My Body…Your Problem
Me at almost 75kg.Image: Tunde Raphael. So recently, I put on a lot of weight; or better put, I have become quite fat! I know this because most of my clothes are so small now that I have to get a new wardrobe. When I say most, I mean my pants (trousers; get your mind out of the gutter), skirts and certain dresses. I have always bought bigger clothes because I don’t like clingy clothes and I am the type of girl who would wear something I like for years and years until it becomes threadbare and begs to be thrown away. When I am slim, and by slim I mean my lowest weight of 62kg, my clothes are like baggy dresses (which I am happy with) and when I am at my full weight of 70kg, they are a bit snug but not so tight that all my curves (real and imagined) are out there for all to see…well, until recently; I weigh 72kg now. My new weight is centered around my derriere (*blushing to my roots) and thighs. Though I am never one who is bothered (much) by my weight, I am ecstatic about my new body! Growing up, I used to be straight as a ruler. I have always wanted to be curvy, hoping that one day I would wake up with Toolz’s body. My best friend is this curvy mama and I dare say that is the only point on which I am jealous of her. Anyway, when I put on this weight, the first thing I noticed was that I had problems getting my pants (trousers again, focus!) over my derriere to my waist. After more than 25 years, God finally gave me the body I wanted! I am curvy baby! I am now a budding pear! *Dancing the Konga! For the past few weeks, I have been enjoying how my new curves fit into my clothes, though I need new stuff; emphasis on ‘need’! What I haven’t been enjoying are the stares! Though I am a confident woman, I am not comfortable with men staring at me. Okay, I will stop lying; I HATE MEN STARING AT ME! It gets me annoyed when men stare, especially when I can see the lascivious or leering looks in their eyes. I guess people will stare anyway so when I see anyone staring, I put on my mean mug which, 99% of the time, gets the man to look away. I may be all fire inside but with my mean mug, I become the evil ice queen…and I have realized that no one wants to mess with her! Buhahaha! Anyway, worse than the ‘starers’ are the people who constantly feel the need to tell me that I am fat. I get this EVERYDAY! Some people are subtle and would just go, ‘Ramat, you have put on weight. Your trip home must have been very good’ to which I would reply that I had gone back to my original weight. Others would see me from afar and shout, ‘OH MY GOD! RAMAT, YOU ARE SO FAT!’ In my head I go, ‘AND YOU ARE SO DUMB!’ but outwardly, I would smile and tell them, ‘Yes, I am. And I am happy with MY body.’ They have this reaction because they have only seen a slim me; again, I must say that I am big boned and can never be Dija slim. Since I came to Yola, my weight always hovered between 62 and 65kg. So the extra 10kg is freaking them out. The people I mentioned above are not the ones this article is for. There is a special class that walks up to me and says, ‘Ramat, you are too fat! You BETTER start doing some exercise and stop eating TOO MUCH food.’ When I hear something like that, my ratchet side begs me to take off my earrings and pull up my sleeves. I am no fighter but I have been tempted so many times that my mind needs anger management! I BETTER do exercise?! I MUST STOP EATING too much food?! I am like ‘Nigga, is you cra’y?! You done lost your mind?! Smoked some cheap weed?!’ I usually smile and tell them that their opinion about my body is of no importance to me. Somehow, that riles them up and they start huffing and puffing. Imagine the nerve! I got into it one day with a guy who was angry that I told him I love MY body the way it is. He went ham! ‘Ramat, this is not good oh. You are finer when you are slimmer. You BETTER go and lose that weight…and fast! In fact, I will come to your house so that we can start jogging! Ha ahn! You are too fat now!’ Before I proceed, I want to explain my relationship with this guy. He is a colleague whom I just say ‘Hello, Hi’ to. We are not friends, we don’t work in the same unit, he knows nothing about me and vice versa. So, to continue, I smiled and said, ‘Hmmm….first, I love MY body the way it is. Second, MY weight is in no way YOUR concern and finally, I may be finer when I am slim but you are wiser when you are quiet. Maybe you should shut up more.’ I smiled and batted my eyes. The guy was quiet for some seconds…and then he walked away. Only my close friends would have known that I was red hot mad! How dare he?! It reminded me of a time when a corps member also assigned to my place of primary assignment had a problem with my eyebrows. I always say that my eyebrows are perfect and I would never shave/shape them. This girl wanted me to shape them. I said no. She pressed. I said no again. She kept pressing for weeks. I remained adamant. One day, we were in a tricycle and she was seating directly opposite me. When I couldn’t stand the scrutiny anymore, I asked
Long Winded Writer
Woman writing with her computer.Image: Pexels.com After posting my last article – When A Perfectionist Fails – on my blog, I got great reviews and some not so good ones. It was, quite frankly, another day in my life as a writer. Few days after the post, one of my very good friends called me to share his views on the article. I was elated that he took time out to share good tips for future auditions and to critique my writing. Before we ended the call, he advised me to cut down on some of the details in my writing and jump to the point. If that had happened two years ago, I probably would have gone into a fit but I didn’t even get angry. The sky spirits really are working overtime on my anger management issues. Plus, he is a good friend and I know that he was looking out for me. I explained to him that I am a long winded writer and that was my style. He ended the call by urging me to stay true to my style. You see, I grew up reading big books. At 10, I used to ‘steal’ my mum’s Mills & Boons to read. I would finish them in a day so I could return them to the exact spot on her shelf where she left them so I wouldn’t get caught. I got caught one day and received some good ‘konks’ but that did not deter me. The world which flowed from books was something I wanted to explore. You can be sure that because I have an over-imaginative mind, books were the perfect get-away for me. I bought my first book at age 12. It was ‘When the Splendor Falls’ by Laurie McBain. It was 678 pages long with pages and pages of descriptive writing that some people might have called ‘unnecessary information’. Not me. I kept reading the book like a child chasing after candy. You cannot imagine the utter joy I felt when I found a link between something that happened almost at the beginning of the novel and something that happened close to the end. It gave me great pleasure