Aunty Unoma

My Aunt died almost a year ago. She lived in our house and when I was younger, I saw her almost every day. Yet I do not have a single picture with her. Aunty Unoma was not the type for taking pictures. She was pretty. Even though a worried, distracted look often marred her features, she was pretty. She had long, black hair that looked like weavon and she dressed in those brightly coloured sixties dresses that have come back into fashion.

She loved to clean. We were all afraid to use her bathroom. At one point, there were six of us sharing the 'girls bathroom' as we called it, yet we would rather queue and bang on the door of this one bathroom, than offload into Aunty Unoma's. It was too pristine for mere mortals. The walls were white, the floors where white, the tub was white and when you switched on the white fluorescent lights, everything seemed to pulse with whiteness.

Aunty Unoma was devoutly Christian, often cryptic in her devotion. In some ways, the after life had begun for her, years before she died. She would often speak of angels and heaven like she had a doorway in her room that led there, her own personal wardrobe to Narnia. It wasn't spooky. I was never afraid when her eyes got their dreamy look but I knew she was different.

For the most part, my sisters and my cousins avoided her. It was not that we changed direction when we saw her coming or hid behind doors. We were always cordial and greeted warmly but we never actively sought her out. Our avoidance was passive. We never knocked on her door in the evening to gist or followed her to the market when she went shopping. In some ways she passively avoided us too. She cooked downstairs but she ate in her room. We were lost in the preoccupations of our adolescences and childhoods and she was lost in her hymns and scriptures.  

Her death came as a shock. After I moved here, I did not think of her often. I was too busy trying to adjust to my English boarding school. Still, whenever I came home for the holidays, she was inordinately happy to see me and demonstrative in a way she had never been when we slept in adjacent rooms. She would hug me effusively and ask about school and my new life in England. I was always surprised by the warmth of her welcome. I never asked what she had done while I was away. Perhaps because I was so sure I would know the answer. Gone to church, gone to the market, stayed at home. Maybe I was wrong. She always dressed so carefully when she went out. Perhaps she had a group of friends we didn't know about. Perhaps she was a jazz pianist.

Usually when I went back, I would take small presents to her, little nothings of negligible monetary value that were in line with my student allowance. Always, her happiness would be disproportionate to the gift. Once, she did a small dance while I looked on, embarrassed but pleased. The last trip I saw her, I didn't bring her anything. I wasn't organised enough and I didn't have time to buy gifts for people. She didn't mention it. Instead, when she came to say good bye to me on my last night in Lagos, she came with a present, as she had done the year before. The first gift had been a bottle of perfume. That second was a canister of deodorant. I was very touched by both, twice to the point of tears.

"Keep fit," she said, prodding my stomach, protruding from my heavy dinner that night. She smiled mischievously, prodded my stomach again and left. Those were her last words to me, keep fit and as I type them, I think maybe I never really knew Aunty Unoma. Devout, cleanly and mischievous, an adjective I left out until our last meeting.

Rest in peace Aunty. Kachifo. 

Me Papa

  

When I was younger, I used to wish my father was a richer man. I went to a very middle class primary school and repeated the process for my secondary education. As early as primary four, I had begun fabricating stories for why we did not have a nicer car. I was too ashamed to tell these stories out loud but every once in a while, I would recount to myself the story of the S-class that got stolen to be replaced by the old, square Merc. In primary school, it wasn't so bad. My longer throat was only fuelled by seeing others climbing into the backseats of air conditioned cars while I sweated all the way home.

However, in secondary school, the car you went home with was a matter that was openly discussed and commented on. I got a lot of grief for that Merc. Things got so bad, that I much preferred to be dropped a few minutes from the school gates and walk to school. Our house was close enough that the illusion of my having walked all the way, was cooler than my being seen in that blue Merc. I remember once my mother came to pick me up from school in that car. Imagine my horror when I saw her driving into the school compound. Who had let her in?

"Chibundu," she said, beeping at me. "Can't you see me? Enter the car."

I could not disown my own mother. Head down, I crawled into the front seat. I could hear my class mates laughing in the class room. My mother is not the most skillful of drivers and the Merc is not the most skillful of cars. As she reversed, the car stalled, the laughter doubled. It looked like I was going to have to push start the car. It looked like I would have to change schools. Thank God, the car started and I was saved the inconvenience of resuming at another school half way through the term.

That day perhaps, I wished most fervently that my father was a richer man. After all he was Igbo. He could have become a trader and been a tycoon in no time. He could have sold electronics. Alaba was just down the road. Anything but this respectable medicine which left us with a very unrespectable car.

I have grown older and have come to realise that there are more important traits for a father to exhibit than stupendous wealth. My father is an honest man and he is a man of integrity. The opportunities for being crooked in medicine abound, as I have learnt over years of eavesdropping at doors. Time and time again, my father has lost business rather than pay bribes to get patients referred to his hospital. Perhaps it a foolishly scrupulous piece of integrity in an industry awash with corruption. But he has taken his stand. Patients with kidney problems should be referred to the hospital that will provide them with the best care. Not to the highest bidder.

