Mama Put… A short story

September 1, 2015September 1, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha82 Comments

An assortment of okada, keke, and several kabu’kabu/taxi’s, park lackadaisically on the hard-packed earthen kerb, beside the gutter that Mama Put used as her frontage. This is a busy corner of the road side, which teems with human traffic.

Mama Put’s shack is brimming with customers going in and coming out. Some still have their toothpicks in-between their teeth, sucking in air, in an attempt to dislodge a tiny morsel that had stolen into a gap, whilst some insert a finger in their mouths, using it as a wrench to pluck out remnants of chewed meat.

Lunch time is one of Mama’s busiest period. These rushed gathering of men jostle each other for space on the worn wooden benches and the few mismatched plastic chairs inside the crowded shambolic tent of the popular buka.

The men are taking a proper break from the morning rush. Most times they leave their homes on empty stomach as early as 5:00am for the quick business turnaround of taking passengers to their places of work and trade. Leaving early not only helps to put more money in their pockets, but it is also a means of beating the unbelievable go-slow which builds up as early as 6:30 in the morning.

Hasty gobbles of soft Agege bread, slathered with blue band butter chased down with hot tea from the local Mai shayi, serves as a respite till lunch time. On days when there is a lag between passengers, then it could be a quick meal of hot fried akara balls and ogi or kunu.

From 6.00am in the morning till she closes shop in the evening, Mama Put’s domain is a place of systematic chaos. She endeavors to start early to cater to her early bird customers and it was not a strange sight to see a flashy car or two with a customer carrying a food warmer to make purchase and eat in the comfort of their office, shop or home.

Her rivals spread snippets of malicious gossip that mama uses spiritual powers to keep her customers enraptured, but these back talks neither stopped her nor did it deter her customers. Nkoyo – Mama Put’s real name – could cook. Her food is always tasty, fresh and her demeanor pleasant.

The men look forward to their lunch. It is a place of camaraderie; a place you need to be, to keep abreast with the goings on in the vicinity. Heads crowd the steaming pots of jollof and dodo, white rice and stew, porridge beans and yam; each customer making their request and pointing out their particular choice of a piece of assorted meat or fish, whilst those who waited on the next round of pounded yam straddled their benches and engaged in idle chatter.

As they crowd the eating arena, an overpowering smell of dried human perspiration clings to the air, mingling with the divergent aroma wafting from pots of food and this creates a unique smell in itself.

The deep hums of their voices rhyme with the kpom, kpom, kpom beat of the pestle and the mortar at the back of the tent where a young lad mashes the boiled yam – which occasionally mingles with beads of his sweat – into softer lumps for swallowing with native soup. Pounded yam is a heavy meal appreciated by the hardworking men. It kept the hunger pangs at bay for hours on end.

Over their hot plates of food, their loud voices compete to regale each other with anecdotes of the days events. Of cantankerous, corrupt officials who dot every few meters of the road, casing the riders and extorting money from them. Sometimes, it would be the story of an irksome passenger or a tussle with another rider. They argue over football, a division of thoughts depending on the persons Premier League of support and their gist’s are often interspersed with ribald jokes. They talk politics, share their opinionated advise about women, touching on this and that.

“Ha!” “Mama, na wa o!” exclaims a stocky regular. This poundo fit belleful person so? E small o, he carries on talking as he receives his plate of pounded yam and afang soup.

Mama generously cuts a little extra portion and adds to the lumpy mound on his plate.

A beg give me pure water, another customer known as Sadiq requests.

Mercy, one of Mama’s kitchen girl heeds his request and ambles over with a cold sachet of pure water, which is kept cool with the ice blocks purchased from the ice block supplier.

Sadiq, calls her “my wife, my wife”, pats her ample waist and Mercy giggles as she steps away to answer another customer.

