Casual

In my blues the other day, my thoughts wavered in between different stages of my childhood. I'll talk about two incidents that came to mind, randomly. Since my page has been begging for an update and it is early August, heck, my month, I just thot I'd write something. Warning: This is boring so if you don't want to end up pulling your hairs off your scalp, just hit the "x" button, it's the first button at the top of this screen (window). Or rather, click the next available hyperlink [DO NOT CLICK, like, really] .

So, here goes:

Bode

I created a shelter for myself as I grew on the Lagos mainland. While I never got to understand why the class distinction at that early age. But I knew one thing: most kids had what I didn't own. I protected myself, in my way, something that's stil part of me hitherto. Back in elementary (primary) school, I remember this ajebota kid, Bode. He gets chauffeured to school every morning, with his mom sitting by his side. As he gets out of the car, his mom leaves him with a food flask and a parting hug. Bode and I rarely talk about academics, it was like a routine: He comes in every morning, sits down and eats his breakfast in class. The teachers knew him so there's no punishment for eating in class. Next thing I turn to his direction and he motions me with his head, I walk over and sit by him, open his flask and gobble down the leftovers. The kid seemed to be anorexic cos really it doesn't look like I had "leftovers", he barely touches his food so I eat the bulk of it. Even after all the warnings I get from home about witchcraft transfers, I could resist Bode's meal pack. And Bode didn't look like no ogbanje kid. Na correct boti and at that age I knew I was safe. After the meal, we settled down to read comics he smuggled out of home: Green Latern Comics, The Incredible Hulk et al. Like a planned show, I return to my seat without any remorse from either of us. Kids are meant to be that way, no hard feelings. I don't even get to play with Bode during the lunch break in school. Heck, I couldn't tell where he usually is. All I could remember is that he sits in solitude during those times. Not like he cares either. The next day, we'd resume our schedule. It was fun while it lasted. I guess his parents wanted him to mix up with the local kids so they probably enrolled him for just a term. Bode and I parted without any close bond whatsoever. It was just the food and comics, no sense of attachment. I guess we weren't meant to be friends for that long. He left just as he came in to my life - the transience of innocence.

Face me, I Face You

You know those compounds that feel like barracks? You have it almost everywhere on Lagos mainland, except for some housing estates in places like 'lere, Ikeja and the like. Sha, except for the eldest bro who got born in a bush somewhere in Delta state during the Nigeria civil war, dad and mom rolled out the rest of us in an apartment somewhere in Shomolu. As grown ups, we sit down together sometimes and recount those days. Every one in that building had a nickname. The only four characters I can remember from that experience are:

1. Iya Ewe: The woman who sells ewa olo'mi and amala at the entrance of the building, with smoke from her activities coating the whole building in a grimy black, no kidding. You could touch the wall outside and your palm will be like you soaked it in black paint.

2. Jato: The alfa (abi is it alufa) that lives in the room, at the extreme of the building. I never knew the effect of penis meeting vagina at the time, but I knew something was amiss with the amount of female traffic in and out of his room PLUS he's never the friend of the older gossip folk in the compound. There's always a reason for fights every Saturday. Oh, I remember also, my big bro watches football in his room, to the chagrin of my parents, of course.

4. Alhaji: He's a closet herbalist. Gets all sort of visitors coming in to his room everyday for "help". He buys loads of weird things to make concoctions: live chameleon, crocodile egg, black soap, turtle, snails, shells, eggs of different creatures, he burns incense at night .

3. Baba Liyadi: A quick run down of what the compound looks like: In the toilet, kitchen and loo, you could hear people walking past the street behind, talking. It is an open house. No kidding, there was no drainage there, it was 1 general loo and 1 general bathroom for 15+ tenants (15 rooms of course, but counting heads in each room; families [father, mother & children], bachelors with their hobo friends, you know what I'm talking).

Bath water and other dirty water flows out of this gaping hole on the wall, at the lower part of the bathroom. The other disposal alternative was the big open gutter that runs through most streets in Lagos, in front of the building. People would have to carry the whole mess through the main building's passage until they reach the outside gutter and pour. This is the only one time in my lifetime, up till now that I ever saw my dad in fighting mood. It wasn't a funny sight cos I was scared shitless, but my dad held his ground. Baba Liyadi is usually in and out of the police cell and the period the scuffled happened, gossip had it that he's been in the cell for 1 week +, so he was a free but still frustrated man. What caused the fight? As the story goes:

Dad was in the bathroom. Iya Liyadi did her dishes and poured the dirty water into the bathroom floor, fully aware someone was having a bath at the time. So this was seen as a deliberate act by popsi.

