— Welcoming Uncle Femi Back to Nigeria
Uncle Femi Arrives
The sun had set, but the cloud gave such a hazy view that one would readily assume the firmament to be resting.
The little children were back from their various schools. We all sat gazing at the sky, sharing our different thoughts and views on the beauty of nature.
The bungalow house we lived in had twelve rooms and two general toilets. Six rooms had a toilet, while the other six rooms used the other toilet. The ones who weren’t qualified to use the toilet bathed either in the backyard or in the front yard. Part of what we looked forward to as children in the compound was access to the bathroom like the adults did.
Some parents who had female daughters insisted on bathing with their children in the bathroom, but were refused as this would enable others to rebel.
The last disagreement that erupted between the house occupants led to a unanimous decision by the caretaker, who permitted children in secondary classes to bathe in the bathroom. These teenagers are permitted only if they spend less time in the bathroom.
The adults had offices to resume, as did their personal businesses. Therefore, there should be no reason to have them delayed. He also buttressed his points by explaining that the occupants were parents themselves who had children. There wasn’t anything revealed by these children that their own children do not have.
“What about the two bachelors occupying the fifth and sixth rooms? Are they parents too?” A concerned parent asked.
“Madam, you need a cleansing of the heart,” the caretaker replied, anticipating another question.
The matter got settled there and then, and no one brought up any issue related to that again.
While I sat with the children, awaiting the stars to appear in the sky, we sang a rhyme about the sky:
“Twinkle, twinkle, little stars.”
“How I wonder what you are?”
“Up above the world, so high,”
“Like a diamond in the sky.”
We kept singing the rhyme until a firm hand touched me from behind.
“Aanu,” the voice called with a touch.
“Who’s Aanu?” the little boy beside me asked.
“Why do you call me Aanu?”
“Isn’t that your name?” The man asked, looking surprised.
“Well, I’m Aanu, but my mother calls me Joan.”
“Aanu, I’m your uncle. This is Uncle Femi.”
Trying to figure out who Uncle Femi was, I raised my head up, trying to have a flashback of who he could be.
“Uncle Femi”! I screamed.
“You silly girl. Now you remember.”
I left the other children outside while I rushed inside to tell my mother.
Uncle Femi my mother’s older brother had just returned from the UK and had come to pay us a visit.
“Aanu is a funny child,” Uncle Femi said to my mother, who was still dishing his food.
“You mean Joan,” she replied.
“Aanu, I mean,” he replied again.
“Where are Ademide and Ayomide?” he asked.
“Justina and Jordan are very fine. They have both gone to the shop to help out.”
“Is this how you train your children to neglect their heritage?” he asked with an unpleasant look.
“Please eat and leave English for the British,” the mother replied with a smile.
“Aanu yin se mi.” I feel pity for you.
“Aanu ti yin gan se mi.” I also feel pity for you. My mother replied this time with a stern look.
“Whatever,” I said, and went outside to play.
When I got back outside, the children had already started playing and had looked for someone to replace me in the game.
“I’m back,” I announced.
No one seemed to notice, as they were infused with the fun derived from the game.
“I said I’m back!” I shouted.
“Okay,” Lola, my neighbor, replied.
“Let’s start again,” I demanded.
They ended the game and refused to start a new one.
Some of the children got angry and blamed me for the disruption. I apologized and sat them down on the mat laid by Lola’s mother.
“My uncle is back from the UK,” I said without being asked.
“What’s the UK? A girl seated close to me asked. “
“Please tell us,” another demanded.
“It’s the United Kingdom. A foreign country where the white men stay. It is a place our people go to make money.”
“Please tell us more,” they pleaded.
Before I could utter another word, my mother’s voice came loud through the window.
“Amebo!”
“Radio without battery!”
“NTA, come inside and complete what you started.”
I didn’t wait for the fourth pronouncement before I rushed inside to finish my discussion, which resulted in a slap on the cheek.