to scroll back to the page and just cry as I made the connection! When I outgrew romance novels and moved to espionage and murder mysteries, I realized that those unnecessary details tended to be the biggest clues in solving crimes or the murder mystery. If you have read the James Hadley Chase, Agatha Christie, Dan Brown, John Grisham, Tom Clancy, James Patterson, Quintin Jardine or Mario Puzo books, you know that the devil is in the detail. I wanted to write like these authors. I wanted to translate African stories in clear and concise terms as these renowned authors wrote their stories. I may have been a kid, but I felt that I could project my stories to the world with my pen…and I meant that literally. Thank GOD technology latched on and made things far easier! Hallelujah! When I was in school, I never had problems when we were told to write essays; especially descriptive essays. My only problem was the limit placed on those essays. In my view, 250 words were just too small to convey any idea that I had! As we got older and the limits increased, I had no problems meeting (and going above) the stipulated limit; I cannot say the same about most of friends though. I am sure that you can imagine the subtopic I hated in English Language. Yes! It was SUMMARY! Still hate that thing jare! I write for people who have an eye for detail; people who want to smell the freshly baked croissants off the pages of the book, to feel, from the writing, the scorching sun as they travel the sun-kissed desert road on the way to Niger and the constriction in their hearts with each flip of the page as the victim tries to evade her huge attacker. Every writer has their style and that is great. My sister Enigbe writes poetry so great you have to read twice to understand what she is about; or at least, that is what I do when I read her poetry. I am so not a fan of written poetry! Too much to think about, just like chess. My other sister Sadiya writes poetry in a way that is completely different from how Enigbe writes but is no less deep and thought provoking. My poetry on the other hand just sucks! We are one blood, closer than peas in a pod, have nearly similar interests, but write completely differently. We used to have problems with our styles but we grew to the conclusion that we, after all, have different vantage points on any given issue and that translates to how we write our pieces. While I would like to describe all I can see in an empty room, Enigbe would most likely liken the room to a hollow tunnel that closes up slowly until claustrophobia sets in and Sadiya would probably talk about how the level of our emptiness determines how we react to the world and why it is necessary to never have a vacuum in our lives. One scenario, at least three ways it could be written! And talking vantage points, that movie is one of my all-time favorites because of the details that went into one murder. But hey, I digress. Back to writing. When one of my old friend writes for radio and TV, the pieces are so quirky, fun, and engaging that you wonder where the creativity comes from. I am not ashamed to say that he had the highest number of fans and pulled the largest number of listeners to the shows we used to host together. He inspired me more than I let on. Similarly, one person that really inspires me is another friend of mine. He is a weird writer and trust me, he is weird!
When a Perfectionist Fails
Ramatu Ada Ochekliye Hi. I’m Ramat and I am a perfectionist; but you know that already, don’tcha? I’ve known this about myself since forever. Quite frankly, I am not ashamed of it. It has pushed me to go hard for what I want, improve myself, demand the best from myself (and others) and always put my mind in a position to learn more. That has made me a workaholic, social media junkie, adept reader and a terrible info-maniac. There is a downside to this though. You see, the perfectionist has a range of problems; from wondering if he/she is ever good enough, to a painful fear of failure that can be so crippling it prevents the person from realizing his/her full potential. The perfectionist is also very caustic, intolerant, unwilling to show weakness and overly demanding of perfection from others. I am all of these things…and more. Today, I want to do something that goes against the persona I project to people. I Am. Admitting. That. I. Fail. At. Things. Phewwwww! That was a relief! Or maybe it isn’t. Either way, a story might explain why I am making this confession. I’m just going to start before my other personality takes over. Sometime in July, 2015, I saw this advert about an audition for on-air-personalities with Ebony Life TV, Lagos, scheduled for the second week of august. I was stoked at the possibilities a move to that station would do for my career. I got excited; really excited! I told my friends and my sisters about the audition and I guess my excitement was infectious. Soon enough, we were discussing logistics because I had never been to Lagos State. Yeah you heard that right; I had never been to Lagos State! I knew I had two options; take a luxurious bus for a pretty long donkey trip or take a flight. Here is another thing though; I had also never been in a luxurious bus or on a plane! I imagined disgracing my grandmother with my show of nerves on a flight so I decided that I was going by road. In case you missed it, I decided to go by road from Yola in Adamawa State, North East Nigeria, to Lagos State, South West Nigeria; a journey that was pegged at almost 23 hours. That was when it occurred to me that I could break my trip; go to Abuja and spend the night, then head to Lagos the next day. My trip was fine until day two of my journey. It was Friday and I was finally on my first luxurious bus ride heading to the big ole Eko and I knew that I had to stay awake to catch all the sights of the States I had never been to. We got to the NASFAT area at about 7pm after having to deal with lots of traffic jam. That was when my problems started. There were too many people having a festival of sorts, or more appropriately, prayers at the NASFAT area. I could feel the claustrophobia closing in and I just wanted to leave that place. I kept imagining what would happen if an adventurous bomber decided to strike. The plagues of living in the North Eastern part of the country right? That thought had not finished forming when we heard these bangs on the body of the car. They were so loud they jolted most of us into sitting positions. I remembered all the stories I had heard about Lagos and imagined that a gang of robbers were about to pounce on us and kill us all. My heart was literally in my mouth. I cursed my alter ego that deceived me into taking a window seat. After some minutes, I looked down and saw that the rabble rousers were part of the worshipers. I breathed a quarter sigh of relief and started seriously praying to God to protect me. We were at that same spot around the NASFAT area for five hours! 