Transvestite Child.

Dear Diary,

       Here’s a little throwback to the days of my childhood. I was a happy little child living with my parents and sister somewhere near the University of Calabar campus. At the point of this story I was roughly 6 or 7 years old…or younger. I dunno.

Ego, my sister, and I had childhood friends in the neighbourhood; Nana and Anthonia our Ghanaian friends, Umoh, Etete and Nko, our next door neighbours whose father was a tyrant and whose mother was passive aggressive, and Etekamba or Hassan, the light-skinned boy who the entire neighbourhood of parents and daughter doted on. We all used to play house, dress up and karate.

One day, Ego my evil sister dared me to be the bride.

And of course I, not one to shy away from an act of childish stupidity, said yes. So Ego brought out my mother’s favourite yellow and green lace wrapper, blouse and scarf and made a wedding gown and veil out of it. It was, now I think about it retrospectively, quite genius of an 8 or 9 year old.

The foolish game of DARE was not complete without the traditional bridal walk down the street. And I agreed. What the hell was I thinking??

So here I was, a little boy blithely unaware of the social consequence of being in a woman’s attire, walking rather nobly down the street. What day of the week was this? I don’t remember. Where were all the adults living in that street to stop me and give me a good spanking? I don’t know either. It was like a rapture of the adults.

When I was a good way down the street, maybe 60 metres, Ego shouted “NONSO, DADDY AND MOMMY ARE COMING BACK!!!”

I didn’t need any further warning or a prophet or interpreter to relay to me what kind of danger I was in.

Girl, I ran.

Turned back and started running as fast as I could to the house. Damn that evil girl Ego, she tied the wrapper too tight and I was practically hopping like a penguin. Of course when you’re in trouble, you immediately cease to think straight. All your energy goes into the basic human instinct of survival. “DO NOT LET YOUR PARENTS CATCH YOU IN YOUR MOTHER’S CLOTHES!!”

I ran.
I ran. As fast as I could with my wedding gown’s train following me regally on the dirty street.

I ran.
For my life.
For the lives of my generation yet unborn.

I ran. All of a sudden, my friends; Nana, Anthonia, Umoh, Etete, Hassan, all of them disappeared.
Such friends I had!!!

Thank God I got home before my parents caught sight of me. Ego deftly untied her creation from off me and placed them under the pile of clothes to be washed.
And the day was saved.

I am no transvestite. I have no such desires or inclinations. Thank God. Maybe the thought of my impending murder scared any traces of that out of my system. Cause Mr and Mrs Iwuchukwu would have killed the hell out of me!!!

Advertisement

Throwback Thursday.

Dear Diary,
  
     I found an old photo of my sisters and me and In the spirit of the ‘Throwback Thursday’ tradition I have decided to post it. 

We looked terrible. But we don’t anymore. At least some of us don’t. I know I am yet to outgrow my ugly duckling phase, God help me, I am becoming a duck. Dear Lord, you promised I’d be a swan. Figuratively of course.

From left; Deborah (4th), me (Ugly), Chioma (God look at that nose, 5th), Ego (1st) and Uju (3rd).

Well, that’s Deborah now.

Guess who.

Chioma.

Ego

And Uju.

Oh and there’s one more now.

Esther. The precious one.

Death In The Family

Dear Diary,

It has been quite a day yesterday.
I lost an uncle. My mother’s eldest brother. I know he’s a Bishop and stuff, but we called him Papa, perhaps cause he bore a striking resemblance to (abi is it ‘with’) my grandfather.
Or maybe not.

The interesting part of this story is that, his wife, his very much educated wife is accusing my mother of killing him.
Interesting, right?

There was a bit of a land tussle between both siblings. My grandfather left ‘em all some land and houses and stuff. My uncle had his church built on the family land beside my late grandmother’s house and no one questioned him. Then he felt like expanding his reach and tore down the fence of my grandmother’s house, which was built by my mother. My mother by the way, is a typical Margaret Thatcher, so you can imagine that she opposed him.
I won’t bore you with the entire story. But shaa, some other brothers sued him to court.
Next thing, he was dead.
Next thing, Mrs Nonso’s Mother is responsible for Papa’s death.
Oh yeah, I forgot to add. Papa was a raging diabetic. He was even more hypertensive, and he was diagnosed at some point with plastic anemia. But no, my dear mother who has now been hailed a witch, killed Papa. No one seems to imagine that if she were indeed a witch, she would have killed him long ago when this really started, no one would’ve had to spend time, energy and money on the court case that had already started dragging on.
And I thought stuff like this only happens in Nigerian movies.
Thank God no one is taking aunty Papa…I don’t know her name…seriously, for otherwise it would not have been funny. Well it still isn’t funny now, but it really wouldn’t have been funny.
But regardless of it all, a man is dead, a good man, and he was my family.
So RIP Uncle Papa. Not cool of you to suddenly succumb to all your numerous ailments, you were always a fighter. Certainly not cool what you did about this land thing though. But you were a Christian, so I hope you make it to the skies. RIP Uncle Papa, RIP.

And please Dear Mrs Papa’s Wife, my mother did not kill your husband. He was ill.
Family.
I sigh.