On adult friendships and shenanigans

Tags

age, friends, friendships, twenties

I’ve been lucky in my friendships. I’m always the first to admit that there isn’t a formula or a step-by-step guide to making good friends. Sometimes, it’s pure luck.

Today is Birthday No 35 for me. In the days leading to today I’ve been almost-crying a lot. I’m not the friendliest or “nicest” of people. I don’t exude warmth and harmony at first (or second or third) glance. I look like I’m ready to beat the shit out of someone if they misstep. I have a caustic tongue. When I was in my twenties, I asked my mum why I have so many good friends and she told me it’s because I’m a good person myself. I held onto those words for a long time. But how good am I, really? What is it that I have done that makes me worthy of so much love and generosity? What exactly do they see in me? My answer is reincarnation. I must have been a saint in my past life. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

I see tweets from people saying they want to make friends or asking how to make friends as adults. It makes sense to me that these tweets are mostly from people in their twenties. Once you’re past “similar life stages” it gets a little tougher.

The first friend I remember having was a petite girl, Chichi, who beat me up and threw one of my slippers inside a bush. Not a great start to this friendship business but we were only three years old so I forgive her. When I was six, my family moved from Lagos to Warri and I became friends with O, with whom I have maintained an on-off friendship for nearly 29 years. The history of my friendships from this point forward is shaped by proximity – primary and secondary schools, university, church, etc.

With adulthood came the splintering of friendships. I, for one, became less religious and more vocal about my politics. My friends got married and had kids and moved away. I moved away. Nature took its course and left me in a place that required effort if I wanted to be close to anyone. For an introvert with a big splash of social anxiety, it’s not the best place to be in. Enter Lady Luck again (and social media).

One thing that has worked for me is making the first move. Someone once asked, “Do you take friendship shots?” and my answer was yes. Then I thought about it and realised the intent with which I reach out to people isn’t always friendship. Except in one case where I was determined to be friends with this person come rain or hell water. On Twitter, for example, when someone I interact with (and share similar values with) tweets/questions something I relate to, I DM them about it. Sometimes these conversations lead to other conversations and several “omg me too” moments. If I like them, I become deliberate about having a relationship. So, I check on them often and get their phone number. If we live in the same town, I ask them out to some place we’ll both enjoy going. It doesn’t always turn into a friendship and that’s fine. You can have a good time, albeit brief, and keep it moving.

The upside of adult friendships is that you know what you want in a friend. You have a fair idea what kind of people complement you. I personally don’t make friends based on specific interests anymore because I choose to have just one category of friends – people I’m comfortable with (I can write a book on this alone). But if interest-based friendships work for you then friendship groups are a way to go. In every town there’s always groups of people who do things together – yoga, sports, arts/culture, sex, religion, etc – or places where these activities take place. You can find these groups by asking. Volunteering is also a good way to find people with similar interests.

Not having a set number in your head is another thing. I’ve heard people say “you shouldn’t have more than x number of friends.” It’s hogwash. I think this mindset is born of “the fewer people you’re close to, the fewer people can betray you”. If you have this mindset, you can’t have even one honest friendship. Open yourself up to as many friendships as you can manage. Life is always moving people around. In 2019, four of my closest friends (including my best friend) moved away. Thank God for technology but there is something about having the people you care for physically close to you; knowing that a hug is just a taxi ride away. 

Friends of friends can become your friends too. I have “stolen” friends and had friends “stolen”. The chances that your friend is friends with someone you can vibe with is pretty high. Currently, I don’t think I have any isolated friendships. Even if they started out that way, somewhere along the line a mix happens.

Love and communication are key ingredients in making friends. By the time you’re in your twenties you’ve most likely lost that openness that kids have. The truth is, you need a little of that – being able to jump in with two feet and navigate from there. I have been fortunate not to have landed on nails in my adult friendships. I know it’ll be harder for people who have. It’s a risk and you have to decide if it’s worth it for you.

