Rearview October: Six birthdays, one wedding, two funerals

The past is weighted

There is a lot I thought I would get done in October but really got to do, whether to hit milestones, celebrate something, or achieve certain goals that seemed out of grasp for a while.

As men, we are inadvertently governed by time and seasons, the measurements and the agreements we have towards such parameters of time which could be by solar and lunar observation or the lunacy that appears in the broad expanse of life experiences is almost a beguilement of existence; we take each day as it comes and live each day to make some history.

For days, I have wondered about the month of October in my family, which is now in the past, but has accumulated dates of significance which just used to be birthdays, then a wedding, and now we have had two deaths, of which occurred just four days after their birthday is the prime of their life.

Everyone is a celebration of how they lived and the way they have touched us, more for good than bad. I suppose when I think about it, someone’s villain is another’s hero, I hope that I see more of the latter always and rarely if ever of the former. The inadvertent villain is at times probably the one who thinks of themselves as the hero and the saint; that brings us to November, and it is already the second day.

Blessed be the day we were born and the days in which we live to think of the goodness and the good people that surround us. Shalom!

Love handles stories with ease

Let’s do love simply

I have ambition, much of it that I want to achieve, yet, even as the Fairy Tales lyrics of Anita Baker become part of my meditation as I walked the treadmill, it was another song playing on my mobile phone and so I was saddened with reality stepping into view. The lady who sang Lead Me Into Love and danced to the Rhythm of Love expecting marital bliss of a future she dreamt of the Men In My Life was sadly with the Wrong Man. [The links are YouTube videos of Anita Baker]

Still, dreams must not die in the story of another, for earlier I read on Twitter of a lavish wedding that presaged a rotten marriage within a year, then the turnaround with another that brought a beautiful marriage beyond an ordinary wedding, from which I got the inspiration for a tweet that spoke my heart and mind.

You know what @Brian07j, we are getting married, we don't need a lavish ceremony, though, if it happens, I am not against it.

What matters the most is our hearts, our love and the future we want to have together, our wedding is a moment, our marriage is a lifetime. I ♥️ U. pic.twitter.com/8wsEITqSnA

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ 🏳️‍🌈 #European (@forakin) July 30, 2020

Easy as I go

Even so, my mind was beginning to play games with me, being alone in the gym, my hairs were beginning to stand on end for no reason at all. My racing heart knocking on the expected heart rate, I began to rationalise before overdrive made it unbearable and soon even with the incline, my heart rate was coming down.

Back to ambition, the mirror ahead was reflecting the majesty of my love handles looking for a stage to perform a slovenly catwalk, I know eventually it would be Sayonara to them, traipse on the treadmill for as long as you want we are on to goodbye eventually.

Rebecca-Louise was back on form today, I did much more than yesterday, and let’s not go into any more detail. Soon, my 50 minutes were up, a good workout, I am not training for the Olympics, I am just doing fine.

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Dublin: A Wedding Speech

An uncle of the day

When I was invited for a wedding in Dublin, I thought it was great honour to be considered. From a friendship and moral support perspective, at best, I thought I’ll be an ordinary uncle amongst many of the day. That for me for significant enough.

However, you can only imagine my shock when I received an email that I had been selected as one of two to make a speech no longer than 5 minutes and without religious exhortation since it was a civic ceremony.

I write and rarely speak

Now, I write blogs, it is quite due to my presumed inadequacies that I rarely write for other forums, at least I have not done that for a well over a year. I am quite comfortable with my blog, what I write, in my own space and without having to voice it.

I probably can count the number of times I have spoken into a microphone and in all those times, my voice quavered as I hoped to finish what I had to say before I lost my voice to nervousness.

Yet, I have been called to give impromptu speeches or even stand in front of congregations to talk and as long it was just my voice, it carried loud enough to the hearing of those present, but has not been something I have so desired to do with much enthusiasm.

The madness of inspiration

Back to the speech, I could not think of what to write as each day passed with all sorts of quotes and stories appearing in my usual reading that derives from news stories, Twitter and other media.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday night, the ceremony being on Friday, I decided to go for the madness of inspiration angle. The one where I have a thought in mind and I just begin to tap at the keyboard. I have written before that when I type I can be like a person possessed, the thoughts almost un-thought, the words never before strung together like that to my reading, something materialises.