My father is a generous man. I never had a room of my own when I was growing up and it was not often that I slept on a bed by myself. My cousins from the East when looking for a place to stay in Lagos, flocked to our house and my father turned not a single one away.

Lastly and most important to my development as a human being, my father taught me about God. Every morning, for the first fourteen years of my life we had morning prayers in my parent's room. Sometimes, I resented these intrusions into my sleep time. There were mornings I just didn't feel like singing, "Morning has broken," but I look back on those years with so much love. The whole house would gather in his room, domestic staff, cousins, siblings sometimes up to ten of us would be in that room. We would start by singing hymns from Mission Praise. Each person was allowed to pick one, a fundamental human right my mother defended against my father's attempts to sneak in a second choice. After singing, we would read a passage from the Bible, each person reading a few verses. Then my father would  teach. Not in an authoritarian way, we were always allowed to ask questions and give opinions, perhaps this is why to this day, I am at ease discussing with people a lot older than myself. Then we would pray. My father would always start his prayer with,

"We give You praise, 
Ancient of Days 
The Author, the Ruler and Possessor of our faith."

So I will close with this.


We give You praise, 
Ancient of Days,
That Okey Onuzo is a year older today.

MTN Girls

I am a shade that most Nigerians would call yellow. Though I am as brown as the next African, my Igbo heritage has given me enough orangy yellow tints to be considered 'fair.' I put this word in quotation marks because how any black person like myself can be considered 'fair' is beyond me.

Anyways, I grew up surrounded by the mentality that a yellow shade of brown was better than a tan shade of brown which was in turn better than a dark brown shade of brown. Unluckily for me, I am on the cusp between yellow brown and tan brown and I was surrounded by an extended family who soared into the lighter shades of yellow. They would compare each others complexions with conversations like:

"Gosh you are so yellow!"
"No. You are really yallo!"
"No you."
"No! You."
"You."
"You."

Unfortunately I could not join in with these fun dialogues because it would have gone along the lines of this.

ME: Gosh you are so yellow!
YELLOW RELATIVE: I know.

The strange thing though, is that all this never made me want to become lighter. My complexion has never bothered me. I have never gone out of my way to preserve it or augment it like some of my 'fair' companions often do. There are many face washes, secret recipes and 'creams' that can make you lighter but I have scoffed at them all. Why would you want to regulate the colour of your skin so closely, I thought. Why?

Then a few years ago, someone I had not seen in a long while said something along the lines of, "You used to be so yellow. What happened to you?" There was shock in their voice, disgust that I could let myself go so, in other words, as a result of my complexion darkening, I was somehow worse looking.

The problem is, I took this comment as an insult, which was how it was intended but really, I should have known better. I had grown darker, it was a fact and even though it was meant as an insult, this didn't change the fact that it was only a fact and not an insult.

I know better now, thank God. Being lighter doesn't make you prettier. 'Fairer' skinned girls are only trying to make themselves feel good. Being darker doesn't make you prettier, darker skinned girls are only trying to make themselves feel good. Being pretty, makes you prettier.

And that, whether 'fair' skinned or darker skinned ladies and gentlemen, is the hard and inconvenient truth.

I'm An Aunty :)

An entire person has been added to our family and given us all new titles. My sister is now Mother as well as Barrister. My brother in-law has added Baba T to Pharmacist K. My Doctor parents (the only ones with a real title) can now put grandparents on their CVs; my brother can add Uncle to his resumé but it is my sister and I who are most blessed because we have been bestowed with the most venerable of all appellations: Aunty.

I promise to be a good Aunty and buy T-Baby sweets and give her money to buy sweets and tell her how much she's grown since the last time I saw her, even though 'last time' was only last week. This is all I ever wanted from my Aunties so hopefully T-baby will be as easily pleased.

Congrats to my sister for pushing T-Baby out. Ko easy. Congrats to my brother in-law for surviving the labour ward. Congrats to T-baby for recovering from the trauma of being brutally evicted from her home of 9 months and here's to long life, prosperity and good stories to tell T-Baby when she's a teenager and much embarassed by the fact she was once a baby.

My Cousins in Texas: A Study

My cousins E-girl, E-boy and C-boy have become very American. They are very open with their feelings, they hug a lot and they dispense encouragement and good cheer as freely as a Lagos policeman collects bribes.

E-girl is a little neurotic. She cleans stains as they appear ever on the ready with her anti-bacterial sprays and wet wipes. The middle compartment of her bag is stuffed with medicine from Bonjela to Tylenol to a small resuscitating machine that she has thankfully never had occasion to use. E-girl is also very generous. When shopping with her, quietly sneak off to the till or after the cashier has scanned your goods and just as you are about to pay, she will barge past, push her card into the machine and sign before you get the chance to say Emeka Okeke.

I never really knew E-girl when I was growing up. She was that much taller and that much older than me. It was very nice to re-acquaint myself with this cousin who is now that much smaller and that much shorter than me. I am not surprised that she turned out well, she has good parents, but I'm glad.

Her brothers E-boy and C-boy could not be more different. When he was in Nigeria, E-boy used to be worryingly quiet but thanks to America and her out going ways, he would now be considered demonstrative in many parts of the world.