A bit of wisdom from a new 35-year-old: have expectations of your friendships. I don’t buy into “don’t expect anything from anyone”. If we’re investing time and affection into a relationship, there better be pay-offs. I don’t want to be friends with anyone who lets me move mad or doesn’t call me out on my BS or watches me be stupid. And vice-versa.

Making friends requires you to put yourself out. There’s no way around it. And as you get older, friendships become sweeter and totally worth it. 

Birthday soundtrack

Is it time to reimagine mythologies in Nigeria?

Tags

COVID-19, deity, mythology, Sopona

2020. Enter the novel coronavirus, followed by lockdowns, social distancing and mounting anxiety in the face of deaths and economic uncertainties. Online, communities formed quickly as people worldwide sought comfort and hope on the platforms that were accessible to them. Enter Amabie, a monster from Japanese mythology believed to keep infectious disease away when its image is displayed and distributed. Amabie, a symbol of resilience, has seen the Japanese through different pandemics – cholera, measles and smallpox – for close to 200 years. With the advent of COVID-19, Amabie was adopted by the Japanese government as a symbol of its COVID-19 campaign across billboards in Japan. Chefs made sushi based on Amabie, and on social media, thousands of images were created and shared with hopeful messages. The success of Amabie draws in a large part from its reimagination, from its initial interpretation in a newspaper in Japan’s Edo period (1603 – 1868) to modern interpretations.

Closer to home, in Yorùbáland, a similar deity exists – Ṣọ̀pọ̀na, the òrìṣà of smallpox and infectious diseases. The question then arises as to why we did not see similar images of Ṣọ̀pọ̀na, ones that are relatable and familiar, used to bring people together to fight a common disease. Rather, we used billboards telling people to wear masks, when there was widespread disbelief about COVID-19 and its effects in the first place.

This has led to more questions about how we see our deities and how we understand mythology. 

In the Information Age, how come there is still so much misinformation about this deity and Yorùbá deities in general? Godchecker.com, a mythology encyclopedia, rates Ṣọ̀pọ̀na as “bad, best avoided”. A search for Ṣọ̀pọ̀na on social media platforms will reveal that the deity is invoked as a curse – “Sopona kill you” being the most popular one. Outside the worshippers of Ṣọ̀pọ̀na, scholars and mythology enthusiasts,  Ṣọ̀pọ̀na still has a bad rap as the god who inflicts smallpox on those who displease him. 

It is interesting to note that Ṣọ̀pọ̀na is also the òrìṣà of healing (as it is scientifically, the disease often holds the secret to its cure) and is revered as Babalú-Aye in Yorùbáland, the Americas and other parts of the world where the worship of òrìṣàs thrive. 

In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic which falls under the purview of Ṣọ̀pọ̀na, is there a chance that he becomes a source and representation of hope and solace? A lot of Nigerians, despite being monotheists are not averse to animist beliefs – the number of crucifixes, prayer beads and pictures of saints produced, sold and ascribed spiritual powers, testifies to this.

Reimagining Ṣọ̀pọ̀na 

The concept of reimagination is one that is familiar and found in popular culture. One of the most memorable scenes from the Harry Potter movies is the Boggart scene where Remus Lupin teaches the children that to overcome what they fear most, they have to reimagine it. For Neville Longbottom, that meant putting Professor Snape in his grandmother’s dress. The humorous picture created helped remove some of the mystery of the object of Neville’s fear. JK Rowling did a great job of making mysticism and wizardry accessible to young audiences all over the world. 

A Google image search of the òrìṣàs will reveal pictures from a 2014 exhibition by photographer, James C. Lewis. The pictures feature black models, in the artist’s interpretation of the deities’ original forms. Lewis’ photos were shared thousands of times on social media and sparked conversations about the representation of these deities as well as serving as an introduction for the uninformed.

We live in a world that is increasing visual – photographs, videos, memes, emojis. Most digital platforms now make provision for the inclusion of visual content. The power of what is seen can be harnessed in the move to reimagine deities like Ṣọ̀pọ̀na much in the same way Lewis did.  An example of this power in action can be found in the annual Day of the Dead parades in Mexico City, inspired by a scene in the 2015 James Bond film Spectre. 