Long enough, short enough

The theme I chose was the strength of communication and need to work together at making a marriage work and after my first draft, what was needed was some refinement of parts to make it easy to understand in a speechmaking setting, something I have no particular experience of.

I read it first to my flatmate, it was just 2 minutes 45 seconds long, he timed it and he liked it, but as I read it, I made some corrections. I have found that reading a piece out loud is a good way of proofreading a write-up; if it does not flow or sound right, it needs to be edited.

The same principle applies, as I do with my blogs, it should wear like a good skirt; long enough to cover the detail and short enough to keep the interest.

Reviews

Then I sent it to my best friend who thought the Shakespearean quotes I used were a bit Old English for my intended audience, though I thought otherwise. However, rather than modernising the language, I tried to explain the context better because I was playing with quotes and the names of the plays and to my mind I thought that was good.

The final edition and there were only three was sent to my colleague at work and that inadvertently caused him to suggest I might have to give a speech at his nuptials – surely, I am not that good. In any case, he liked it.

The speech was tested across three radically different cultural perspectives and the feedback suggested it was nice, that gave me some confidence.

Giving the speech

I have never fancied myself a poet, so I don’t attempt such theatrics, recitations are difficult because that means you have to commit the piece to memory, jokes were completely out of the question, I am enough of a clown that I could not afford to make a complete fool of myself, in front of strangers.

That did not leave me out of ideas, the speech just filled an A4 paper size but I decided to read it from a blown-up A3 paper size. The gag being as I talked about being asked to make a short speech, I would unfold the sheet until I had this unusually big sheet of paper in my hands and wait for a reaction.

The registrar was concerned that we did not have all day, but it was effective and though I stumbled through a few paragraphs, I seemed to come across well enough that some even remembered parts of my speech that were not particular quotes of others.

I do not think this is the advent of a speechwriting career, but for the occasion, I hope the words would matter to those to whom it mattered and that they helped to make a lovely day too.

Dublin: A Wedding Invitation

An invitation

Almost two months ago I was intimated with the plans for a wedding and at the same time invited. I accepted the invitation, noting the date and kept it at the back of my mind.

Then a month ago, we had another conversation where I got a better idea of the plans and at that time I decided to book both my flight and hotel as we were chatting.

Now, I have to be quite attentive to my booking regime because I cannot count the number of times I have had a hotel and flight booking mismatch or just got my return dates wrong because of the way calendar months are presented when booking.

At times, I’ll spend extra to have the option to review, reschedule, rebook or cancel, and that came in handy for when I booked my hotel.

Irelands

I have never been to Ireland, in fact, I have never been to any of the Irelands, those being Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

However, I do remember when I was about to be sent to solve a problem in Belfast in the 1990s and I just refused to go. The office was above a police station and this was during the troubles.

I said to them, there are places where being in close proximity to a police station would present a sense of safety, but I was not going to risk that in Belfast. No sooner had I refused to travel to Belfast did I experience the IRA bombing in Manchester where not even 10 yards from where I stood, shards of glass fell on a man. Those were crazy times.

Last year when I was working in North Wales, I could have taken the opportunity to travel from Holyhead to Dublin by ferry, I considered it many times but never found time to plan it. Dublin, here I come.

Eerie bookings

I booked my hotel, it looked like a bargain; in the centre of town and easy to get around until I had another look at the map and saw it backed unto a garden of remembrance.

Memorials are great and I celebrate them, but I know how my imagination can run away with such vividness that I could begin to see things. There are some things I do not want to see either by error or by commission; that realisation had me cancelling that booking almost before the confirmation email settled in my email inbox. Good thing I chose the cancellation option.

Besides, I need to follow my deepest premonitions more, because there have been times when something has suggested I take a particular action that later on I regret I have not done. Yet, I cannot beat myself up, I just hope that next time I am more sensitive.

Listlessly wireless

My usual booking site did not present any betters deals for the weekend I wanted to visit Dublin, so I tried LateRooms and that came up with a really good deal, I stayed at Wynn’s Hotel for 3 nights, the staff were friendly, the room was good, though the complimentary wireless internet service almost left me wanting to do the unconventional.

In the end, it was 3 nights in Dublin, but I must return because I did not get to see much of this amazing city which at only time in its history was second only to London in the British Isles.

