Boys Are Not Stones

When I saw this picture, I remembered how boyhood hurts. How we were planted in the hands of abuse; lost sisters and uncles. How our parents thought we were old enough to man ourselves, to find our way; so they gave us a weak freedom. They gave us the freedom to our doom. The freedom that would kill us later in life. Those pains still remain part of me. The pains of those boy children endangered in the hands of Auntie. Those boy children tampered like broken glasses, strong enough to hold their shattered bodies, thoughts, feelings and emotions together without breaking them; without telling their parents because society stereotyped them. Society foisted heroic names on them.

I wonder why parents always thought we were stronger when the other parts of us seek help and support. I wonder why they take so much consideration in keeping the girl child together. Teaching them how to sit properly. Teaching them how to rebuke a man that touches their body, especially their private parts. Teaching them how to avoid premarital sex. Teaching them how not to go to that boy’s house alone, but the boy child is neglected under the deceptive shroud of self-confidence, the false belief that he has full control of himself. We forget that those boys also have feelings and weaknesses.

We sing more of those girls from paradise than the boys from the ghetto school of hard knocks. Remember, we are all part of the struggle too. We face the same thing that girls face in that lonely room. Auntie and Uncle still stroke us in the dark blind room. They still ask us to plant a kiss on their lips and make us spend hours touching them here and there and watch them groan in an unknown tone. We didn’t tell anyone because if we did, they wouldn’t buy us those Christmas shoes they promised us.

We should be careful whom we send our boys to, whom our boys go visit alone. We should

be careful with home teachers, pastors in the church, Sunday school teachers and those we leave our boys with. The boy child is also prey to Sisters of Christ, the priests and those people we trusted with our lives. They are not stones. 
Boys are not stones, why neglect them to be abused by those lost sisters?

Boys are being raped and brutalized too. They get abused by women old enough to be their mothers but they keep quiet because no one would believe their stories. Because we believe more in the abuse of the girl child than the boy child, why?

Why does the society cry only in defence of the girl child? Lest we forget, the boy child is not a stone. Parents should look into our matters too. Let’s relate this with a family that has a boy and a girl. In the family diagram, the girl is considered more vulnerable in so many more ways than the boy, even though the girl may be older than him. They believe the boy is a man and can take good care of himself. They do not know that as much as he is a boy, he has his own weaknesses weighing him down, but he won’t talk because society taught him that talking makes him a weak man. He is not allowed to cry either because crying reduces him as a man. So, he has learnt to swallow more assaulted bones than his spit.

No one would respect him if he spoke his mind. This is where society also offends the boy child. Society stereotyped him to think he is a superhero, a superman who can take care of himself. Many crazy things happen to boys. We go through severe pains. The government will hear of this and nothing will be done. No imprisonment, no suspension. The priests hurt them. The pastors abuse them, their mothers hit them and their sisters hurt them morally as well as the house help using them also, but no one is saying anything about this. Is there no hope for the boy child in these matters? People don’t really care about what happens to these innocent boys.
We say words like “If anything happens to my daughter;” “Please take care of your sister;” “Protect your sister;” Then, what about the boys? Who takes care of the boys? They are like pastors who pray for others but hope unto God for our every success.

I think that the boy child should be given a voice to speak among his peers, a voice of expression. I think they should be given the chance to explain themselves; the right to see themselves in themselves. They shouldn’t be stereotyped, they should be taught how weak they are and not superhumans.

Boys you are not super humans! Take note, let no one deceive you into believing that.

In as much as they invade our territories and want to have us by all means, we should also defend ourselves. You know when the tale is told, the world will doubt us by saying ‘Women cannot rape or sexually assault a boy;” “How can a boy be raped by a woman?” so, you have to defend your territories. This game is changing every day, and society can’t see it. We talk about the Chibok girls, Dapchi girls and those girls brutalized in the street, yet the boys are not talked about.

I actually observe that parents, especially mothers are just concerned about the girl child losing her virginity and getting pregnant and not worried about the issues of the boy child. They are not worried about the tale that the boy told them about Uncle Ricky removing his pants. They are not moved by the stories they told them about the pastor touching them here and there. Maybe they believed he was praying for them or maybe that Sunday school teacher that took Benny to the toilet and told him he had a big manhood was right saying such things to a boy. These people held in such high esteem are abusing boys, so why do we shy away from them?