It’s a typical selling day and nothing is amiss until a customer rushes in, breathless with news of calamity. A demolition order from the new local government chairman is taking place. Makeshift stalls, shacks and all are being callously pulled down. They say it is to make way for modern stalls that Mr. Chairman wants to construct and sell or rent to the highest bidders.

Grumbling of mistreatment of poor masses in the hands of elected officials ensues. The men disperse quickly in order not to be caught in the backlash and have their properties impounded, as the rumble of the crushing Bulldozer is heard chugging it’s way slowly and surely, leaving destruction, tears and anguish in its wake.

Mama flounders as they hasten to gather crockery, aluminum pots, pans and other items that they can move quickly. Her thoughts are scattered to the four winds as she glumly watches her modest enterprise bulldozed to the ground. Tears leak out of her gritty eyes, rolling down her face unashamedly. She is caught in a wave of abject despondency.

Her sweat and efforts of many hard months fast turn into a crumpled heap of rubbish. It has taken so much to get to this point. To get to a point where she had a steady stream of customers and feasible income. Her family existed from hand to mouth; from the sweat of her brows and thoughts of her children, Uduak and Kufre’s school fees which is due in a couple of weeks cause more tears to well and brim over.

The bitterness of her situation pools and curdles her spirit. She rails and rants in anger, her vitriolic emotions overflowing its bounds. Her life has been a deep struggle; from one point to the other, that it sometimes feels as if the current sweeping her is too strong for her to keep her head up.

“Where will I start from?” Nkoyo mutters to no one in particular.

“How will I now catch up with my book me down customers?” She ponders fleetingly?

The vote she that she cast for the imbecilic Chairman a thought to regret and hiss over.

For as long as she can remember, she pays the local government touts protection money in cash and with free plates of food too. They extorted sums of pin money with promises that her space will always be maintained. She even contributed when all the vendors were approached to add their meager support to the Chairman’s campaign kitty.

Now that trouble had come calling, where were they to flex their lying muscles? Where were the thieving local government officials and their area boys? The Area fathers have slunk away like sly foxes with their tails tucked in-between their legs.

Nkoyo sits on an overturned mortar beside the rubble in weariness, her ambitions of expanding her business callously truncated. Her leaden legs are too tired to carry her home.

Glossary for words in italics that you may not know:

Afang soup: A vegetable soup originating from the South Eastern part of Nigeria – Cross River states.

Agege bread: A very popular low class bread baked in Lagos and favored by laborers. Usually very soft and eaten with so many variations of items e.g eggs, beans, bean cakes, etc

Akara: Bean cakes made from peeled black eyed peas and fried in hot oil.

Area boys/fathers: These are loosely organized gangs of young men, who roam the streets of Lagos. They extort money from passers-by, act as informal security guards, and perform other “odd jobs” in return for compensation.

Book me down: Customers who purchase food on credit and keep an account with the food vendor.

Buka: Local food canteen a step below restaurants. Food cheaper than the restaurants.

Dodo: Fried ripe plantain

Go slow: Slow crawling traffic

Jollof: A popular meal eaten in most West African homes, a one-pot meal made with fried tomato and pepper stew, rice, meat and spices

Keke: Tricycles

Kabu’kabu: Shared taxi

Kpom, kpom: Typical sound made from pounding.

Kunu: Popular drink consumed throughout Nigeria but mostly in the North. Made out of millet or sorghum

Mama Put: Road side food seller so called because her customers are known to beg for extra food for their plates ”mama abeg put more now”

Mai Shayi: Road side hot tea sellers

Na wa o: Exclamation which expresses so many things such as surprise, woe, you don’t say etc

Ogi: Liquefied maize meal which is thickened with hot water and sweetened with sugar and/or milk.

Okada: Commercial motorcycle used as vehicle for hire in Nigeria.

Pure Water: Water bagged in disposable sachets.

This poundo fit belleful person so?: Will this pounded yam fill me up?