Flight from fright

There are two airlines I would not board if they were the last escape from a dying earth, EasyJet and RyanAir, they have both for the no-frills and cheap flights they offer to places that would never appear on a decent map of civilisation taken the fun out of flying and in the process dragged everyone else down with them.

Gone are the days when not even 20 years ago you got a decent silver service for an hour’s flight in economy class. Now, one just makes do with a drink and sometimes you have to pay for that drink.

I’ll rather have stop-overs than take a direct flight, thankfully, Aer Lingus flies direct to Dublin from Manchester, though when I departed on Thursday evening, my flight lingered in late and left 45 minutes behind schedule.

The service was good enough and as I await boarding for my return to Manchester, the experience has been fun.

Nigeria: Some Truths About The Bride Price App

Love abroad

A good friend of mine started a long-distance relationship between Europe and Africa where they for over a year communicated over the phone, via email and many other means professing love for each other.

I was wary, simply because my friend had spent more than half his life in Europe; fundamentally there was no cultural affinity between them apart from a geographical space. Outlooks had changed due to his integration into another culture, community and society, but who knows?

When it appeared things might not work out, I thought he had invested too much in that relationship that the least he could do was go and meet with the family of his love interest and make up his mind after that.

Checking in

We went shopping for gifts and all sorts of arrangements for an introduction and he travelled over to meet the family. When he met the father, they appreciated his interest, took the gifts without as much as a thank you and then gave his companion a printed wedding list that read like greed of the world in objects and payments that baffled the mind.

There was nothing I could do but seek the wisdom of my mother, she sounded a very cautionary tone, to the effect that there was nothing in that relationship than an opportunity to milk and bilk my friend, in the end he cut his losses and ran – the event was scripted in 6 blogs that I titled, “Opening the mouth of the Father.”

Breaking the bank

The wedding list had that one item that caught my eye amongst that many other ridiculous things that I distributed in a narrative of derision and incredulity. My friend at the wedding ceremony would only be able to get the father of the bride to speak by shelling out 50,000 Naira, whilst the whole list came to over half a million Naira and that did not include the cost of the wedding ceremony and the bride price.

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father – Part 1

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father – Part 2

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father – Part 3

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father – Part 4

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father – Part 5

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father – Part 6

The Bride Price App

Which brings me to the topic of the Bride Price, because yesterday I came upon a web-based application that claimed to calculate the Bride Price of a prospective wife based on a number of attributes, achievements, looks, diction and status of the lady.

Bride Price Calculator

When I first clicked through the application, I commented on Twitter that it spoke to the ridiculousness of the things we place value on.

However, as people discussed the issue, it got to a point where there was a broad spectrum from views from the misogynist, sexist and objectification of women through to risible levity maintaining no seriousness to it apart from jocularity and laughter.

A friend then engaged me in private conversation on Twitter about the Bride Price Calculator and then persuaded me to consider putting my thoughts in a blog. Which started as the following Direct Messages on Twitter.

My views

Asking about my views on the Bride Price App, he said, “I've seen it being misrepresented as sexist and objectifying women. Be honest, is this true?”

I answered back as follows:

“There are many angles to this, looking at it with Western eyes it is sexist and objectifying women, however, not in Nigerian eyes.”

The point I am making here is the danger of conflating different cultures and then using an unrefined standard to assess another culture without first accepting there is an issue to be properly reviewed before making comparisons.

“The fact is the bride price is an unscripted reality in Nigeria that borders on greed and the ridiculous.” As evinced by my introduction to this blog.

The Bride Price App simply put online what in many cases people think when giving away their daughters and the cultural construct that feeds into making those demands without second thoughts. To see the bride price so illustrated in almost an atrociously vulgar manner was upsetting but not divorced from Nigerian reality.

“We must have an honest discussion as to how the cost of marriage harms the institution of marriage in the name of tradition.”

The question is what really determines the bride price traditionally and how have things changed to accommodate not only modernity, but the need to keep up with the Joneses and attempt to outdo others?

“However, many of these traditions have no cultural significance they are new fads of hedonism and ostentation.”

This feeds into the previous comment, we have to ask whether paying up for the bride and the wedding is of greater significance or giving the newly married a firmer foundation on which to build their marriage

“The Bride Price App is a mirror on ridiculous female statuses we use to place value on women is as marketplace objects bought for marriage.”

