No name for the book yet

Idiaraba Market:

Yucks, I hate this place when it rains. Especially because the futility of all of the struggle is made more prominent. Even now, there is no need to shout "buy o!" because the market is enveloped in stillness - mostly store owners use the opportunity to sleep. The splatter of dark grey mud is everywhere now and woe betide it if your ware falls to the ground, there'd probably be less to salvage of it and even less tendency to convince any customer that it is brand new. My mom was squatting in a store with a friend who attended the same church like we did. Aunty Evelyn was into wholesale/retail sale of flour and other baking ingredients and had made a huge sacrifice of displaying her wares on only about a third of her store. Well, i have to call it a store but in all honesty it stored nothing -at least not with any form of security. It was more a contraption of ill-fitted layers of wooden surfaces and lockers and tables with an obviously less-than-carefully thought out addition here and there-additions that came about out of necessity. Anyways, thanks to the graciousness of Aunty Evelyn, we had a third of this congestion to share. My mom, not only out of consideration but also because common sense demanded that she didn't compete with her benefactor was petty trading household essentials - matches, candles, soap and more soap, detergents, sugar and stuff like that. We had to pack most of the wares into a locker after the day's sale and lock it with 2 padlocks (for good measure) and also push the locker to the wall - padlocked side against the wall.

It was rainy season and so we didn't expect much from daily sales (much, on a good sunny day totals less than 1000 naira i.e after paying for security fees and ajo-thrift savings). Anyways, i'd soon head up home. Today is thursday so my mom had left earlier than usual to make dinner for my Dad before going for her Sacred Heart Meeting. So I was the boss of myself today. But first i need to eat (again). The food that calabar woman sells is so little but tasty - i hope she hasn't jazzed me o! "Ng, Mama calabar still de?". Ngozi is Aunty Evelyn's daughter and we are of the same age. A deceptively quiet-looking girl, Ngozi was as stubborn and opinionated as they come. I liked her enough and we got along quite well, making 'surprisingly' meaningful discourse in the market place in the plenty spare time we had in our hands. "Yes o!. You wan go buy rice again? No be you just chop finish now?" I smiled, "My dear, na the rain de make me hungry like this. Plus na bread i chop for morning" "Mama calabar, abeg sell rice 20 for me. And as per second time todaya you go put jara and fisi join o!". Madam Calabar hollered right back at me "Customer you no get problem. I go fisi well well, you sef go know say i do you well". Salivating I just kept my snide remark to myself - i knew she was giving me a better deal because her customer base had dwindled for the day.

I stayed on long enough to finish my meal - and stay a few long minutes to justify my feasting - before i started the dreary job of stowing away the goods we had left which in all honesty was more or less all we started off the day with. We may have had a little more stock if today was Tuesday or a little less if today was Monday. Tuesday was the day we usually planned a stock reeplenishment and Monday was market day for the Hausa/Fulani women who mostly patronized the market-Aunty Evelyn never ceased to coerce them into patronizing us, as our client-base was non existent. This usually caused a rift between her and her neighbour who was a flourishing, and needless-to-say, established wholesaler/retailer of all what my mom sold (except soaps i think) and some of what Aunty Evelyn sold. Ironically, we all attended the same church- for whatever that is worth.

I was done packing and stowing away. Book keeping done. On my jolly way home before the rain started again. It'd be another 30 minutes walk home. I didn't mind the walk especially in this cool weather and thankfully the rain had subsided a few hours again so the streets and walkways were not flooded or that annoyingly wet. "Onyi, princess!" O no! Not today. I looked back just in time to avoid Perpetual "pepe" bumping full hug into me. She is my nemesis and one of the few people that liked me on this earth for no apparent reason. "Pepe, how u de? I no see you at all, at all today. Shey no wahala sha?" I said in one long breath before she started bombarding me with her own kind of gist, namely what she like i was wearing etc etc. She made me uncomfortable with all the adulation and conversation that she insisted on that i couldn't sustain. Pepe was Aunty Evelyn's neighbor's daughter and i guess she was a little younger than I am or maybe not. "Me I go market for momsie o! she say make i follow her customer go Ladipo. We no quick come back because of the rain". "You don de go house? When you go carry me go Yaba now? I don tell you say I wan buy shirts and jeans-introduce me the people wen u de follow buy market from" Argh, there she goes again. I only tag along to Yaba market with my sisters and girlfriends who have more patience than I do, to wander the mostly dirty and confusing maze of the market -not to talk of all the harassment ladies get just by going to Yaba from all the Igbo traders there; verbal and physical. "No worry, we go arrange am. Shey you go come market tomorrow? We go talk more tomorrow you hear?" "Okay, no whala, fine girl. Make me sef run before momsie come meet me here - na my ear i go take explain wetin i de do for here". "Bai, bai then", I said and turned to walk away, heaving a small sigh of relief - I couldn't help myself. Pepe was an okay girl but had her head in the clouds and what's more, we had little to talk about of interest to me at least. She was the kind of girl that would petty thief from her mom just to buy clothes (that she'd hide and wear by the way) just to impress some riff raffs who she denied having any dealings with -at least that's what she said to their faces when we were watching, but she unwittingly let it slip now and again.

My mind ever dynamic rolled by the next item on it "what to eat this night" Yes, you might have guessed right, I like food alot! In the next heartbeat I'd tell you that i am sadly not a good cook. But i think it is all due to years of being the helping hand in the kitchen at home, the accepted third hand in the kitchen. O! well, i haven't had any reason to believe i won't get by with my less than impressive culinary skills. I don't want to eat eba tonight ( i am not a big fan of 'swallow') and my excuse tonight is that it is cold....and i already ate rice twice today. I guess I'd just buy fry-fry from Edeyi on my way home-that way i don't have to come out again. Cool, that done. Tomorrow is my day off from the market - well, i have to go to another market (Mushin) to buy stuff we need at home for the weekend. But after that, i pretty have the rest of the day to myself. I have a few letters to write and post; and maybe go and visit a few friends. We'd see about that! 'Nedu said he'd be coming by my house tomorrow after 'lesson' so i have to make a mental note to be at home then.

"Who dey house now?" I had been home for a few seconds and done the routine identification bangs on the windows and the mosquito netting barrier all to no avail. I was annoyed because I know my cousin was home, he was blaring music from the radio too loudly he possibly didn't hear. "Ugooooooooooooooo". The door just opened and he profusely apologized before I could start venting my anger on him. "Welcome, I'm sorry I didn't hear you knock. Babes". "Whatever", i said and walked in to my room. At least the guy had a way to wriggle from my ever-ventful self. I just mumbled a few words under my breath, loudly enough to register my still dissipating anger.

Testing, testing

I want to write a novel. a refreshing one, something different, something interesting (hopefully), something inspiring. But first i have to find that theme and we'd take it from there. Deal!


That's the reason this blog was created. It's not a diary, just me trying my hands on a noveau novel i hope to publish, shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!