Roye Okupe’s YouNeek media and Kugali Media by Fikayo Adeola have sought to provide new representations of deities and historical Nigerian figures using comics and animations. In 2020, the latter announced a first-of-its-kind collaboration with Disney Animation to create an all-new, science fiction series, Iwájú. While these are welcome advancements, there is still work to do; re-education needs to become even more mainstream.

With our awareness of where the world is right now, one thing is clear – a deity that has kept the same reputation and image for hundreds of years, defying the natural process of evolution, cannot be demystified by chance. More than ever, we should be deliberate about reimagining our symbols of hope and healing like the Japanese have with Amabie. It could be Ṣọ̀pọ̀na. It could be other deities; ones that we can unify around in a world whose future grows increasingly uncertain.  

(First published in Sahara Notes e-magazine, October 2021)

Image credit

A walk down the street

Tags

Ada, cactus, short story

Ada decided to take a walk down the street. It had been a long day. Moving to a new neighbourhood after Mrs. Robinson’s dog had bitten her ankle for the third time. Stupid dog. At least there were no stray dogs on this street. She had done her checks.

The street was quiet, the sound of her footsteps swallowed by the silence. She began to slap her sandals-shod feet on the pavement as she walked; still nothing. She put her hands over her ears and sighed. Her implants must be acting up again, what with the moving and all. She would call Doctor Angus tomorrow.

The tree came upon her and she shrieked. Or she thought she did.

It was a cactus. Tree or flower she was never sure. Her phone was home else she would have googled it. It had been right in front of her but her preoccupation with her ears had distracted her. It was tall, easily twice her 5′ 11”. She went close to it. She has always found cacti ridiculous, and by extension, God, because who created something and added parts to it like an after-thought?

She was close enough to touch. The skin looked smooth, which was weird. Weren’t cactus supposed to have prickly thingies all over them?

‘You might as well touch me and get over with it.’ The voice was soft, with a Southern tinge, and a little bit of an accent she couldn’t place thrown in.

‘I’m sorry. What?’

‘You don’t need to open your mouth. I can hear your just fine from within.’

When you see a lion, do not panic, do not run, just be calm. The tweet she had seen earlier from the BBC handle on twitter jumped into her head.

She knew it was the tree/flower/whatever talking. She could run but she had seen too many horror movies. It never ended well.

‘I’m not going to hurt you. You can run if you want. And you should stop listening to stupid advice. Who stands when they see a lion?’
‘You?’ Ada replied.

‘That’s because I don’t have a choice.’

The ridiculousness of her position hit Ada at that moment. She had a cactus in her head.

She shrieked. This time she heard herself.

‘Shush. Will you calm down and stop breaking my concentration? It takes a lot of work to keep it this quiet, you know.’ The voice was a whisper above the sounds of the night that filtered into her ears.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt me.’

‘Didn’t you hear me say I wouldn’t hurt you? Besides as you pointed out, I can’t move.’

‘How can I be sure of that? Why should I trust you?’ Ada asked, her voice still a note above normal.

The cactus (OMG she was talking to a cactus!) laughed and it sounded like tiny bell chimes.

‘You can. I am not human. I don’t have the capacity to deceive.’

‘In that case, while I would love to stay and chat, I have to get back home. It was nice to meet you.’

Ada didn’t wait for a reply, or turn around. She power walked backwards till she got to a turn in the street and then she hightailed it back to her house.

***

The street looked the same in the morning, the sky was a lighter blue and the shadows were made by the sun and not streetlights. Ada looked through her window and sighed. What a dream. She really needed to stop watching horror films.

Her door bell rang again. Shit. That was what had woken her up. She grabbed a robe off the stack of boxes and hurried out of her bedroom.

‘Coming!’