If we are to be honest with ourselves, a number of the options in that App have informed how the bride price is determined and what kind of wedding is planned for.

Unintended consequences

The dilemma of the bride price is summed up in Part 2 of Opening the mouth of the father, “It appeared I was to be sold a woman for a slave rather than being given a lady for a bride.”

The unintended consequence of a high bride price makes the pain of cost dampen the required utility of love in a marriage, a certain threshold can be breached where cost begins to determine ownership when love should mature partnership – I would not even delve into what might result from the former.

Critically, we must have an open honest discussion on the issue of the bride price, the wedding and most importantly the marriage, the first two are easy, usually a question of means; marriage requires work, patience, love, perseverance and with it would come joy, pain, happiness, sadness, togetherness, distance and whilst many would be at the wedding, only two can really be in a marriage.

You make it work or make it fail, hopefully not because of the cost of the bride price or the ostentation of the wedding, if you want the marriage, you probably can make it work against all odds. The Queen celebrated her diamond wedding anniversary on the 20^th of November 2007.

Nuptials in Raguhn

A journey to Raguhn

To the countryside of East-Germany just about 150 kilometres from Berlin to the South was the event for the day yesterday. Borne from the significance of blogging a friendship has developed for the good, in my view.

Raguhn is almost a non-descript town, if not village in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt and its Category 6 station was not open for rail traffic for 3 weeks of July and that meant looking for alternative means of getting there.

A train to Bitterfeld passing through Lutherstadt-Wittenberg – sounds familiar, that was the city where the Christian reformation movement started almost 500 years ago by Martin Luther, worth a visit on my next sojourn to Berlin, I would think - and then a 40-minute bus-ride.

Buses for trains

At Bitterfeld I met other fellow travellers to the wedding, one of whom was uncannily from Amsterdam and hardly a kilometre from where I live who flew in on the same flight from Amsterdam and was flying back on the same scheduled flight – one would have thought the bridegroom would have been mindful of what was more than a mere coincidence.

Unfortunately, when we got to Raguhn my mobilephone-based Google Maps failed to bring up any maps, that is becoming an issue and needs resolution, I have been to a few places with the hope that my mobile GPS would be of help, only to be disappointed.

Thankfully, my co-travellers had printed out the directions and one of whom was a doctoral student of architecture and well, his map-reading skills were evidently not leading us in the right direction until we got some help from a local gardener.

It is the countryside

When we retraced our steps, we needed to cross the railway line that was being upgraded, a sign was put up stopping pedestrians from crossing at that point but there was no pavement or sidewalk (American English) for us to ply – I felt that was dangerous but the rule-bound and recently liberated from Easterm German Communism workmen could not see the sense of our hop-scotch over the railway lines when we could be run over by vehicles that definitely had all right of way.

In the end, a bus came by, drove us up the temporarily abandoned Raguhn Station giving us the safety of a present pavement but no shorter distance to walk, disillusionment was about to set in with the all too familiar countryside fragrance of cattle dung.

We finally found the location, a road badly in need of serious upkeep, with potholes and undulations that could cripple the able if not careful and there we were a large expanse of land, more of a park than a garden, with a tennis court, swimming pool, a number of out-houses, sheds and more.

The ceremony begins

The countryside ideas of the bijoux gave way to the concept of space and lots of it, only if the wind would put on the brakes and the weather would move on for some sun to shine.

The introductions were numerous, relations, families, friends, acquaintances and more, I probably was the only one with the toddler daughter of the couple who hadn’t commenced a PhD programme – it was full of doctors but probably none that could administer basic first-aid services.

The couple then came out dressed in traditional Nigerian dress, the bride with a professional tied headwrap called gele in Yoruba and the ceremony or party began – no fuss or outrageous ostentation beyond sense of typical Nigerian parties but a sensible and well-organised series of events centred around food and entertainment.

Joy of parents expressed

There was a lot of that, the father of the bride, an accomplished choir master and violin virtuoso performed with a small orchestra a number of popular classical pieces and we started off with drinks and cakes.

The mother of the bride lead a few folk dances that were as entertaining as they were almost clownish too and then we had a Powerpoint presentation that gave us a story about the couple, their forebears and the expectations for the future.

