My name is Kunle Omope. Let me tell you a story…
As a child, Christmas was like the season when God threw a
party for kids. We would wear our colourful clothes, some of them oversized as
the family tailor’s insurance for the rude surprises that came with rapidly
growing children. We would blow bangers with reckless abandon and go from house
to house greeting, “happy Christmas”. What we got in each of these visits was
the same: rice and chicken; Fanta, Coke, Limca, Goldspot and Tandi Gurana. But
we also got monetary gifts from our hosts.
So we would walk around with coins jingling in our pockets.
With our full bellies, our sugar tooth will now prompt our brains for some
sugar rush craving. And na so e go start.
First we would buy “ekana Gowon”, that cone shaped locally
made candy with a short broomstick at the base to hold it while we licked and
chewed the hard but extremely sweet caramel. After that, we would go in search
of “Balewa”, another form of sugar, which is chalk like smooth stones and comes
in a variety of bright colours. “Balewa” would leave our tongues coloured and
our teeth looking like tie and dye Kampala.
Next, “Eyin alangba” will follow. Eyin Alangba was yet
another cleverly crafted candy that had a single groundnut inside it. We’ll
suck on the candy till we got to the groundnut…our reward for such sweet
labour.
“Baba Dudu” was not exempted, and this one is a black nylon
wrapped candy that came in strings. It was usually flavoured with coconut.
In the evening after our bodies and bellies have been heated
up with tons of sugar boiling in our systems, we’ll cool it off with “Condense”,
which was simply a frozen solution of Balewa dissolved in water. So, you see
that we have looked back from common sense and in the process have become
pillars of sugar.
At night when we slept, we twisted and turned in our beds,
clutching our tummies even as loud snores escaped our sticky lips. It was clear
that in the morning, our stomachs would ache and our anuses would run. There
was no doubt that we were going to queue at the toilet door and plead with
whoever was inside to “do quick before I shit for body o!” But our saviour was
on the way. Our tormentor just knocked at the door.
Welcome to the bitter experience.
Grandma visited on Boxing Day and saw that her grandchildren
were in great discomfort, but she had come prepared.
That is how grandma brought out this large bottle containing
some black concoction, with pieces of tree barks, strange looking leaves and
the great mouth squeezer-Kafura pelebe”, all swimming inside it..
One by one we were lined up. One after the other, grandma
gave each one of us a cupful of the extremely bitter agbo jeedi. As we
struggled to swallow, our throats refused to cooperate, but every time we
attempted to throw up, we caught the stern and vindictive look in our mums’
eyes. As if that was not scary enough, the kpankere in our Dads’ hands with an
expression that said, “if dem born you well, vomit that agbo”.
The love in grandma’s face could not change the bitter
experience. So after contemplating between swallowing and being free or
vomiting and getting flogged, we shut our eyes tight and forced down the
medicine into our sugar-poisoned stomach.
The worst part was that every time we belched; we re-lived
the bitter experience all over again.
The End.
No comments:
Post a Comment