The Marriage Conundrum.

“Get married,” the doctor said with his arms spread out and a silly smile dancing on his coal-black skin.

Unchanging…

You must have sat through thousands of lectures at the University of Benin but there are some classes you would never forget; the Drug Compliance/Adherence class is one of them.

She is Always Right

I always find it funny when people say I’m closer to my youngest brother K, it’s funny because this is just based on the ‘resemblance’ between us and the selfies I force him to take with me. It’s also funny because it isn’t true.

Grandma Omnieverything

 

So we walked past the empty house, a woman and her husband had lived there once but they’re dead now, both of them. I told my mother about the woman and her soursop tree and her promise to send some to my brothers and I, when they ripened.

Marley’s Ghost.

May 11, 1995.

The girl was bouncing on her grandmother’s four-poster bed as she listened to the radio, she loved jumping on the bed and having the bed throw her further in the air than with the other boring beds everywhere else. The radio was on, Bob Marley’s songs were on rotation and she bounced in rhythm to them even though she wished it were Lucky Dube instead. She preferred Lucky Dube’s songs to Bob Marley’s because at her mother’s birthday party when she was four, Lucky Dube’s music was the backdrop and that was one of the most exciting moments of her young life.

Billionaire gal.

Uzoamaka is playing the character Cynthia in the next season of MTV Shuga and she shared- on facebook, her interview that’s available Here. Because I know Uzoamaka, I already knew to expect quirky, funny and wise answers from her when I clicked on the link yesterday evening. While the bus driver made silly commentaries as he flitted the bus from one lane to another, I was reading the interview and nodding and smiling until I got the point where she said- “but I would be desperately restless if I couldn’t be an actor” and felt a small chill.

The Voices…

You left home at 6:49 in a rush because you were nineteen minutes late, but not before applying an extra coat of the indigo lipstick that makes little children wail when you smile at them. You tried to stop a bike but he looked at your lips and shook his head, his action made you grimace and decide to head to Kilo instead of the Lawanson you’d been aiming for. Finding your way to Kilo would involve two different keke rides or one keke and one okada, you chose the latter option even before you began.

Artful Dodger.

Feeding the three picky eaters she had given birth to, always required plenty thought, trickery and cunning and if all failed, her weapon of last resort- fried plantains and scrambled eggs would get them to finish the food, leave two or three slices on the plate, or eat the fried eggs and four slices of plantain respectively in order of their births.

The trouble with Elu Aku

My grandfather liked to tell the story of how the world came to be. God gave man only one thing as he descended from heaven and that was a palm nut, he planted it and its leaves helped to make man’s shelter, kept the shelter and environment clean, provided kindling for his fire, the wine kept him from losing his mind in the harsh world he found himself and its fruit gave him two different oils. The oil from the pulp to make his soup and to be the bride of the king of food- roast yam (the man loved his roast yam!) and oil from the seed, or kernel if you like, to anoint his skin and hair and to save his children from evil and its manifestations like convulsion and fever. It was the second oil that put my brother and me in trouble many years ago.

Pendown- Daddy says Goodbye.

After 32years and 10months of excellent, unbroken service to the Lagos state Ministry of Education, my father bowed out formally yesterday at his last school which ironically is in the same compound he started out, came in as education officer 2 and classroom teacher and retired as Director and Principal.