A barbecue with more entertainment closed the evening with music from a university band and discussions between the bride’s mother and the groom’s aunts through an interpreter – interesting questions, more interesting answers and well multi-cultural unions are just things opportunities for a wonderful learning experience between the relations of the couple.

Wishes and departures

We were given helium-filled balloons and cards on which to write wishes for the newly married couple, the views varied between the stridently religious and the generally pragmatic but in all most balloons lifted off with the best of wishes and goodwill from all.

The quest to return to Berlin began with wondering how and where to get a bus for the connection to Dessau, a stopover and a journey set to last almost 3 hours. Eventually, a family offered me a lift to the West of Berlin, Spandau, it was then that I realised how far out of Berlin we were.

I got back to my hotel by 23:30 hours, that was just about the time I would have had to catch a train from Dessau for a 2 hour journey to Berlin – a wonderful, pleasant and beautiful day out and my very best wishes for a long life together of happiness, joy, love, health, wealth and prosperity for the couple and all their children, starting with the first.

Raguhn? Well, I know where it is now.

Opening the mouth of the father - Part 4

With Christmas cheer, I publish Part 4 early.

The third part of this series Opening the mouth of the Father – Part 3

The opening gambit

Like a surrealist drama the wedding list was coming alive with a reality that was about to hit us in the face like a flipping wet tilapia, we were about to be slapped from side to side as if we were in some repetitive motion of turning the other cheek in perpetuity, our pockets had better be deep and be deep enough.

So, we opened the ceremonial table with 20,000 smackers but for the seriousness of the situation at hand; I am getting married, I might well have picked a fight with the chap who took occasion to literally make jokes of the events – I would have liked to be where I could laugh rather than be on the verge of tears.

For all it was worth, I was going to enjoy it as well as I was going to remember it for what it stood for, for all the participants in this bizarre ceremony called a traditional welding ceremony – welded, I meant that, indeed.

Hail to the chief

These settings need a chief to bless the occasion, some moneybag who had earned respectability in the community not so much for duty and stature but for the accumulation of filthy lucre from whatever source that was of no concern to the people who pay tribute and give their untrammeled obeisance.

So, to get this nondescript high chief to the high table a Chief’s Table fee was required, I needed the tough negotiations of the IMF with the persuasion of a Ponzi scheme purveyor on my team like I needed the next breath of air, my people drew skill and inspiration from places beyond our realms of everyday life.

At 25,000 tilapia slaps, the chief deigned to dance to the table with the dignity and grace of the big man who has come to town, the ceremony was beginning to get into gear.

A mute father and mother

Speeches need to be made at these meetings and apart from the MC whose verbal diarrhea was about to be as infectiously painful and debilitating to the extreme, the parents would have a few words about their daughter, not too much would come from mine in those proceedings, as I soon figured.

They called it, Opening the Father’s mouth, and soon after was the Opening of the Mother’s mouth, the smart quip thought about using birth forceps or calipers with the help of jacks and spanners to open the mouth of big daddy and better still, a parental kiss might just be killing two birds with one stone – they would not have it – each negotiation had to be thoroughly exhausted, the intermissions taken up by different kinds of bought entertainment.

Father remained mute until we had received 20,000 tilapia slaps and mother came not too far behind on 18,000 wets, since we fish by the dragnet and harvest by the earthquake shaking of the trees to split their fruit, someone must have assumed we had come by money so easily that we spend better than the gushing of oil from the troubled Delta region.

Some elders for hire

However, the chief and parents were not happy to sit at the table by themselves, the Family elders had to take their places at the table because the precious daughter was about to leave for the home of her most auspicious lover – auspicious should read love struck beyond reason.

A number came forward, about 6 or so and only on the persuasion of 19,600, they probably had other weddings to attend, we needed to make it worth their while being there for the purpose of, well, filling their pockets – our quip who was on the verge of having a knuckle driven at him without regret swore those “hell-ders” were rented – the danger of marrying out of your community means you do not know who is for real. This was no day for Miss Marple and her sharp intellect.

My people were introduced without too much of ceremony, thankfully, we did not have to pay to approach the table, they sat comfortably, maybe a bit uneasily too.

A compound rent it was

Maybe there was some sense in the Family and Compound Women fee, they helped in every way to arrange things, food, decorations and much more, a gratitude fee in the ceremony – no hard feelings; the compound element must have come from the fact that my prospective in-laws were tenants in a multi-tenancy compound, it did not hurt that much when it topped out at 19,000.

