Monday, September 19, 2011

Wonbiliki Wobia

I really need a driver if my blog wants to stay alive. How are they related? Well, I'll tell you.

On the long 2 hour drive to work I generate at least 4 blog posts everyday.. in my HEAD! ofcourse my head isn't the same as this blog so you can't read it in there. By the time I get to my desk, plug my phone in, turn on my computer and start reading emails I end up either forgetting to post or I've lost all the clarity I had about the structure and form my blogpost would come in. If I had a driver I'd probably just do up the post on the long ride to work. Today's ride was 2 and half hours... think of how many things that would have come up in this my small head.
Today's post is about food. Not about cooking or ranting about manlessness and knowing about food oh... it's about the consumption of food. But let me digress quickly. There's a show I listen to on the radio in the morning, it's called "Freshly Pressed" on Smooth 98.1. The read out headlines and then discuss it... If you live in Lagos I urge you to tune in. It's very informative and they have very intellectual discussions.

Freshly Pressed riled me up so much one morning about two weeks ago that I was coming to the office with the fire of a passionate Nigerian, coming to talk about the issues.. then I told myself... "Hmm... Armchair Activist.. you wont cool down!" Lol Anyway, there's alot going on in this Country that I wish I could do something about... really trully breaks my heart just thinking about the ineptitude of the leaders of this country. One of my best friends says that GEJ's name should be in the dictionary right next to "Inept" Loll

Speaking of Best Friends... Am I the only one who seems to have like 6 best friends? it just makes me feel like I'm an insincere (is this even a word?) person. And these special friends are scattered across the globe, they don't even know themselves but everyday I just thank God that they're in my life because honestly I don't know what I'd do without them. Seriously. (Luckily none of them read my blog so there shall be no head swelling and tingzz :D)

Moving on swiftly.. to the matter of FOOD!

On my birthday two years ago, I took a few of my close colleagues to dinner in some restaurant in V.I. I invited a veryyy close friend of mine who asked if she could come with her boyfriend. I said "Sure" I hadn't really interacted with this her new boyfriend at that time so I though oh it'd be a good opportunity to meet him. So visualize a table with about 6 of my colleagues and then my friend and her man walk in. We were already eating when they came so they sat down and started eating. The table was bubbly and everyone was gisting then dude (Friend's BF) stretches his hands forward for seconds. Now everyone is engrossed in the gist so nobody really cares anyway and food is for eating shey? Dude isn't really chatting much, understandable since he's not really familiar with people on the table...Next thing....hands stretched forth.. grabs the dish again and...Loll Let's just say everyone in the office were talking about my friends BF and how he's so much of a grub. It was so hillarious. I was paying for this dinner by the way oh... body just dey pepper me like... i would have asked them to pack that food and I've had it for lunch the next day.
One random day I was with that same friend of mine and her man was coming ... that same Foodie Guy. Then she said "Oh please let's quickly go out I don't want S to meet me at home. Everytime he comes here he's always asking for food or eating my Sister's food" I immediately forgave him for consuming my birthday food like that.

Some people like food ehn... I know you cant tell from my roundness yeah.. lol but I'm not a food lover. Like seriously, some people have conditioned their mind to believe that every food within their sights must be consumed... till it finishes hian!!
People, gluttony is a sin. IT IS A SIN.
One dude in my office musn't see you eating ni.. he mustoh beg ni sha

[oh snap!!!! i think he reads my blog! Lemme stop :)]

Anyway, your stomach doesn't need SOOOO much food. You don't have to eat till you burst. Be cautioned.


In a totally unrelated note, do not tell your friend if you think her boyfriend is uncultured or ill-mannered. She will delete your ass off BBM and 'defriend' you.

Lol My friend Remi is alive to tell the tale.

Ok guys, I think I've tried small today shey? I'm working on one fantab project with my writing instructor. We'll take a picture, then spin a tale around the picture. Both of us, different perspectives. Kinda exciting. Supposed to be a thousand words but yours truly has been faffing about. I've written 80 words since last week. :)

