right time to say it? And why?

Farafina Reading

I went for the Farafina event on Saturday. Unfortunately, I was really late and left not long after as I had another appointment but I was able to catch the reading by both writers. I admit to not having read the book by Eghosa, TO SAINT PATRICK, but still enjoyed listening to him talk about it and how he had to set his PC to autosave every few minutes because he did not have a UPS and had previously lost some of his work to NEPA/PHCN. Kai, NEPA let someone say something positive about you one day!! I will buy the book as soon as I can head down to a bookshop.

I had read two of Nnedi Okoroafor-Mbachu's books and it was quite interesting to hear her speak on her particular genre: science fiction. I am of the opinion that there are not enough Nigerian children books available and was glad to find that a Nigerian author had written a sci-fi/fantasy book that is directed at children. Adults will love it too.

During the Q & A, Nnedi made a very interesting comment. Apparently, she was born in Cincinnati OH, and grew up in America but from the time she started writing, all her books were more or less Nigerian based. If you read the Zahrah series you will understand why I say more or less. I found something else she said interesting. " ...both my parents are Igbo, I am from Chicago... " LOL! I found that she even has a blog. Its right here. I read all her posts and found that she has a talented brother as well. You can view his website here. He draws, sings and more.

I applaud Farafina on their organization of such an event. I find that entertainment is hard to come by if you are not into pubbing/clubbing. This was a good way of relaxing and coming in contact with those whose words mean enough to us to cause us to spend time buying and reading their works.

Lastly, Bambuddha was a lovely venue. I have always liked them - You can have a lovely Sunday brunch there plus they have "mocktails" for people like me who do not like alcohol.

The one about Amala

I went to have lunch with three colleagues recently. We left the office (forfeiting our free but rarely tasty company lunch) and headed to a place that I can only afford when they just pay salaries. ( Abeg, I can’t be eating N1300 a plate rice with palm stew everyday- it will easily lead to my own personal financial recession).

While in the car, someone else suggested that we go and eat amala instead. Me, I was willing to roll in whatever direction and I told them so. That was how we went past our airconditioned eating place and headed for the amala joint. On getting there, I discovered that the place was part mechanic workshop and that the wooden shack that was in the middle of the compound was the eating joint. When we went in, the place was FULL. One of my colleagues literally had to stand around and wait until someone was done before he sat down. Another one copped a seat on a table next to ours. In fact, we later discovered that some people were eating outside with the sky for a roof. How is that for good business?

There were several workers (including several children aged from about 7-11 who busied themselves cleaning tables, fetching water and other junior < forgive the pun> staff duties) and in a few minutes our order was taken and steaming hot plates of dark amala placed in front of us. Next came the soup: I never slack- I always have gbegiri, ewedu and stew a.k.a Abula. The pepper was just right. The consistency of the gbegiri was not watery and not too thick. Then they brought a final plate: The meat. Different cuts of goat meat and innards lay waiting to be devoured. My colleague was so moved that he actually gave his heartfelt thanks to the girl that brought the plate of meat.

We washed our hands and faced our meals. All talking ceased as we spent the first few minutes doing justice to the meal. This meal was much better than the one that my work provided. I am the sort of person that likes to eat meat after my meal (yeah, my mother brainwashed me to within half an inch of my life). By the time I reached for my first piece of “ogufe” (goat meat) the plate was only half full - my colleagues having had a head start. The meat could not have been more perfect if someone had stuck a thermometer in it to gauge that it was rightly done.

Before I forget, we were not the only ones that wanted a go at the food. We also had our friendly neighborhood flies. There was an abundance of these. We were eating with one hand and swatting flies with the other. However, the presence of the flies seemed not to perturb anyone. Outside, one could easily see the women pounding and turning large amounts of amala. Their faces dripping with sweat which took off on a race from their faces to the valley between their breasts. Sometimes, due to the force of the pounding a few drops would fall into the mortar and quickly become one with the dark amala.
Extra flavouring.

When we were done eating, a girl came to calculate the bill. No fancy receipt, the girl just stood there down and in a sing song voice recited everything we had eaten: “Amala meta thirty, thirty nera pelu plate merin….” By the time she was done, our bill came to about N1,500 for all four of us. All I could think was: "with all that meat?" The last time we went to the other place for a quick lunch we paid about 6,000 for all of us.

Now questions arising:

At these prices, do they actually make a profit?
Are the other eateries overpriced? I recognise that the Amala place has far lower overhead costs.