5 frigging hours! My bum was on fire, my friends and sisters were sick with worry, and the claustrophobia had given me really horrible chest pains and a headache. A little after 12am, we broke even and continued on our way. That was when I realized that I had not even entered Lagos yet! Arrgghhh! When we got to the destination my friend asked me to alight at, it was 2am and pitch black. As soon as the bus stopped, some thugs – and I use that term knowing its full meaning – came up to the bus just as I was about to step out. I didn’t see any tricycle, taxi, or any form of public transportation. I imagined how the hell I was supposed to get to her place. One woman started shouting in the car about how the driver was endangering our lives and that he had to get us away from that place. You know I died a thousand deaths right? In retrospect, it is funny how scared I was though the fact that I nearly peed myself is really quite embarrassing. I deviate. Back to my story. Some woman in the car said, ‘Young woman, those are thugs there. You better go and sleep in the bus station if you do not want wahala.’ She didn’t need to tell me the ‘wahala’ before I quickly rushed back to my seat and settled in. The driver started the car again and we headed to the bus station. We got to the park after an additional 15 or 20 minutes on the road. For the first time in my life, I was going to sleep on a bench in a bus park. Definitely got my Lagos hustle on! I slept fitfully and woke up at 5am to some of the other passengers arguing about the roles of women in society. That would have been my cue to jump in but my body was bushed and I just needed to get to
Virginity…a Woman’s Best Gift
Black Girl Sleeping with a GiftImage: RawPixel Few days ago, the story of a woman who presented a certificate of her purity to her father on her wedding day went viral and drew both positive and negative reactions from people; though it was more negative than positive. If you hadn’t seen the story on the internet, here is a summary. Brelyn Bowman is a black Christian boutique owner and a preacher of purity. She got married to her heartthrob – Tim Bowman – who is a gospel artist. They never had sex throughout the time they were dating and she presented a proof of her virginity to her father on her wedding day. How sweet, right? She even went further to urge women to keep themselves pure for their husbands too. Now looking at it wholly, it is very admirable that she did that, especially when there is so much pressure to have sex in today’s world. It takes real self-control for a couple to restrain themselves and what they did is laudable. Having said that, there is a need to clarify why I have a bone to pick with the proponents of virginity. In our African tradition, there is great emphasis placed on a woman’s virginity. Some men say it is ‘the most important gift a woman can give husband’. This has been passed down for generations and generations until it has become the norm. Our mothers have taught us to remain virgins until we are properly married. If your mother was a virgin when she got married, then you got that talk that was always laced with ‘How your father met me as a virgin and I have known no other man’. You know that talk right? Anyway, back to the issue. While Brelyn was urging women to use her life as their launching pads, she forgot that not every woman has the choice to keep themselves ‘pure for their husbands’. Though Brelyn described her husband Tim as a gentleman, 35 percent of women in domestic relationships are dating, courting, are engaged to, or married to beasts that perpetuate violence against them. This violence includes, but is not limited to, rape, physical and sexual abuse and murder for refusing unwanted advances. Of course these women may or may not be virgins at the time of their abuse but who cares about all that when virginity crowns a woman with purity…right? Another statistic shows that 1 in 10 girls worldwide under the age of 18 was forced to have sex, according to a recent UN report. 1in 10 girls has her virginity forcefully taken from her, effectively cancelling her desire to present herself ‘pure to her husbands’. To make matters worse, children – toddlers, adolescents, teenagers – are sexually abused by relatives (fathers, brothers, cousins, uncles, and aunts), teachers, religious leaders, baby sitters, neighbors or even strangers. Globally, a whopping 19.7 percent of females go through child sexual abuse. These are not my statistics; they are facts reported by the United Nations in collaboration with the World Health Organization. These numbers are women who are forced to lose their ‘most important gift to their husbands’, thus becoming ‘impure’ according to the general belief. And why is virginity only expected of a woman? Why must women be virgins until they are married but men must not? And if men are not virgins and have active sex lives, who are they doing it with? The answer to that question should be interesting. Another question that begs to be answered is why something that is lost in one simple thrust would be defined as the ‘most important thing a woman can give to her husband’? We also seem to forget that an intact hymen does not necessarily mean lack of sexual knowledge. There are tons of women who are ‘virgins’ but yet give – and accept – blow jobs (Fellatio and Cunninglingus) on the regular. There are women who give hand jobs. There are also women who permit their thighs and breasts to be, for lack of a better word, fucked. Did I forget women who masturbate with or without sex toys? Then there are lesbians. And also women who have anal sex. If all these women have their hymen intact, can they still be classified as ‘virgins’ and thus, ‘pure’? My bone of contention is not with Brelyn keeping herself. My angst is how she conferred ‘purity’ on a woman who keeps her virginity. I know women who are virgins but are burning with lust, keeping strife, cheating people, lying for Africa, gossiping, sowing seeds of discord, tearing families apart, stealing from friends, colleagues and their work organizations. I also know that there are virgins with nudes on their phones and their boyfriends’ phones. Is the hymen then the determinant of purity? And is purity one-dimensional or all-encompassing? My mum, like most mums, told me that if my husband marries me as a virgin, my husband would respect me. I love my mum but I do not agree with her on that point. I have seen men who beat the crap out of their ‘virgin’ wives for the most trivial of reasons. I have seen men who were the first boyfriends of their wives, the first and only to sleep with their wives, but also the first to cheat with any woman who is willing to welcome them in. I know of a woman who kept telling me that virginity was the best gift a woman could give. One day I saw her crying. She told me her husband had infected her because of his randy ways and the infections had affected her ovaries. She was constantly in immense pains until the infections got better. But she has had to face the same destruction to her body almost quarterly. Her husband went to her office one day and saw her in a meeting with her colleague; a man. They were sitting close together and bent over papers discussing. The husband stood for