[*-splash-* dirty water from Iya Liyadi's dishes flows into the bathroom]
Dad: Who is that crazy person that poured this water? Didn't you realize someone is bathing?
Iya Liyadi: Ehn? Who are you calling "crazy person"? Woo, ogbodo jade o! Woo, waa ro go [Look, you'd better not come out, you'd see "hell-glory"] *hiss*, useless man!

Popsi stormed out of the bathroom, walking straight into the bait. Before he could reach Iya Liyadi, cursing, Baba Liyadi jumped out of his room into action, seizing my dad by the neck. Dad had his towel by his waist, totally taken unawares but he managed to resist. He managed to knock Baba Liyadi on the tummy, with the man almost keeling over. Then the neighbors came to the rescue. To cut the whole shindig short, Baba Liyadi took the case to the Police and somehow, it was resolved sha. Both heads of families became good friends after that incident.

The only reason we left that place was 'cos of the Local Government Council's quit notice to all the residents of the building. Mom teases dad about it, a lot! Like most houses on the mainland, there's no plan whatsoever for erecting them, this house doesn't fall short. The building was actually built on a road and then there was X, you know, that huge, red X mark that the civil authorities mark on disapproved buildings. We had to move on short notice, I think a week or two before the demolition. No, not really a demolition, it was more of a re-structuring, cos it was the fencing that got trimmed, to allow passage for the road. Other than that, I think the building still de kampe.

No. 30, Olaleye Street, Shomolu, Lagos.
Landmarks: The Shomolu central mosque and the Local Government Council, both on Durosimi str.

I never went back to that place since we moved, not like it mattered. Dad and mom lived there, before we also came to the world - 30 years, accumulated.

So just a run down of what it is like to live in a "face me, I face you" apartment. Those of us who were privileged to grow up in such hard-knock environment have a lot to share:

a. Bathroom: You wake up early in the morning before the rush hour period of 7-8am, where about everyone else in the house (students and workers alike) are struggling to use the 1 and only bathroom and toilet. Sundays are worst depending on where you live, cos almost everyone is getting ready to attend morning service. A lot of the time, you have to queue to bath and you won't hesitate to outsmart the next guy who's waiting to do the same, but slacks.

When you use the bathroom next after some people, you'd find soap lather on the wall and sometimes, uh, on the floor, phlegm that wouldn't be carried off by the running water.

b. Kitchen: Your neighbor knows when it's just kpomo your wife is using for your soup, or crayfish. Whether or not you guys have rice on the weekend. Some houses don't have kitchens, so your corridor is converted into a mini kitchen. As you pass Mr. Simeon's door mount, you perceive rice & stew, Mama Aboy is making Ofe achi with okporoko etc. At any given time, you know what your neighbor is gonna have for supper or their daily/weekly meal cycle.

c. Toilet: I lost count of how many times I've been hard pressed, making a run for the loo and when I get there, someone is comfortably spraying the environment with what he's got. Don't even let me start with how tidy the place is left after some people get done with it. It's a miracle I didn't get no extras from my growing up years.

d. Washing: Again, you work against time here. Saturday, everyone is doing laundry and there's just one to three washing lines in the whole compound (depending on the space available). You need to outdo your neighbor by starting out early to occupy more space for your clothes to hang on once you are done. Else, you are on your own. You wash and leave 'em in the buckets till someone else' close gets half-dry. Other times, you throw them on the fence and you watch lizards have their way mating on your washed clothing. :)

e. Child rearing: You children will have friends they take turns beefin at at different times of the week. As a parent, you'd be gung-ho over whose child your kid would flex with and what child's mother is a witch, and therefore, you don't want your child eating anything in their homes, under whatever circumstance.

f. Interactions: Gossip, there's no better way to engage in it! Most women who live in "face me, I face yous" are home-makers, so they have all the time in the world to know why Mama Nkechi had a miscarriage or maybe her mother-in-law was responsible for it. You'd know why the man next door has been loitering. No, he's not on leave, He was fired. You'd know how many abortions the landlord's teenage daughter has undergone etc etc. And you don't want to see a fight going on in a "face me, I face you". U know, the whole loud swearing-dirty boxers-kpata-brassiere stripping type.

I think I'll stop there for now. Next time you are in Lagos, take a ride into the mainland (Ebute-Metta, Shomolu, Mushin, Mafoluku-Oshodi, Agege, Ketu-Alapere) and get a firsthand sighting for yourself. And when you can help it, step out of your car on the roadside for a stick and feel it. It's fun from the outside. For those on the inside, it's a beautiful struggle! :)

BRB