My colleagues are serious ajebutters but did not seem to mind the squalid conditions at all. I lay no claim to being an Ajebutter but seeing one fly in my car is an issue but here I was playfully wrestling them for rights to my meal and I did not pull the customer is king, what the heck is a fly doing here? stunt. What makes one so tolerant of these places?

And yeah...the food was oh! so good!

The witches of Akwa-Ibom

My daughter woke up with a fever today. According to Helen Ukpabio, she must be a witch for daring to have a body temperature above the normal.

I have read and watched with horrific interest the stories concerning the child “witches” of Akwa Ibom. There is a small clip on the documentary that shows the movie that is believed to be the “whatdunnit” that started or at the very least catalysed these winshing of children. A lot of emphasis has been put on Helen Ukpabio and while I agree that it should be put on her, I have noticed that there has been no word from the actors, producers, directors of this dastardly production. They are almost as guilty as Helen Ukpabio ( I use almost because while they must have moved on to shooting movies with other subject matters, Helen Ukpabio has used the platform the movie has helped build to spread the “child witches” propaganda and thus is in my humble opinion more culpable than her accessories in this crime). I refuse to watch the movie so I do not know the make up of the cast, but I do know from the documentary that Teco Benson directed it. Has anyone heard a word from him? He probably sleeps soundly every night despite the fact that he has helped in spreading this evil. And I thought we had a National Film and Censors Board. They let this pass through the cracks? So many questions....

I have not seen a single actor/ actress/ producer/ director in End of the Witches stand up to denounce their part in the making of that movie that has changed the course of the lives of a lot of children. Has led to deaths, forceful imprisonment or even a life worse than death as in the case of the girl who had a 3 inch nail driven through her skull.

The noble thing to do in the face of all this would be to find a way to right the wrong. Do TV interviews that will reach the masses - the very people that watched the movies and felt that the message was clear: Children can be evil and spread this evil within the family and their communities. It is everyone’s duty to kill/get rid of them so as to stop this.

And the PFN guy in the documentary who sort of denounced the movie, has he done so in his own church or asked fellow pastors to do so? He is in a position of authority and can effect change by giving a sermon highlighting the fact that the treatment being meted out to these children is nothing short of evil. Has he? Has any pastor under the PFN? Or are they worried about what would happen to their incomes if they should make bold to denounce this evil and distance themselves from it? Whatever happened to that all popular tool of the churches: excommunication? They have not excommunicated Liberty Church or the other churches that have sprouted from them so they must accept that their teachings are okay.

And why is it that no local TV station has gone down there to carry the news? Admittedly, I watch very little TV- National and otherwise but if it had been investigated and aired, I would have at the very least heard about it. Rather, we wait for foreigners to come and do out work for us. Shame.

This really is the end of times.

The Newest Kid on the Block

In the last month, I have moved house, changed jobs and my daughter has changed school. For that reason, I deserve and award myself the newest kid on the block award.

In order to get my daughter to school and myself to work efficiently, I had to move to a new neighbourhood. This is a big deal for me, having lived in the same old place with my folks for 20-odd years. The faces are new. Although to be truthful there are no faces. Just the sound of a neighbour’s stand-by generator starting up once there is a power outage or the occasional sighting of the same car entering a compound twice in a row. That is the most interaction I have had with my neighbours and judging by the look of things, that is the most interaction there will be. Not that I mind. I am quite anti-social so it suits me just fine.

I had been at the same job for years and had always wanted to do something different. It is difficult to break into a totally different field after a certain amount of years in another especially when it is a technical field. Lord knows I tried for about 4 years. I even put in the time in getting qualified educationally. Finally, break-through. Plus it is in a totally awesome place and yes, more pay. I almost took a whole lot less money to do about the same work earlier this year. They did not give me the job because they felt I was overqualified judging by my current position and my educational background. I thank The Lord for it now although at the time, it all looked bleak.

Our first day at my daughter’s new school reminded me of all the movies I had seen about being the new kid in school. She is just a kid so she did not really notice. However, I stood awkwardly on the sidelines as parents ( especially mothers) screamed with joy as they spotted old friends. I knew only one parent from before and watched as she hugged and air-kissed several people. No matter, 2 days later a fellow newbie and I who have our children in the same class said hi. No air-kissing on both cheeks yet, but maybe soon. Lol!

Who else thinks I deserve the award?