Kanda

A young chap was gracious enough to take this picture 

One of my favourite quotes is “Never take life too seriously because you can never get out of it alive”. When I do certain things, I know that it is because life can never be taken too seriously. A lot of things do not mean anything to me and it is not because those things are not important to other people.

One of such is make-up, anytime I wear it especially the eye make-up, my eyes begin to itch and sometimes I forget that I have make-up and smudge my face before I get to my destination. 

I can almost go anywhere with my oily face and a smile. Life is not meant to be hard, to someone it may be therapeutic to wear make-up but to me it’s hard work. Any time you see my face all made up, please just give me a pat on the back and say “well done” because it took me a whole lot. 

A senior friend often told me that I was the only lady she knew who would leave her home without make-up and whenever we had an event to attend together my sister Kerus would call me on the phone to plead with me to at least use a lipstick.

I will never understand why someone will hear a good danceable song playing and not boogie, I dance at any given opportunity; as long as it sounds like music, I will dance to it then when it is gospel, I get into a different realm that I myself do not understand. I bend down and roll you know what.lol. (But why do women dance with only the backside?) Then I move forward and backward and forward again, all the while smiling like I had just won the lottery; when I dance, nothing else matters.

I will do anything for a good laugh, the type that makes you cry and that is why I love passionately anyone who makes me laugh or laughs with me.

When I see people fight I laugh, when someone falls, I laugh before finding out how bad the fall is. And this mischievous rule applies to me as well; I remember walking down the stairs in an office where I worked, I was with a colleague of mine and we chatted as we descended the staircase. 

At some point, the heel of my shoe hooked on to my shoe strap that I had been warned several times that same day to strap on well and before anyone could say anything; I was face down on the floor even though I still had like three more stairs to descend. I basically flew three steps to the floor.

I burst into laughter when I saw the epic look of shock on my colleague’s face. I managed to get up from the floor and we continued on our journey to the church for Midday Mass. We laughed all the way with tears flowing freely from our eyes. 

I cry when someone cries in a movie but not when a witch cries while confessing to the evil she had done to people and I also cry when the next person cries. I feel no shame whatsoever about crying but I hate it when people hurt me by their actions and make me cry.

It was my fourth pregnancy and going to be my fifth child but four months into it, I had the strangest feeling ever; I didn’t feel pregnant anymore and I complained to my doctor who checked me out and dismissed my fears as paranoia.

A week after, I still felt the same way but this time with symptoms of malaria and I did the wisest thing I have ever done till date; I called another doctor and told him about the same fears I had. This former doctor of mine checked me out and could immediately tell that I had been carrying around a dead foetus for weeks!

He was worried about the damage it could have caused in me, the infections and all.

My journey to getting out of my body a foetus that had been dead for over three weeks is a story I will tell in another post.

After three scary days, the evacuation was done and I was free from any life threatening infections and well enough to go home.

There’s no price for guessing that the death of my unborn child was caused by the funny fall I had a month before. It could have been fatal but God decided to look with favour on his unserious daughter.

Buying boli (roasted plantain) on the road is completely normal to me and it is something I may never stop doing even when I become the first Minister of Happiness in Nigeria. The only difference could be that my detailed security men will stand with their guns and prevent any other boli eater from buying boli till their madam is done. This is our reality in present Nigeria.

As I drove past a local mini food market today I saw an old woman roasting yam in a corner, I suddenly remembered that I had not eaten the whole day and it was past three o’ clock in the afternoon. I parked my car, got down and went straight to her stall for some good old roasted yam. 

I saw an old time friend and when I told her that I would sit right there to eat my food she couldn’t hide her surprise.

Next, I had a mild fight with a local who took one of the nice slices of yams that I had picked, she later offered me her plate and we became friends. We both sat on two different benches and enjoyed our local delicacy of roasted yam soaked in native red oil sauce and garnished with green vegetables and onions with kanda on the go. Kanda is the processed skin of cow which is also called pomo. a.k.a the poor man’s meat.

Did I mention that I ate with my fingers? I’d rather not think about what anyone would think or say of my short adventure. However, when I think of my friends Chin and Nata and how they would react to my escapade today, a mischievous smile comes up on my face. 

Life is really meant to be simple!