Lots of little boys are suffering in silence in the street. They can’t say a thing about the

dangers they face every day. Even if they speak out, who will believe them? How many people believe boys can be raped too or sexually abused on any occasion? Maybe you will understand better when an adult male opens up to you about the horrors of their childhood. This has been my thought and will also be my message and the consciousness I exude. We should try not to keep fostering society’s mistake by raising one and neglecting another in the name of manhood. Don’t raise only a girl and not the boy because you think he is bold enough to stand alone.

I will now relate to my own childhood experience. I grew up in the ghetto town of Aba where survival was by who you are, how brave you are to defend your sister’s body from being defiled by men and boys. Mother always told us to protect our sisters. That was the ultimate role of a boy at that age. There were boys around. Boys that could take advantage of her. Boys that could harm her. Boys that could teach her bad things. So, she taught us how to defend our sisters, not ourselves, because she believed that our sisters were weaker emotionally and therefore could not protect themselves; but we boys can. We planted those beliefs in our mind. We fought harder so that we would not disappoint the mother and father. We have to make them proud. I fought too even though I was not that strong. But I needed to prove to my parents that I could protect my sister even though I was so weak to defend myself at that time.

There was one day when a friend of mine was beaten by a girl in school. He came back home and told his parents what happened. The whole house broke into elegies. It was torn into pieces and its fragments shattered into dust. The spiders went into hiding, the lizards were afraid too. Everywhere was calm and silence ruled our mind.

His father got angry. He shouted, danced here and there to his ability. He asked my friend where his hands were when the girl beat him up. I was there. I was afraid to explain what really happened to them. My friend was too afraid to speak. The father went into his room, got a rope, tied his hands and legs and began to beat him. His mother did not help the matter. She was supportive of his father. They beat the hell out of him. I helped him escape.

As I grew older, I tried to relate this issue with being inhuman and the things that have to do with boys and girls but failed. I tried to relate it to me as a man but I could not get a reasonable answer to all the questions bothering my mind. They were not abstract things. They were things we see day after day. A wife beating her husband and people laugh it away, a man beating his wife, it becomes violence against women, it makes the headlines in the dailies. Then, what is the name given to the former 

Is it a sin for a girl to beat up a boy of her age or one she is older than? Are we that strong emotionally and physically that nothing can defeat us? Or is it culture or tradition that made it so? Why do boys have to suffer this much and society doesn’t care about them?

The majority of these things happen everywhere. We think there is no way a boy can show his weakness to the world. They look up to the boy child as the firstborn of the family so he is expected to bury his father upon his death.

Boys are not stones, they are flesh and blood just like their counterpart.

by John Chizoba Vincent 

chizobavincent@gmail.com

Remarkable Night

The story began the night she died. 

"You really need to hear my story, right?", she asked, "alright, here it comes". 

It drizzled that night. With a slight prod, the wooden door creaked open. The room was dimly lit by the bedside lamp. It took me few brisk steps to get to where she laid while avoiding the yellow vomit pooled on the wooden floor. The chemist had assured me that the drug would stabilize her condition for some time. But what he didn’t tell me was where and how I could scrounge around for the surgery he spoke of. I scooped small water into a calabash and tapped her to wake. 

Her legs were cold to my touch and her teeth had stopped chattering from the cold. I put my ears to her chest. No heart beat . Then, I knew mother was gone without a goodbye. That night, I cried until my eyes were dried of all the tears.

The next day, I was standing by the side of a mound of loamy soil. Tears rolling down my cheeks filled my chattering mouth. There was no shoulder to share my burden. I watched her corpse, wreathed in white sackcloth, as it descended down to the belly of the grave. 

My uncle took me in. But each passing night in his house came with a fresh pain and agony. 

Was it the pain of my loss? 

He came in every night with a rim of wrapper tied to his chubby waist. He would tell me that no one should know of it. He actually called it “Our little secret.” He threatened to kill me the day I would leak the secret and warned that this secret must follow both of us to our graves and I would wonder how many of such secrets had followed mother to her grave, because mother had shed a lot of tears on his account. Those nights, I would beg him in between sobs, but he would set a deaf ears.

“You are my Uncle. Please don’t do this,” I told him the first night he came.

“This is one of the good gifts uncles can give to their nieces,” was the reply. 

He would crawl into the bed, rip off my panties and would push himself inside me. In futility, I had tried to nudge him aside with my tiny muscles. Tears would pull down my eyelids, while he moaned with each thrust. I would feel a sharp pain running through my spines as his monstrous penis rammed my young vagina. 