The woman at the door was large. Her breasts were big enough to balance two six packs of beer on. She wore a zebra print blouse over a pair of tights that was stretched to the end of its life.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello young lady. I’m Mrs. Queen and I live right across the street. Welcome to the neighbourhood. I hope you enjoy your stay here. We’re mostly quiet retired folk just looking for a bit of peace,” the woman said, her face split in a smile.

‘Miss me?’

It was THE voice.

‘What?’ The word didn’t quite make it out of Ada’s mouth.

‘Oh, I forgot to mention, I brought you a small gift, to liven up your place. It only grows in this neighbourhood. All you need to do is water it maybe once a week and when it gets too big, call me, I’ll get Mr. King, that’s my husband, to find a nice spot in your yard and plant it.’

She held out the flower pot to Ada.

‘You should have known better. I mean, after all the horror movies you’ve watched. Better close your mouth and take the pot before Mrs. Queen thinks you’re a retard.’

It was THE voice.

 

 

For Eloho: Grace and love above all else

Tags

birthday, Christ, Eloho, grace, love

To a woman who is unashamed of Christ, whose love for God shines as bright as bright can be, who uses her life as a lesson to raise others up, who always has a kind word and a ready e-hug, whose ‘I love yous’ are from the depth of her heart, who is generous of spirit, has a great sense of humour and a laughter so rich it puts chocolate to shame, and lives the story of God’s stupendous grace above everything else.

http://www.stupendousgrace.com

Happy birthday Eloho, you’re the best of you at this very moment. I can’t wait to see your future bests. God bless you abundantly.

May you always be surrounded by the love you share so generously. You’re the most amazing thing that’s happened to me on Twitter. Shalom!

Eloho blogs at http://www.stupendousgrace.com

My English Romance

Tags

communication, English Language, secondary school

Hi guys. I’ll start with an apology. I’ve missed three days of this challenge. I’m at a writing workshop and the schedule is brutal, 8am to 6pm everyday. I knew I was going to be here when I started this challenge but I wasn’t expecting the ‘hecticity’.

This a piece from one of the assignments we had to do. Originally titled ‘My Relationship with the English Language’, I’ve edited it to reduce the length. It’s mostly true, but I want you to see if you can pick out the fictionalised bits. Goodluck.

 

When I was in JSS3, in the second term of the school year, I failed English Language. Even though 41% at the time was considered a pass mark, I chose to see it as an ‘F’ because I needed a reason. I needed a reason to hate Miss T, our English Teacher who dared fail me.

I was born in an army cantonment. The battalions were drawn from different parts of the country so the common language was ‘broken’ English. English was reserved for school and church. So my mother’s surprise was considerable when my first words were in proper English because everyone spoke ‘broken’ in the house. I don’t know what my first word was, but my first complete sentence was ‘you finished it,’ an indictment of my older ones who would always take bites from my food. For my sake – so as not to corrupt what she considered a good thing – my siblings were mandated to speak good English.

By the time I was three I could read The Queen Primer Book One. I could recognize what alphabets represented what sounds, so my ability to read wasn’t just because we were made to read the same passages over and over again. From The Queen Primer, I graduated to reading more mature books. My siblings were much older than I was so there were mostly senior secondary textbooks available in the house. My favourites were the English Language and Biology textbooks (the chapter on reproduction in Biology was very enlightening). There was also a medical dictionary that belonged to my eldest sister who was studying to be a nurse that I loved going through.

My first proper novel was Fatima’s New Dress when I was four. It was required reading for Nursery Two and my mother had gotten me a copy before school resumed. I can’t remember how but someone else had given me another one, so I had two copies. I would read one first and then read the other as if it was a different book entirely. Most kids my age at the time read picture books and fairytales and comics. I didn’t have access to all that. I read whatever I could find; newspaper scraps, magazines, old documents, school result sheets, billboards and the Bible.

Before Miss T, I never scored less that 90% on an English test or exam. While I didn’t quite grasp the technicalities of grammar and syntax, I knew instinctively what was right and what wasn’t.