Boko Haram: Gunning for a Religious War
Soldier with missiles.Image: Reuters The insurgency in the North Eastern part of Nigeria has left thousands dead and millions displaced from their homes. If you are reading this, you know that the punch you felt at the onset of the insurgency is sadly lacking today. This is because the reports of attacks are almost daily now, with Borno, Yobe and parts of Adamawa taking the brunt of the attacks. Yes, the attacks have spread from the North East to other states like Kano, Kaduna, Niger and Jos and even the capital city, Abuja, but none of these states have had to deal with the sheer loss of lives and displacement of people as the North Eastern states of Nigeria have. Now, I have been following the news about the insurgency; not only because it saddens me to see people murdered in cold blood and my role as a would-be journalist, but also because I live in the North East. You cannot imagine the thought that goes through my head every single time I hear of an invasion, ambush, attack or bombing. I know my family, friends and loved ones aren’t really keen on my being in the North East so I know that they worry when they hear the stories coming from this region. After the bomb blast in Yola yesterday (October 23, 2015), I came home to several missed calls from my family wondering if I was okay. I had to call my mother, grandmother, sisters and friends to assure them of my safety. It was while I was doing this that something struck me. ‘BOKO HARAM MILITANTS SEEM TO BE GUNNING FOR A RELIGIOUS WAR IN THE COUNTRY’ I pursued this thought for a bit and imagined that I was finally becoming a conspiracy theorist. The thought wouldn’t leave me, no matter how hard I tried to shake it off. It even followed me to my dreams. I decided to do some research about it and my research is lending more and more credence to the theory. Let me explain what I have been thinking. When Goodluck Jonathan was President of Nigeria, the Boko haram sect became bigger, more ruthless, much more daring and inhumane in their insurgency. Many people expressed what they thought was the Boko Haram ideology. At first, it seemed like they wanted to prevent formal education as postulated by Western countries. Then it seemed like they wanted to prevent any thing that looked like the West; religion (in this case Christianity), government institutions, the security forces and the general capitalist ideology that the country was tilting towards. It was no surprise then that the United Nations building, prisons, police headquarters, schools, markets, parks, government buildings and churches were attacked. While most people expressed shock at the attacks, it really didn’t touch people until places of worship (churches) started taking the brunt of the attack. People were mortified that the sect would dare to go to ‘houses of GOD’ to perpetuate their heinous blood-lust. The number of attacks on churches increased such that people waited every Sunday to hear which church had been attacked where. Here are a few examples of such reports as chronicled by Wikipedia. 1. December 25, 2011 – 41 people were killed by Boko Haram militant attacks and shootings at churches in Madalla, Jos, Gakada and Damaturu. This marked the beginning of attacks in churches; 2. January 5-6, 2012 – 37 Christians were targeted and killed by the Boko Haram militia; 3. April 8, 2012 – 38 people were killed following a bombing at a church in Kaduna; 4. June 17, 2012 – 19 people were murdered following bomb attacks at three churches in Kaduna. The bombings in Kaduna stretched already terse nerves between Muslims and Christians in the state; 5. August 7, 2012 – Deeper Life church shooting; 19 people were killed when Boko Haram gunmen raided a church in Kogi state. This lead to reprisal attacks the following day, resulting in the death of two soldiers and one Muslim; 6. December 25, 2012 – 27 Christians were killed in Maiduguri and Potiskum by suspected Boko Haram Militants; 7. December 28, 2012 – another 15 Christians were murdered in the villages of Musari by unknown gunmen thought to be Boko Haram; 8. January 31, 2014 – 11 Christians were killed in Chakawa by Boko Haram; 9. February 14, 2014 – while many people were celebrating Valentine’s Day, the Borno Massacre happened. In that massacre, 121 Christian villagers were killed by Boko Haram in Konduga, Borno state; 10. February 15, 2014 – a day after that horrible massacre, 90 more Christians were killed in Gwosa by Boko Haram. In that same attack, it was reported that 9 soldiers also lost their lives; 11. June 2, 2014 – the Gwosa Massacre, where 200 (mostly Christian villagers) were killed, happened in Borno state. The attack was attributed to the Boko Haram sect. Nigerians rescued from the clutches of Boko HaramImage: Anglican Cable Network Nigeria In comparison, the numbers of mosques attacked while Goodluck Jonathan was president were far fewer than the number of churches attacked. These attacks were; 1. August 12, 2013 – in an attack in a Maiduguri mosque, 56 people were killed; 2. November 3, 2014 – a double suicide bombing in Yobe state left 15 Shiites dead; 3. November 28, 2014 – a bleak day indeed for many Muslim faithful, especially friend and families of the 120 Muslims killed during suicide bombings and gun attacks. The people killed were followers of the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II and they were killed at the Kano mosque where the Emir prays; 4. February 1, 2014 – a suicide bomber killed five people outside a mosque in Gombe. So it seemed like the insurgents were targeting people who shared the same religious belief as the incumbent President. This, I believe, was to push the president to do something irrational, like choose sides and order the killing of those who didn’t share his faith. Many Christians cried out
Desperate Times and Desperate Measures