The incredulity of the Family and Compound youths however left one utterly exasperated, our quip suggested we were also paying the riff-raff to keep them from misbehaving – it was a stretch to our understanding of traditions but opportunities had been opened for everything including the kitchen sink.

A sibling triviality

They were pacified with the unkindly whack of 17,000, everyone was going to benefit from the marriage of this amazing daughter of the compound it seemed because we parted with another 15,000 smackers for the First son who happened to be 15 and this was apart from lining the pockets of the toddler Brother and Sister with 14,500.

By this time, there was no point having a calculator, our reserves just had to be inexhaustible, we seemed to be up to the challenge at each call but none of it was looking funny at all.

When before, it had been suggested that this relationship had legs, it did have legs but the legs were really for us to run, but we were so deep in it now, we had to see it to the end – nothing else could faze us as the ceremony progressed.

Pension arrangements in the playground

We had to cater for the Father’s Age grade and the Mother’s Age grade as if these people had sworn to each other as kids that when their children were to get married their pensions will be supplemented by the proceeds from the daughters’ marriages and the matter of the dowry was yet to come to the table – it was going to be interesting after all this.

They respectively won that jackpot with a pot of 26,000 and 15,500, it would seem the women get sold in marriages and still get the little end of the compensations that come at the ceremonies.

Why did we not find the literary tome on the marriage practices of the Andoni and just give this a completely wide berth – but as we were resolute, love conquers all, it would conquer this and leave us somewhere – a place difficult to imagine as one weathers this maelstrom of the certainly certifiable.

The Mother’s Labs left us flummoxed, nobody bothered to ask where the test tubes and cultures were, we flush away our doubts with a cool 15,500 and all our cards were now on the table and everyone ready to show hands.

Knock down the door, gently

The ceremony was in full swing in asking the hand of our beauty, our beloved, our prospective wife and partner who through this ceremony was fast becoming converted into a purchase, a possession with a ranking that could legally make her a slave but love, only love conquers all – we would live through this and tell the stories with great laughter and jollity at subsequent family reunions – this ceremony would return to the family in about 20 years – the parents were made for a great fortune through the giving away of their daughters, barring changes to this custom or tradition.

When the time to came to bring the bride out of the confines of the family home to be joined to her bridegroom we had come to the epoch of the ceremony, it would reach an unprecedented crescendo that would make the faint-hearted faint – someone had better have the smelling salts handy.

It was called Knocking on the family door – this would present a number of decoys before we have the real deal, our lady of the day, the joy of our bosom and the one to whom the whispers would mean the whole world.

You cannot imagine the number that opened that family door.

To be continued …

Opening the mouth of the father - Part 2

The first part of this series of Opening the mouth of the father – Part 1

Bells, phones and rings

Did I say maybe the pealing of bells? The colloquial for calling by phone is bell me as opposed to ring me, the bell rarely tolls, it rings and does it cost a bomb?

But what love can separate you from the sound of your beauty that you have seen in glorious pictures of native attire, each time I look at the pictures; my heart skips a beat or two; Oh! my beloved as I smooch kiss after kiss into the photographic paper.

Every waking moment, I am on the phone making arrangements far ahead of the realities that try to pull me back, my head is too logical for my heart that is drawn to the dawning of the bliss of the fairy tale that ends in happily ever after – does anyone really believe that stuff anymore?

Seeing is the clincher

Meanwhile, I had been introduced to mama, brother, sister and any other sibling or relation in sight, no doubt the presents on my first visit should account for these acquaintances who might become prospective in-laws.

Father is playing too big to be involved in flirtations even though now he has realised there is an affair on the line with daughter continually engaged in sometimes giggly or overly serious conversation – I find that I am setting the tempo of everything, nothing of initiative comes from her, my doubts trouble me deeply, but my friend says different.

In the West, sound is as good as sight in conversation and communication, but back home speaking is sight and sound, this makes for a good meeting and the assurance of trust.

Having come so far in conversation, one must see, feel, touch this jewel of the South before one invests or divests, this is a journey I must make into the unknown for the dream of life untold.