Failing did not reduce my confidence. I was invincible when it came to English Language. Having in ‘A1’ in the Senior School Certificate Examination just made me all the more certain that I was a master of English. Until I left home for the university and for the first time was in an environment where people didn’t consider English their first language. Adjusting was difficult. More than anything I was interested in communication and I realized how tiny my language was. But my love for English and my sometime small mindedness would not let me learn any other language so I sought to perfect the one language I had. As I tried, I realized how impure it was. My language was a mixture of so many others.

I find now in retrospect that Miss T was right to fail me. Other teachers had been carried away by my seeming proficiency but she saw beyond my glamour to the lack I had: an actual grasp of the mechanics and small points of the language. I am back to learning, buying books on grammar and studying them diligently.

I am discovering my first language again.

Blame It

Blame it on the al al al al al alcohol

Blame it on the alcohol

I was going to write this as a humorous piece from the POV of a bottle of Hennessey, but this matter is way too serious and too close to home for that. It will be a short rant.

More than once, I’ve been hurt by people I care about and when the apology comes, there’s a ‘I was drinking’ in it. In effect, it wasn’t me, it was the alcohol. So, blame the alcohol for my cruelty or my stupidity.

I have a theory: alcohol only magnifies what you already are or are already feeling. So if you’re stupid, alcohol helps you be more stupid. If you’re cruel, alcohol only enhances you cruelty. I won’t even touch rape.

So, I have a rule: if you have a history of alcohol ‘making you do things,’ don’t drink. Please. Stay away from even palmy which according to a character in the movie October 1, “ees our local drink, ees not alcohol.”

ALCOHOL DOESN’T HURT PEOPLE. PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE.

Language is Home

Inspired by Chika Unigwe’s TedTalk

Tami stared at the painting on the wall, reds, blues, greens blurring into each other. No shapes, only splotches of colour that no matter how she looked, resembled a page from a child’s colouring book enlarged and framed. That was what she thought even though no one asked her opinion. But she would not say it even if they asked. It was a masterpiece.

The frame held a particular fascination for her. It was the only thing she understood. She imagined she could see the patterns of the wooden grains visible under the polished surface. In her mind she pictured where the axe would fall if she decided to use it for firewood. How the wood would split into two almost perfect halves, and the halves into smaller halves until they were small enough to feed a kitchen fire. But there was no need. A four burner gas stove served that purpose.

Spoon scraping plate, slurp, slurp, and she turned, her eyes not meeting those of mamma whose half lidded gaze focused with fierce concentration on her plate of ärtsoppa, a meal she had picked over Tani’s own specially prepared pepper soup, prepared with very little pepper because she knew how weak these oyibo’s people palate was. Still rejected.

Her eyes returned to the picture, trying to see what Andre and his art collecting friends saw. Avant-garde. Sensational. Genius. Words.

Her mother’s words would have been that the painting looked like something a goat had knocked paint cans over and then pissed on, explaining the streaks of faint aging yellow on the canvas.

Spoon scraping plate, slurp, slurp and her eyes were drawn to the left, Andre having the ärtsoppa as well because, “I can’t very well leave my mother to eat alone. You understand, dear, don’t you?” as he smiled at mamma, then said something to her, his tongue rolling out sj and tj sounds Tani failed to master no matter how she tried.

Tani stared at her plate. She was having the ärtsoppa as well. Mamma hadn’t blinked when she told Jonas in halting Swedish to give her a serving of same and put the pepper soup in the freezer. She had seen the hesitation in his eyes. He knew how many times the spoon had slipped out of her hand as she had stirred in the ingredients for her soup; she who had never as much as spilled a drop of water in the kitchen. She had offered him a taste, to make sure she had judged the pepper right so there would be no choking at the table, not wanting to repeat her jollof rice experience with Andre. No words passed between but she knew he knew.

“You don’t like the meal, dear?” Andre asked, wiping the corner of his mouth.

She stretched her lips, her cheeks bunching under the eye bags that had a story of their own.

“Of course, I do darling.”

She dipped her spoon into the plate, raised it to her lips and slurped.