Worried Black GirlImage: Naija News Agency I always use every opportunity to learn from life. Some of the lessons are easy to swallow but others are just bitter pills. Take my house issue for example. Immediately after my service year, I got a nice apartment in an upscale neighborhood. The rent should have been cut-throat but because one of my Pastors was related to the owner, it was very affordable. I was told the owner was out of town and wanted someone to ensure the house wasn’t empty. The house was a 3-bedroom flat and I was given one room. The owner’s nephew was in one room and the other room was leased out from time to time. I was okay with the arrangement. I was hardly home so I never had any run-ins with my housemates, neighbors or their family. A week after I had moved in, I had the desire to return home early and when I did, I could not believe the scene that met my eyes. The neighbors’ kids were playing football inside the living room. I was livid! The dust they had kicked up and the dirt they brought in turned the room I had swept that morning into a refuse dump. Turns out that the neighbors wanted me to settle in before showing me how things were done. From that day, things changed a lot. I would come home to a messed up kitchen with the sink filled with days of unwashed dishes, pots blackened from improperly set stoves and pieces of food on the floor. Rats had a field day in the kitchen and one had the effrontery to chase me one day! The owner’s nephew had the kids from the other flats do his cooking and dishes, so he could not be bothered if the dishes were done or not. He didn’t go into the kitchen except to fetch water so he was okay with the smelly, dirty and nasty excuse of a kitchen. I wasn’t and I raised the issue with him many times until we were at a point where we were barely speaking. My compulsive nature wouldn’t let me take that! I had kids coming into my room and taking stuff when I so much as stepped out to get something. I caught one little girl going through my bag one evening. I stood behind her quietly to give her the benefit of doubt. I was right; she was a little thief! She snuck in after I had seen a friend off and left the room open. When she turned and saw me, she could have died! I called her much older sister and had her handle the issue; but not before banning her from entering the house whether I was there or not. All of these weren’t as bad as when the person in the next-door flat bought a rickety I-pass-my-neighbor generator. He put the generator right at my window, with the exhaust facing my room; because he DIDN’T want to face the church we shared a fence with. Night after night, I would be poisoned with carbon monoxide and disgruntled with the irritatingly noisy generator set. It got worse when he came into some money and bought a bigger generator. Since we had problems with electric supply, the generator would be on for almost 24 hours! As a result of the constant drone of the generator, I always woke up with a nasty headache which only dimmed as the day wore on. In fact, the man came to me one day said, ‘You dey try for this noise oh! Thank GOD my room is really far from the generator.’If you know me, you probably know the facial expression…and subsequent reaction I gave him. I desperately needed to leave that house. The sky spirits *in King Julien’s voice* were in agreement. The owner of the house died and his wife needed money to bury him. She left Lagos and came to Yola. She didn’t expect to find people in her house. Yes they had tenants in the other houses but the thought of tenants in her house shocked her. She said her husband would never have given the house to tenants. Turned out the nephew was the one who gave the house out to make some extra money on the side and he told no one of it. The entire house deal was a shoddy affair. And said nephew had left the country for school…if that is what it was. I was stuck. I had no receipt, no evidence of payment and quite frankly, no reason to be in that house! After much discussion, the widow agreed to let us stay in the house if we were willing to pay a 50% raise on the house rent her nephew in-law collected. When I told her I could not afford that, she told me to either pay up or leave…in two weeks! I weighed the messed up kitchen, lousy neighbor’s kids, horrible power situation, the constant poisoning and noise pollution and I knew I would not pay 50% extra to continue living like that! So I started going up and down and blowing up people’s phones for agent contacts. I was looking at houses for a whole week after the ultimatum. My radio shows were suffering, I wasn’t eating or sleeping well and I was dropping weight by the pound but I wasn’t going to give up on my house search. The houses were either too expensive or in neighborhoods that were not friendly. Even though life was bashing me, I knew I had no option but push on. Two days to the end of the ultimatum, I headed out with my friend to look at some houses. We got to a neighborhood that was neither upscale nor completely ghetto. They were offering two rooms for a little above the price of my house. Yeah, it wasn’t great, I had to share the toilet and live with mostly uneducated people but
Her Death Sentence
Erica Hart Posed Topless to Show Other Black Breast Cancer Survivors that They are Not AloneImage: Pinterest Daniella Gyang woke up slowly from the unconsciousness brought on by the anesthesia. As she became more aware of the fading yellow curtains and the sharp smell of disinfectant, her brain registered the dull pain in her chest region, which prompted her to look down. The memories came flooding back. She had just had a mastectomy…on both breasts. She didn’t need to prompt the tears; they fell of their own accord. She felt her chest clogging as she remembered the series of events that led to her current position on the hospital bed at the National Hospital, Abuja. *** Daniella had seen a little lump on her right breast. She saw the lump by mistake while trying a new dress at her regular boutique. She pressed it and realized it didn’t hurt. She shrugged as she continued trying more new dresses. A month later, she noticed the lump was slightly bigger; but only slightly. And it had begun to hurt. Oh! It wasn’t a sharp pain or anything. It was more a discomfort than pain in itself. She wrongly assumed it was a boil. As she got out of the bathroom, she went to her sewing kit and picked up a needle. She went to the mirror, raised her hand and pierced it. That was the beginning of her problems. The resulting wound didn’t heal. In fact, it gradually began to expand and ooze out pus. The wound was an ugly mound that was a variation of rotten green and puke-like yellow. She went from hospital to hospital and the doctors kept treating her for her ‘wound’. They would clean, disinfect, dress it and tell her to allow it heal. For one year, the wound kept expanding and she kept getting treatment for it. As soon as the treatment was done, she would feel some sort of relief but after a week, the pain would return at a higher threshold than it had previously been. It got so bad that she had to leave her job because the smell from her breast was horrible and the flurry of perfumes she doused herself with couldn’t hide the smell that preceded her entrance to any room. It wasn’t until the injury had almost engulfed her right breast before she was referred to the National Hospital, Abuja. The doctors were shocked beyond words. ‘Why did you let it get that bad?’ was a question they constantly peppered her with. She couldn’t explain that she didn’t think it was