My beloved is mine indeed

All sorts of preparations were made as moneys were sent to meet all sorts of eventualities, exasperation at the lack initiative almost ruined all, but my friend asked that I keep the faith until we met.

My trip to Nigeria was to consolidate the prospect of a life companion, the end of a search for something good, unspoilt and naively verdant.

We first met in a big city, her family is from Harcourt’s Harbours, and did I think, could this be love or was it overtaken by urges beyond the control of the parties?

Plans were apace to meet the family as she returned home having once missed her flight because we succumbed to the lackadaisical attention to time-keeping that our countrymen love to revel in without an iota of concerned responsibility or sense of necessity. It was as inconvenient as it was annoying.

Off to Harcourt’s Haven

I feel ill or maybe love-sick but my body was weakened that the meetings were postponed for my body to gain strength, when it appeared I was well enough, new arrangements were made to meet the family, hope and trepidation, mixed-feelings and expectations – am I on the cusp of a dream?

The journey was so nerve-racking as one had not fully recovered from a bout of malaria, but duties need be performed if one were to be a reliable husband soon, well, no one expects a reliable husband in these parts, they expect a responsible husband, one ready to shoulder responsibilities till bilked – cynicism depart, optimism come forth and I shall be the best gentleman about to be bridegroom – I am excited – somebody cool me down.

The father presides

When we got to the typically unimpressive residence, I was crestfallen, I had seen a man earlier that day who I almost despised, and I restrained myself for once from comment, that man was eventually significant to all proceedings – it was the father.

We entered the residence or rather room in a tenement where a curtain of the proportions of Solomon’s temple separated the living room from the bed chamber, it was not worth thinking how a family could comfortably live in these quarters but live they did – I am here for the bride, let’s talk man-to-man with the father.

Gifts were offered and those were moved into the inner sanctum with such speed as if giving with my right hand could be so quickly rescinded with my left hand – a word of thanks and gratitude could have helped but reality was to dawn soon that this was the facade of a merciless marketplace bargain where the buyer would pay up and still end up cutting his losses without the goods.

The deal is in the list

This was a mission of fledgling love as one tried to explain but the mind of the patriarch was centred on the opportunity for filthy lucre, I was to be lassoed in by the bride and the desire for the bride.

After the meeting, my escort had been surreptitiously been given the list, a six part list of items that fulfilled part of what might end with happily ever after.

The wedding list was to prepare us for the wedding ceremony, I surveyed the list as I touched my bride, I argued with myself, it appeared I was to be sold a woman for a slave rather than being given a lady for a bride – love conquers all, my love for her must not wane but will we hear, “You can now kiss the bride” at the end of the nuptials?

To be continued...

Opening the mouth of the father - Part 1

Maybe just maybe

Maybe just maybe, it was a recommendation from big brother, a nice girl who would make a beautiful wife, I know her family well.

Maybe indeed big brother is unto something that would redeem the unbrotherliness of time past, fingers crossed and all boxes about to be crossed too.

My friend said at first, you cannot have similarities, having spent more than half your life in Europe, the idea that you are of similar cultures is just out of the question, you change and adapt when you live elsewhere, the pretensions to keeping abreast of developments at home in terms of culture is delusional at best.

Are we like them too?

Beyond that, we would probably never get wives like the generation of our mothers whose forbearance in the midst of untenable circumstance can only be considered legendary, they in some cases served their husbands like slaves and were under the stress and constant threat of the other woman, real or imagined.

The generation of our fathers cannot be said to have been the most gentlemanly in terms of the way they sometimes wielded power in their fiefdoms.

Partnerships of today call for cooperation rather than unquestioned submission; there has to be adjustments on all sides. The subjugation of the wife to the point that she cannot be self-reliant because of the egotistical demeanour of the husband would put the marriage in the divorce courts long before the bridegroom has been opportuned to kiss the bride.

Many long distance calls

The groundwork had been set for the beginning of a wonderful partnership as each party tried to determine if the other was the person with whom vows intended and pretended could be made.

With numbers acquired, the affair began on the phone, a girl in university, irrationally scared of her father but seemingly interesting, for months, the expectations blossomed into possibilities with niggling doubts.

Maybe, just maybe the peeling of the bells will be heard soon.

To be continued...

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father - Part 1

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father - Part 2

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father - Part 3

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father - Part 4

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father - Part 5

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father - Part falls apart