Image credits: Nairaland.com

Creative Writing

Jungle Quarters….a short story

August 2, 2015August 3, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha24 Comments

I woke up startled by a scraping, sharp and niggling sound. It was that kind of sound that pierced and annoyed your eardrums. It’s persistence had managed to penetrate my sleep cocooned brain and I was forced to crank my eyes open, lying in the dark to listen.

No, it was not a pesky mosquito – the can of fleet that I bought had taken care of them. I spent a fraction of my meager monthly income for the purchase of cans of fleets which I rationed consciously in order to get good mileage for my money.

Neither was it a furry friend scouting for something to nibble. My apartment was so pauperized that I am sure even the rats knew I was poor.

The night was balmy and as was the tradition, there was no power supply whatsoever. I was practically spending a small fortune on those mosquito coils and fleets because I hated mosquito nets – they made me feel claustrophobic.

I had to diligently keep the single window of my one room shut in order to keep out the buzzing nuisance and in the evenings when I got back from work, I took a double insurance of spraying my room, just in case one recalcitrant mosquito had managed to sneak in. Those things could make a life miserable at nights you know; I’d rather they bit me, than buzz in my ears.

Well, I was glad that my situation would take a turn for the better in a couple of days. With my pay check, I planned to buy a small “I better pass my neighbor” TIGER generator. At least that would power my ceiling fan to keep me cool on steamy nights such as this, as well as disorientate the propellers of the mosquitoes. I had been saving for quite some time and the thought of progress was exciting.

What is that infernal noise? I wondered to myself. The niggling noise had gone up by several notches and was now accompanied by husky whispers of unknown voices.

My curiosity was piqued. In my state of semi-nudity, I tip-toed to my iron barred window to take a peek out of my window which faced the dirt road of our street. It was those neighborhood hooligans. Those bad boys spent their nights awake and robbing people of their hard-earned meager properties.

This time around the object of their attraction was my neighbor’s newly acquired old Golf GTI. It was not even qualified to be called a ”Tokunbo” and Bob was probably the 22nd owner of that vehicle. It looked as if it had survived some shifty and dodgy Colombian drug runs before making its way to my neck of the woods in Mushin, Lagos.

I knew how proud Bob was of his new possession. We had ”washed it’‘ with some goat meat pepper soup and swirls of beer at Iya Bose’s beer parlour, whilst listening to Bob regale us with tales of his escapades with the small, small girls in the vicinity. He could hardly wait to wow them with his ride.

In all fairness to him, he had tried to tush the ride up a bit. He had put in a fairly used car stereo which he purchased at a mechanic’s workshop, blasting music to the high heavens to announce his pompous entrance. The reams of the cars misaligned tires were covered by shiny wheel covers; I presumed that he bought them from the man under the junction bridge who sold a bit of every piece of nuts and bolts imaginable – I always wondered how he obtained such a stash. Rumors had it that if your car parts were missing, you simply had to go to him and buy them back bit by bit.

Bob said he was going to spray paint his car pretty soon and it will turn into a new car. By no means was I jealous of his success. I also had my own plans. After buying my generator, I planned to buy a small television, then a table top refrigerator before looking for my own four wheels.

By my projections, if I eliminated too many visits to the local bukka’s around and prepared my own meals on my kerosene stove, maybe, I would save faster. My savings coupled with my winnings from Baba Ijebu – by the way, I was so close to winning handsomely last week – would see better things flowing my way.

After observing the hoodlums for a bit, I decided to be neighborly about things. After all, I just couldn’t lie down cowardly and watch those crooked boys strip Bob’s car down to its bare bones. I decided to raise some alarm, using the hard end of my umbrella, which was the only weapon that I had, to rap against the iron bars and at least let them know that they were being observed, hoping that would deter them.

They were simply unfazed and they carried on with their business. I crept out of my room to Bob’s room which was just two doors away from mine, in the face me, I face you housing block that we occupied. I rapped urgently on his door, whispering “Bob, Bob, na thief o!” ”They wan comot your motor o”. I repeated this severally and eventually, after much shuffling and groaned complaints, he asked me to go away that I was disturbing his sleep.