serious and having discovered that it was, didn’t think she could afford a mammography. Quite frankly, she just didn’t want to be told that it was much worse than a stubborn wound. She wasn’t surprised when they told her that she had breast cancer and it had metastasized. They told her they needed to go to surgery immediately if they were, in anyway, going to try to save her life. As she contemplated what it would mean to have her right breast removed, the head Oncologist told her that he had more bad news. The cancer had spread to her other breast and even that one had to go. And to make matters worse, they were hoping they could contain the spread such that it didn’t affect her lymph nodes. She still had to undergo chemotherapy but their best option was to remove both breasts. She made her decision. She wiped her tears and told the doctors to cut them off. And though she felt she had just been given her death sentence, she was not going to let herself die if there was a chance for survival. They went to the theatre two days later. *** Daniella looked at the flat bandage wrapped around what would have been mounds of her C-Cup breasts. She felt more than physical pain as she imagined her chances of ever getting married taking a nose dive. She was 40 years old and had been single, not by choice, but by a combination of factors. Her parents died when she was eighteen. As the first child with four siblings, she had to go to work to prevent her Uncles from splitting them and complaining about raising them. She worked hard enough for four people and God blessed her work. She soon rose in ranks and had her business going very strong. She single-handedly sent her brothers and sisters through school, up to their Masters level. She paid for her sisters’ marriages and got them settled into their homes. Only her brothers remained and even they had good jobs to provide for them, she still remained a major source of income for them. As she struggled for her siblings, she got older and older and didn’t care about the many suitors who wanted her. When her disease started, most of the suitors dropped out of the race but Renda Njawe remained faithful in his pursuit of her. He had been with her all through the spread of the cancer and even through her surgery. When she woke up and didn’t see him, didn’t see any of her siblings, colleagues or church members, she knew that she was on her own. She didn’t feel mad about Renda leaving her; he was after all, a breast-man, a thing he had mentioned quite a few times. She could not imagine such a man marrying a woman without breasts. She was sad though that the family she sacrificed so much for could not even keep vigil after her life-changing surgery. She felt like she had wasted her life for people who continually sapped her energy and finances and who really didn’t care about her. The surgery didn’t even break her spirit as much as the loneliness wrapped tighter than her bandages did. Daniella sobbed in earnest and uncontrollably as she wondered what her life would look like from this point on. She cried until she fell back into
I Was Attacked…and This Time I Was Broken.
Me.Image: Tunde Raphael. It has been more than a month since I got attacked; precisely 42 days (at time of writing) since the attack. In this time frame, my life has changed. I used to live with this false sense of security. My carefree attitude was what got me by. My only worries were about family and career and almost nothing else. Quite frankly, I was almost never worried about my personal safety. After the attack though, things changed; drastically. Reading through my story, you would think I am strong. In fact, most people think I am a strong woman. I had friends who wrote to me extolling ‘my strength’. I also had friends who had faced worse situation telling me that they had drawn strength from my story. Many ladies who had been raped sent me private mails letting me know that they felt they were speaking out through my story. Overall, most people praised me for being strong. But am I, really? As the adrenaline ebbed away and the anger died down, I have had to deal with a host of other emotions. The first and most crippling is the fear that has been hounding me. Immediately after the attack, I could not walk out of my house without a knife. I kept looking behind me to ensure I wasn’t followed. One night, I came home from the office in a tricycle. It was really dark out; the only light coming from the tricycle. I gave the driver a N200 note, so he could give me N150. The driver gave me N100 instead. I asked him why he gave me that. He started shouting about how far my house was. As I was trying to explain what I usually pay, he switched off the tricycle and plunged us into deep darkness. My heart literally stopped. I could feel fear squeezing my heart and the pain was immense. I looked around and noticed a shape in the shadow and all I could think of was the moment I was attacked. I turned and walked away; the only reason I didn’t run was because my feet were leaden with fear. The shadow was walking fast and each footfall I heard felt like ten to me. I imagined he was coming after me to attack me, to finish what they had started. I could feel the blood rushing in my ears and goose pimples breaking all over my body. I finally broke into a run and didn’t pause till I was firmly locked in my room. The shadow was just a passerby but my mind had not recovered from the sheer terror I had been subjected to. And yes, I left the entire money with the driver. He must have wondered if I was some crazy person whom he had been lucky to escape. Another incident happened one night a few days ago. We closed from the office just as it began to rain. The driver got to my street but couldn’t enter because it was flooded. I had to come down and continue the rest of the way on foot. My voice sounded strangulated as I begged the driver to wait until I got into my compound. He had to put on the headlights on full glare. I kept walking and looking back even though the full lights told me he was still there. As I moved farther from the bus, I kept shouting ‘Please don’t go. Please wait till I get home’. Thankfully, the driver was a sensible one and he waited until I waved from my gate before turning away. It was a short distance from where he stopped but it felt like I was walking a distance a mile away. Up until last week, I never returned home unaccompanied. My closest friends must really be feeling the pressure! Another emotion I have had to deal with is guilt. I kept blaming myself; I should have left the office earlier, I should have followed the instinct that cried out to me that night, I should not have won the dress, I should not have worn high heels, I should never have moved into the neighborhood. I kept going over and over the incident and wishing I could change just one card that led to this domino effect. I am a perfectionist and beat up myself when