How I Ate a Cockroach

Tags

cockroach, food, junk food, Warri

I have not had the pleasure of travelling to Asia or being on Fear Factor, so my cockroach eating experience happened right here in Nigeria.

I spent most of my formative years in Warri and was raised on Mama Put and fries. My mum realized early that my brother and I loved to eat junk, my brother especially; and what my brother wanted, he got. Also, we often wanted to eat different things; so once or twice a day she’d give us N50 to buy whatever.

Growing up, I had a dread of washing plates. We had this big pot that was rarely used, so I’d stash dirty plates and my mum would only know I hadn’t been washing plates when she couldn’t find anything to dish food into.

For this reason, instead of taking a plate with cover or a food flask to go and buy food, I’d go there and ask them to put the food (rice most times) in a nylon. It was not a strange request as most food sellers had a stack of ‘white’ nylon they used to sell food.

That day I went to buy rice and stew from the woman selling beside the abattoir. My regular customer, Mama Emeka usually closed early so once it was past six, this other woman got my patronage. I remember that day I had filched an extra N20 from my mum’s bag so I had N70 to spend. Of course it’d be on extra meat. I ordered N30 rice and two pieces of meat. I insisted the nylon be doubled as I had recently had an experience if stew leaking. The rice was hot.

That’s how I made my way home, got a cup of water and proceeded to enjoy my feast. First step was mixing up the rice and stew. I don’t know how to explain the process but I was a pro at it. Second was opening a hole at the tip of the rice cone. Third was pressing the cone gently so the rice came out of the hole. Fourth was eating the rice that came out in step three.

I like to eat. I am not one of those inspector people that will look at every spoonful of food under the microscope. Which is why when I felt something small enter my mouth, I was grateful for an extra piece of meat and chewed away. I don’t remember why but as I chewed something said, ‘Mary, look at what you are eating.’ So I looked and behold, there was the tail half of a cockroach at the open hole of my rice cone. My brain instantly made the connection that the ‘meat’ I was chewing was most likely the head half. It seems during step one; I had split the already softened-from-cooking cockroach into two.

I kept my cool and spat out everything in my mouth. I didn’t look. There was no need. Then I gently liberated my pieces of meat-the real ones-from the tainted rice and threw the rest of the food away.

And that is how I chewed, but didn’t swallow a cockroach.

 

How I Feel About The LIB/IP Debate

nostalgic words of future me

I’m Happy.

Because Linda Ikeji’s blog was finally taken down. I’m ecstatic, in fact, and here’s why…

I’m a writer. An actor. An artist. A photographer. I know the value of my creativity, I gain my daily bread from it. Sometimes, I offer my art for free, not because I consider it worthless, but because I choose to gift it. If someone took my freely given or paid for art and used it to their own gain in any way whatsoever, they are stealing from me.

I may not be able to identify my work that anyone may have stolen (and that’s only because I haven’t bothered to check), but I have more than a few friends who have been affected directly by plagiarism from online platforms and I stand solidly beside them every chance I get. I still remember @StNaija making a big big fuss when Ynaija took a…

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saʊnd

Tags

accident, cheating, deaf

When there are no sounds, no words, gestures and actions suddenly take on a new aspect. Tekeme realized this as she watched the figures on the tv, her mind replaying the scene of Bika running after her, his towel saved from falling by a desperately clutching hand, the stares of the hotel guests as she runs down the stairs, recognizing the man she was to marry by his naked butt, bribing the receptionist to give a spare key to his room so she could surprise her ‘husband’.

Her mind filtered the sound back in slowly.

“Baby, please. Tekeme, please. It’s not what you think at all. It’s not.” The laughter of the woman on the bed, the sound of her heels as she runs out the room and down the stairs, the whispers that greet the sight of a naked Bika running after her, the splash her car made as it fell into the hotel pool.

The sounds were memories, a feeling her deadened eardrums would never know again.

 

I missed two days of this Every Day in October Challenge. Sunday I was on the road, yesterday I was bloody tired. I will make it up.