Wish me luck and enjoy the rest of your week

xoxo

Unexpected Turns

There was no light, mosquitoes swarmed in through the hole in the net screen door. The stench of sweat and dirty clothes in the little ‘room and parlour’ could not be mistaken. It was rank. The room was illuminated by the dying light from the kerosene lantern which was sitting on a now abandoned television set. It had not worked in ages and it doubled as a stand for candles and when there was enough money to buy kerosene, the kerosene lantern. The fumes from the generators nearby and the fumes from the lantern were choking. The evening breeze helped a bit but it could only do so much. The curtains had been pulled up to allow a little fresh air in from the window, if the air could be called fresh. The room was rank. Eva sat on the tattered sofa and nestled the baby against her breasts, rocking herself back and forth and hoping to the heavens that he would sleep. She tried whispered softly into his ears “nne biko, my love i know it’s hot ehn, but baby’muo I need you to sleep for a while ehn?”. She tried to croon love songs so he would sleep. Love songs she heard when she was in a completely different place. A place she called home. She had to turn Eba because Alfred would soon be home and after a long day at Mile 12, he would eat and like a savage beast he would take her. She would lie there enduring his heaving and humping, thinking of a place far far away from this place and when he was done she would wipe herself up. He always spilled himself on the inside of her thighs, as if to avoid a mistake he had made earlier on. Weeping only earned her more physical pain, for the more she wept the harder he drove into her, slapping her into submission. She had learned to be strong, to take herself to a time when the world was bright and colourful. She had her whole life ahead of her and then like the lights going down on a stage, all of the light was snuffed out.
******************************************************
Armed robbers had entered the banking hall. She could hear them from the backroom where she was. The fear in the air was palpable, everywhere was still save for the voice of the leader whose voice was booming in the main hall, he was giving orders and threatening that anyone who made the wrong move was going to end up dead. She heard them asking for the branch manager. “who be Evelyn Adebanjo? No be she be branch manager abi wetin dem dey call am?” she felt the tremor in the pit of her belly, fear coursed through her veins. She prayed and supplicated as she lay on the floor of her office. Clutching the furr of her rug she bit her lips, she felt the chill run down her spine “Jesus Jesus Jesus” she kept repeating the words like a chant. Her toes were cold all of a sudden; she shook off her heels, thinking that if the need arose to run she would be ready. Morbid thoughts flashed in her head, if the thieves came in now, if they shot her in the head. She knew she was not going to try to be heroic; she was going to give them the key to the vault. She needed this to be over. She thought of her 16 year old daughter, her driver was supposed to have gone to pick her from school. She hoped to God that Kabir had not gone to pick her yet or that for some insane reason they were delayed. Her head was spinning, the thoughts that coursed through her head, the innocent customers. She wondered for a fleeting second if this was an inside job, if this had to do with the hundred gold bars in Chief Fowowe’s safety deposit box her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden nudge of the table under which she had crawled “Madam bank manager.... na you we dey find since oh oya commot for dia con carry us go vault”
She crawled out and led them down the stairs to the basement where the vault was. With shaky hands she held out the keys to the man who brought her down here. She heard him being called “O.C”, in a ‘profession’ like theirs you could hardly use your real name.
“Which one should I open sir?” With a quavering voice and fear all over her face, she was told to open box 315. At the sight of the gold bars, O.C could not control himself; he let out a loud whoop of celebration and took off his mask and called out to his mate.
“nna, why you con commot you mask nah? You dey crase? You no see sey dis woman dey here?”
O.C as if realizing that Evelyn could recognize him turned around, faced her and said “ that one no hard nah” He lifted the pistol he had put down in the vault and with the purposeful focus of a crazed cold hearted thief, pulled the trigger.
The bullet went straight to her head, as she swooned and in that last minute when the life ebbed out of her, she thought of her daughter, how she had no one in this world. Evelyn’s last thought on earth was that Eva would pull through, because she had raised a strong independent daughter, she let go and allowed the cold grip of death take her.
*******************************************************
Nobody told her how she was related to Alfred, she was made come live with him in this hellhole. Her life, her dreams, her hopes, gone. Her mother, her best friend had been gone for almost 2 years now. It had been two of them from the beginning. Relatives came from nowhere, all wanting to help and after the burial they all said she could not go back to their home in 1004 flats. She was to go with “Uncle Alfred” he was the closest blood kin to her mother.
She stopped calling him “Uncle” the first day he grabbed her breasts.
“Come here, you this akunna kuna, daughter of an akunna kuna, why are you pretending that it’s not ashawo that your mother was doing to get all that money?”
Eva thought something in her had died the day her mom died, but she knew that her old self no longer existed the first day Alfred lay astride her and spread her legs apart. He was always sweating, like a dirty pig, with his putrid touch; he would grab her young breasts. Thrust after thrust he killed the old Eva and planted his seed. Nothing was said about her education. He hurled insults at her and violated her daily, but the more she thought about her past, the stronger she became.
She thought about the locket her mother had given her on her 15th birthday. Inside the locket, written behind the picture of Evelyn and Dapo and their baby daughter Eva was the passcode to the account being held in trust for her till she was 18.
She would be 18 in a few weeks, she would take Damien and turn her back on all this. She would build her life again, because her mother had raised a strong independent woman.