I don’t do well. Over and over again, I look at the scenario and somehow think ‘It was my fault. I brought this upon myself’. I haven’t been sleeping well either. There are nights when the slightest sound will get me bolting out of sleep. Nights after that incident, I would lay awake, hurdled in a corner in my room as I imagine if the attackers would turn up. I also imagined how many would come for me. I used to sleep with my knife close to me and my stove at the ready. I conjured this thought that if I was going to be attacked, I would bathe whoever came against me with boiling water and finish them off with my knife. No, this ploy didn’t give me any confidence. Rather, it reminded me how inadequate I felt and would feel in the eyes of any attacker. I was playing with a friend and colleague at the office when he boxed me into a corner. While I laughed, it dawned on me that if I was really attacked, there was almost nothing that I could do with a very determined attacker. All my statements about cutting his penis were almost impossible. The more inadequate I felt, the more fearful I became and furthermore, the more troubled and restless I became. To the question ‘Am I strong?’, the answer is no. I am not. I am afraid. I am weak. I was broken. But will I get better? Yes! I will. I will be strong. I will get past this flurry of negative emotions. With every breath I take, I will work hard to
Looking Glass
Old African WomanImage: iStock Photos Ma Pwamoreno knelt to pray. The cracking sound in her spine told her it would be an uphill task getting up from this position. ‘She might as well take her time’, she thought. She couldn’t possible cause any more harm to her 70 year-old body. She went into a flurry of thanksgiving prayers. As she bowed in obeisance to GOD, her mind began to drift. Aspects of her life flashed through her mind until she was completely lost in thought. *** Pwapradi Zadok remembered the family she had been born into. She was born to a progressive family that believed in the white man’s education. Her father had worked for a white family who introduced Christianity and formal education to him. In his view, white people could do no wrong. Her father was a good Christian man. He treated her mother right. He ensured that they always had food and good clothes; which was a far cry from what her neighbors had to contend with. He encouraged them to read books and study the Bible. Her mother was the perfect match for her father. She was such a good woman! She couldn’t remember if her parents ever fought. She only remembered that they were a much disciplined family and though her parents never told them they loved them, they could tell that they did. By ‘they’, she meant her eight brothers and sisters; her parents had seven boys and two girls. Though it was a large family, there were always extended family members in the house at any given time. It was a testament to her father that he raised good children who were all stellar citizens in their community. As the last child, Pwapradi was called “Mummy’s carbon copy”. She had the same mannerisms and even looked almost exactly like her mother. Their similarity was so much that when she cooked, her father couldn’t tell if it was his wife or his daughter. When it was time to get married, her father worked extra hard to get a very good man for her. He picked the choir master of the church who was a young and promising teacher in the village primary school. Pwapradi remembered how her mother prepared her for marriage, her expectations as a wife, her duties and her reward. Pwapradi flushed under her skin when her mother told her to just lie down and accept her husband’s overtures because ‘men have been cursed with huge desire for sex’. Pwapradi’s marriage to Cletus Pwamoreno had been a simple affair, after which she settled into her role as wife. Cletus didn’t want her to work. He wanted her to be a house wife. Like her mother taught her, she obeyed him completely. He also didn’t want any other person cooking his meals. So she had been cooking for him for 58 years. She woke up early, cooked his breakfast and lunch and then took his bath water to the bathroom. She would wake him up and then set about sweeping the house. As he bathed, she would do other house chores to reduce her workload. When he was done, she would serve his meal and send him off with a ‘Have a good day‘ pat on the back. When he got back home, he would arrive to the aroma of steaming Bamta or Kwaa Bawei soup. Though he would always rush to the kitchen, she would get him to bathe first before eating his meal. After his meal, she would massage his feet and back as he read a newspaper or studied the Bible. Even as they got older and her bones got weaker, she continued her routine every single day of the week. When the children came, there was more work for Pwapradi but she took it in her stride; after all, Bachama women were known for their strength. She gave birth to five children before GOD decided it was enough. She remembered how she never raised her voice when talking to her husband. They had been married for 58 years and she never shouted at her husband. When they quarreled, he did all the talking while she stared at the floor. When he was done, she would say, ‘I am sorry Sir. It would not repeat itself.’ He thought she was acting in the first few years of their marriage but he later realized that she was made that way. Soon, quarrels became nonexistent in their marriage. Her mother taught her that her husband’s word was law and she obeyed him to a fault. As he became more prominent, their marriage became the poster child for perfection. People wanted to emulate them. Couples came to them for advice. They were both co-opted into the church counseling unit. She heard that her husband always said, ‘My wife never raises her voice at me. She never disobeys me. She does everything I say and that is why we are so happy.’ He would always end by saying, ‘Get your wife to be like mine and you have the perfect home.’She on the other hand would say to wives, ‘Your husband is the head of your house. If you want him to treat you right, respect him, obey him and be a good wife to him.’ She remembered her children. They were all married now. She had a flurry of grandkids she only saw during the holidays. None of her kids lived close to her. They were spread in Kaduna, Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Abuja. No one wanted to live in Numan; a glorified village. So she got to see them once every year when they came for Christmas. She thanked GOD for her life. She had lived a good life. That thought had not finished forming when another came into her mind. Had she really lived? Was her life worth thanking GOD for? Though foreign, she pondered on the thought some more. She had always wanted to teach. She wanted to impart knowledge just as her father had done. She was lucky to have been formally
Dad, Mum…You Failed Us!