“Is this how loquacious your daughter is?” Uncle Femi asked, having finished his meal of fufu and Egusi mother served him.
There was no reply from my mother. Instead, she gave me a long stare, which, when translated in my family, would be, ‘You brought the insult on me.’
Uncle Femi, after a long discussion with her mother, told her there would be a family gathering at Grandma’s house in Oshodi the following day. Mother was expected to come with her children.
Uncle Femi didn’t sleep over at our house that night but went over to rent a hotel close to the house to spend the night.
My siblings arrived past 12 a.m. exhausted. Mother still sought a way to inform them about the plan for the next day.
“I would have asked you to go to the shop tomorrow with your siblings, but we just have to go. This might be the only opportunity your siblings may ever get to go study abroad.” She said it to me.
The next day, we woke up early. The caretaker’s cock at the back of the house ensured that.
We headed to the bus park at Obalende, where we boarded a straight bus to Oshodi. The bus conductor, before boarding, asked if we were heading to Oshodi Oke or Isale. Because mother never liked the word Isale, down she would rather choose the former Oke, Up.
Immediately, she gave her response that we were heading to Oshodi Oke; we knew we were in for it.
Grandma’s house was just a few blocks from Oshodi Isale. But superstition never allowed Mother to play the game of the unknown. Once we were at Oshodi Oke, we would trek down the already-failing bridge and cross the express road before turning back to locate Grandma’s house.
Thankfully, we arrived just in time for the gathering.
Grandma hadn’t seen us in years. Mother had refused us to visit because they had left her to her fate. Neither were any of her siblings present to assist her in caring for her children.
Mother said her children were the only family she had.
Nonetheless, she believed in her brother, who was in the UK, knowing he would have done more if he were to be in Nigeria.
Our cousins were present at the gathering. Everyone had come to greet the one who had just returned from the UK.
“Joan, Justina, Jordan!” Grandma called, “Come greet me.”
While I kneeled down with Justina, Jordan prostrated to greet her.
We were excited to see our grandma.
Some of my cousins couldn’t recognize me, as it had been years since we last saw each other.
We ate and drank.
The family seemed to settle their differences.
The talks between the children were mostly about school.
“Why do you attend a public school? Why did you stay in Okesuna? Why is this so? Why is that so?” These questions popped up.
There is no commendation or encouragement.
When my mother saw the discussion heading in another direction, she called her brother aside.
“I’m sorry, I never wrote to you while you were away,” my mother said pitifully.
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“I totally understand,” he replied.
“I know you have your responsibilities towards your wife and children. But I’d like to remind you of your promise.”
“What promise is that?” Uncle Femi asked cursorily.
“My children’s education.” She reminded him.
“What about it?”
“Well, you promised you would be there for them when the time came to study at the university.”
“So their father left them untended to?”
“Why do you sound like someone who doesn’t know what happened between us?”
“I’m sorry, my sister,” he apologized.
“I’m not offended; I just need to know if you still have these children at heart.”
“I do, but not at the moment. You see, everyone in the family has one thing or another that they have written to me about. Mother is also concerned about Father’s remembrance. Things are just too much to handle presently.”
“I’m sorry, sister,” he apologized again.
“I said I’m not offended,” my mother yelled.
“It is better late than never,” the mother said consolatorily.
“Joan, Justina, Jordan, say goodbye to your grandma and cousins,” she ordered.
Without asking the reason for the abrupt request, we stood up, bade everyone bye, and left with our mother.
Mother ensured we arrived early by taking a smaller bus, which wouldn’t require more passengers before taking off.
We arrived home late in the afternoon, changed our outfits, and headed to Falomo to begin the day’s sales.
We never talked about or raised any discussion about what happened at the family gathering.
One thing changed, though, and that was our zealousness at my mother’s sales. We worked harder than we ever did and saved more.
Mother’s driving force became ‘What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger’.