Mouth agape, I went back to my room but I couldn’t sleep again. At the very break of dawn, I got up to fetch water from the shared tap to take my shower at the common washroom in order to avoid the morning rush and squabbles of neighbors who would want to use the facility all at the same time.

I had just passed Bob’s door and was almost at the end of the lengthy corridor, when I heard the squeaky creak of a door opening. Out of reflex, I turned to see who it was, and it was the live-in partner or wife – ~~I never seemed to know who was what; at the rate girlfriends, wives and baby-mama’s came and went in the neighborhood~~ – of Rasheed, sneaking out of Bob’s room.

Rasheed was one of the neighborhoods baddest boy. He was known for his famous thievery, but everyone seemed afraid of him. A popular belief was that he was in cahoots with some bad apples amongst the police, who were willing to lend their firearms for nefarious activities for handsome rewards from the stolen booty.

It was a confusing moment for me, because I was so sure that I heard his raspy smoke cracked voice amongst those decapitating Bob’s car last night. So it did seem that when he goes moonlighting, his partner/girlfriend/wife got engaged in her own private forays.

Half an hour later or so, Bob’s bellow was heard down the corridors. The enlightenment of his reversed status had just dawned on him. They had stripped his car down, taking everything including the brain box.

I didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or not, but I listened patiently to his repeated curses and complaints for several days non-stop.

It was pay day. I happily purchased my generator. I couldn’t wait to hear the umm’s and aah’s that would float my way. I finally had something to gloat about. For days, I felt like a champion. My ceiling fan worked. My single light bulb glowed in the perennial darkness of the area. I had a new spring in my steps, sure that the young chicks I saw putting heads together and whispering when I passed were talking about me. About how eligible I was becoming. I puffed up some more – if I was a rooster, I would have crowed in delight.

My friend Bob was back to trekking and cursing. He needed a lot of money to rebuild his ride. After a lot of yabs and prodding from him, I agreed to give him a treat at our popular neighborhood hangout, in order ‘‘to wash” my generator.

We boozed into the night and eventually, half tipsily made our way back to our rooms to crash. My door was ajar. That surprised me. I blinked a couple of times to clear my vision, but my door still stood ajar.

In trepidation, I stepped into my humble abode, only to find that my beloved generator and all the wires had been kidnapped – it was small enough to fit into an big overnight bag. Unbelievable, I thought. It was all gone. I raised a hue and cry, searching for my possession in nooks and crannies but no one knew what had happened.

I gazed into the darkness which had only a few bulbs dotting the night shaking my head in sorrow and dismay. I knew that I would have to save for many more months to buy it back from the man under the bridge.

Maybe? I am not sure.

It’s a jungle our here!

P.S.: To aid understanding, please check below for meanings of words which have been written in pidgin English.

Glossary of words.

Pidgin: This is an English-based pidgin and creole language commonly spoken across Nigeria.

Mushin: A suburb located in Lagos State, Nigeria. It is a largely congested residential area with inadequate sanitation and low-quality housing.

I better pass my neighbor, generator: Refers to the small generator (tiger) that is below 2kva.

Tokunbo: This has multiple meanings, but the predominant meaning here refers to used cars.

Wash it: To celebrate something good, like a house warming for a new home, a new job etc

Goat meat pepper soup: Goat meat made in a hot and spicy broth

Iya Bose: Bose is a shortened Yoruba name, and Iya Bose means Bose’s mother

Beer parlour: A tavern where beer is served

Bukka: Local food canteens

Baba Ijebu: Indigenous Lotto

Face me, I face you: A term used to describe a type of residential building in Nigeria, where a group of one or two room apartments have their doors facing each other along a walkway that leads to the main entrance of the building which consists the apartments.

Na thief: It is a criminal

Comot your motor: Remove your vehicle