Mrs. Jatau saw the light on her phone before it began to ring. She was almost sure it was her first daughter calling. She was not wrong. ‘I am just putting the last touches to my makeup. I will soon be there’, she rushed before her daughter could say anything. ‘Okay Mum. We are waiting for you.’ Annabel responded as she dropped the call. Mrs. Jatau sighed. She could not put it off anymore. She took her keys and purse, sent a prayer to heaven and left her house. She was going to her daughter’s wedding introduction. *** ‘Daddy, come out of your room now! Ha ahn! Do you want the guests to come in and wait for you?‘ Sandra all but shouted. She was the last child of the Jataus’ and had grown up when their parents had gone soft. She could say anything to them; which was slightly different from her four elder ones. ‘I said I am coming now! Go away and leave me alone.’ he responded in his rich tone. ‘Daddy, if you are not out in two minutes. I will break your door oh!’ She returned, pouting her lips and stamping her feet. She may be 20 years but she was all child. ‘If you like, burn the house sef. I will only come out when I deem fit. And I can see that mouth that you are pushing up. I have always told you that it makes you look like fish…a Tilapia.’ Sandra laughed and walked away. Mr. Jatau sighed. He could not hide in his room anymore. He admitted he was scared. But if he remained in his room, that would be awfully rude to the guests he was expecting. Though he had never had a good relationship with his oldest daughter, this was not the time to completely ruin what was left of it. He sucked in air into his large tummy and opened the door. The sooner he got over this, the quicker he could go to the club house and share some laughs with his cronies. He walked down the stairs to his living room. *** This was the first time in 18 years that the entire Jatau family was seated in one room. Oliver, the first child, was reclining in one of the sofas. Tall, buff and selfish, he managed to look like a king. The three daughters sat together on the sofa, with Robert, their adopted brother, sitting in between Annabel and Elizabeth while Sandra sat on the floor. The sitting arrangement was such that both their parents sat opposite them. Mr. and Mrs. Jatau managed to sit as far apart as possible without looking like they were trying to do. Annabel sighed. She cleared her throat and began. ‘Dad, Mum…before our guests turn up, we have some things to tell you. I will start and my siblings will join in.’ She looked from one parent to the other and then her sisters. Her parents were trying all they could not to squirm but it was not working. It was as uncomfortable for them as it was for her. She sucked in her breath, stared at the floor, and started talking. ‘Today is exactly 18 years since you got divorced.’ The finality in her voice had a ring of judgment to it and it got the desired effect on her parents; guilt and shame. Even though they had been divorced that long, Mrs. Jatau maintained his name because in Africa, you are better off with a ‘Mrs.’ attached to your name. ‘I will start with you, Daddy.’ This time she looked straight at her dad. He dropped his head and put his arms between his thighs; the classic pose he took when he was insecure, sad or contemplative. Annabel knew she had to get the edge off her voice. ‘Daddy, you were never nice to Mummy…well, not never. But in most cases, you weren’t. I grew up seeing Mummy pick up the slack when you should have been taking care of us. You were more a man-about-town, spending for other people, than you were in catering to your family’s needs. Mummy never let us go hungry, even if you never brought in any money’. That was Elizabeth’s cue. ‘Daddy, all through our stay in school, you never paid school fees on time; sometimes paying the first term fees in second term. We got to be known as one family that alwaysdefaulted in fees. It was so bad that one teacher came into the class to drive students who had not paid school fees and as soon as he entered, he said “Elizabeth Jatau, I don’t need to look at the list to know your name is on it. So pack your books and go home.” I wanted to die Daddy! Everyone in class laughed. I acted like I was okay but my spirit broke’. ‘Even when Mummy paid our school fees, you beat up Annabel for daring to accept the money’, Sandra said. There was a catch in her voice and that pricked her father and mother. She was their baby, and they were all fiercely protective of her. Mrs. Jatau started crying. She didn’t plan to but her eyes couldn’t hold back anymore. Mr. Jatau maintained his stoic expression. He still had his head down. Annabel continued. ‘When the divorce finally pulled through, you banned us from seeing our mother. When, after less than three months, you married again, and our lives became a living hell. Your wife would maltreat us…’ Annabel’s voice wavered. The tears were about to drop, but she controlled it. She sniffed just as Robert rubbed her back. She smiled at him and faced her father again. ‘I remember when Mummy bought us school scandals. You came home, went straight to our room like you knew Mum had brought us things. You rounded up the scandals and poured kerosene on them. With one strike, they went up in flames. We watched them burn, knowing you were not going to