E-boy was the one who took us shopping and while perambulating through rows and rows of American discount clothing, my sister and I soon discovered that E-boy has an uncanny eye for fashion. We would be trawling through a rack discouraged and dispirited not finding anything but all E-boy had to do was walk past the same rack and he would find at least five fashionable outfits. It's funny because E-boy looks like a man's man's man who wouldn't know nail polish from eye shadow. He is built like an American football player who should be nicknamed The Wall yet he has such a good eye. It's uncanny.

C-boy, I think, is the most like me out of the Texas cousins. He's the last born; I'm the last born. His name starts with C, mine starts with C. He never puts things back where he finds them; I'm starting to learn. As you can see I'm one step ahead.

C-boy used to be very gregarious back in Nigeria. Out of his siblings, he is the only one that America has had a quietening effect on. His explanation for what seems like a sudden change as I haven't seen him in over seven years is that it's cool to be gregarious and loquacious and precocious when you're a teenager but once you hit your mid-twenties and have to become a MAN, then it becomes annoying. Me and E-girl joked that when I reach my early twenties and have to become a WOMAN, then I will suddenly wake up one morning introspective and reserved like C-boy. We'll see about that.

Anyways, I had a great time Texas with all three of them and as they won't accept cash, I wrote this paean to thank them.

My Brother: Ying, Yang and Some Other Stuff

My brother has a thirst for obscure knowledge that is thoroughly unAfrican. He knows why Cleopatra was incestuous, he knows where the dead sea scrolls were found, he knows why 1066 is significant to the English, in short, he loves useless facts.

It's strange because my brother also works in a place where money is mystically doubled and trebled. There, he is all facts and stocks and bonds and APRs and ARMs and LEGs and money lingo. Every time I see him over an extended period of time, I wonder how one so esoteric can be that practical?

Yet, despite my brother's stock of high cultural references and his very pragmatic job, he is also a big fan of video games and fantasy books. Whenever I see him carrying the latest copy of the Dragon Elves series or the newest FIFA soccer, again I wonder how all these people can be the same person.

From a writing perspective, it's useful to have characters like my brother in a book. These kind of characters don't shift the plot or drive you to your conclusion but they make the narrative more interesting. They have Ying Yang layers and oddities that one can slowly unpeel and examine and ask why and come up with concrete reasons or no reason other than just because.

So to add a little flavour to my writing, I reach for the Y.Y.A.S.O.S characters.

Is it just me or is that acronym never going to catch on...

My Cousin N

My cousin N is a doctor and a mother and a wife and an Msc and my cousin as I have already mentioned. When I grew up with N, she was only a medical student and my cousin, the other titles were still far in the future.

I remember the day N came. According to her I threw all the clothes out of her box, according to me I helped fold her clothes and put them neatly in a wardrobe. That's the thing about History. It's open to debate.

One thing that was undebatable was that N was an egg when she arrived. She was a yellow that turned an easy red whenever she smiled, whenever she cried, whenever she stayed in the kitchen for too long. Her voice was soft, her hands were soft and she was the only girl in her family.

If you had asked me to write a list of strong people when I was younger, I don't think my cousin N would have made it. Strength was not the yolk colour that is so prized in Nigeria, strength had a more booming voice and strength, never, ever cried.

Now N runs a house, has pushed out a kid, is jointly raising him, and somehow, she's still found time to move to England from Nigeria, get over the shock, get a Masters, get a job, maintain her much prized complexion and above all maintain a strong relationship with God.

N still turns red easily and she still has soft hands but I don't think she's an egg anymore... most of the time :)

Volatile

As I write this, A is crying again. Children are strange like that. One minute their mouth is an open sob, the next their lips stretch into a smile that never materealises because the tears are falling once more.

Yesterday A's mother announced, "Bed time," and immediately, he began to wail.
"Mummy I want to finish watching this."
"Mummy please let me."
"Mummy!!!!!!!"

Of course she was having none of it and she swung him up from the floor. Of course, he was having none of it and he began to wail in earnest. Louder, louder and louder so she blew a fart on his tummy to make him laugh. He laughed. She ran out of breath and he cried. She inhaled and blew again, squelching air onto his skin. He laughed. She needed oxygen and he cried. And all this while she was carrying him up the stairs, a squirming bundle of laughter and tears. It was wonderful to watch.

I find it very useful to have volatile characters like A in my fiction . The kind that enter a room calm and leave livid, floating from happy to sad to angry in a paragraph, free radicals that swirl the characters around them into action, pushing, prodding, exploding the plot along. Every time I get stuck in a story, after all my funny, staid, complex characters have pushed the narrative as far as they can and are glued in a rut, I introduce a Mr. or Mrs. Volatile or I morph a character into one. Perhaps it's lazy writing but it helps me get my story where I need it to go.

As I write this, A is sitting on his father's tummy and laughing his strange, yacking laugh. He's happy, all his teeth are on display but if you look at his eyes properly, you'll see some tears still floating for the next time he needs them.

"Bed time", his mother says.
Maybe he'll be using them soon.