Then, came a night –the night that would birth my freedom, the night that would change my story. He ambled in and walked into the bed. His eyes shone lustfully. He patted my legs and I didn’t bother to stop him as usual. I needed to keep him happy, because I knew that the happiest point of a man was his weakest. The moans and erotic air he breathed must have so blinded him that he didn’t see the knife shimmered as I tugged it out of the pillow. I gently sank the blade deep into his neck and immediately gagged down the wails with the pillow. I held to the position as I watched him writhe in pain, until he dropped still. My blouse drenched in his blood. 

“So, how did you find yourself in the prison?” one of the inmates asked. 

I submitted myself to the law. 

 

 #CHA_writes

by  Chukwuebuka Harrison Aninze

The Confession.

Appearing at the confessional every Saturday became a norm the moment I joined the altar servers. Bro Ikenna, the president of the altar servers in his husky voice would say,

"You have to appear before the Lord unblemished and sinless like the spotless lamb if you are to serve at his altar", so we would line-up to make our confessions before the Priest.

Fr Silas, with whom confession is always short and simple is our favorite. In our usual manner we would start with

"Bless me Father,  for I have sinned" and then rush our sins as though we're speaking in tongues. Fr Silas who is of Ijebu origin and doesn't understand Igbo will ask that, as penance, we say The Lord's Prayer 3 times, Hail Mary 3 times and the doxology (Glory Be To The Father) 3 times, while he says the prayers of absolution. With Fr Silas, I haven't stayed more than three minutes at the confessional. As with him, confession ends in a jiffy. 

Mother would always remind me on Friday night about the confession for Saturday morning, and she would always say,

"You have to be contrite for offending our Lord who is ever ready to forgive you".

I never really appeared remorseful maybe because I go to confessions without knowing what to confess.

The morning mass of this Saturday became unusual as Fr Silas was celebrating the mass with another priest. Just before the final blessing Fr Silas said

"The Provincial superior has deemed it necessary to give us an associate Priest to help in the pastoral duties of this parish".  So immediately after the mass, Fr Jude was at the confessional . 

My friend Kenechukwu, whom I always cherished our discussion of the penance given after confession, was to clear the streak as the first person to attend confession from the new priest

Kenechukwu had stayed beyond our normal 3 minutes and it was already ten minutes.  I was confused.  I tried to think of any other sin Kenechukwu would have committed, apart from lying, fighting and insulting people . I was still in this state when he came out sweating and looking so confused. I rushed to him and in teary eyes he said

"Is it not the same thing I usually say to Fr Silas and he will ask me to say, The Lord's Prayer 3 times, Hail Mary 3 times and the doxology (Glory Be To The Father) 3 times as penance, I said to the new Priest and he asked that I do the Stations of the Cross for seven days and it must be inside the church". 

That was how, with sweaty palms, I left the church to be blemished and full of sin on Sunday.

By Ozor Onyebuchi
buchizzhenry@gmail.com

Odomagana

“Odomagana is a spirit,” they would say

He sat in Papa’s favourite sitting spot in the small hut, clad in a white singlet. He looked at me frowning. “Do you need a hard kick in the ass before you will go and bring the remaining oranges?” my uncle asked before he buried his squinted eyes in the orange he was peeling. 

What is this man even saying? I muttered under my breath. Does it mean that his mind could not read the possibility of Ikebunekpe lurking behind the drum of water opposite the orange tree? or Eveghuri prowling around the stacked mould of blocks very close to the orange tree? 

It was the season for the masquerades and the two masquerades –Ikebunekpe and Eveghuri are commonly known to chase children around with long whips. If I had feared anything about them, it was their long whips and their cackles. The long tortuous mark the whip had left on Chiamaka's back rented a space in my memory. Okechukwu, Mcdon and Christian still bore the fearful marks too. Masquerades are regarded as spirits in these parts and if a spirit could flog a human, the marks the whip would leave on the human’s skin should be spiritual marks and I wasn’t ready to bear such marks. 

I stared at papa's face, searching for any trace of creases or twitches, any sign at all to show he was not serious. His demeanour was stoic. He wasn’t joking. Then I wondered why I didn’t follow mama to her friend’s place.  I wouldn't be facing this imminent danger had I gone with mama. My eyes fought not to look at him again. Any eye contact would poke his memory. Stretching my left hand, I snatched off the floor, an orange that had glided over to where I sat, my heart still beating with fear. I began to fumble with the orange, but it didn’t make him stop. He warned me again and this time he almost pounced on me like a rabid dog. 

I clucked before jumping up from the wooden stool, picked and emptied the little steel bowel beside him, then ambled outside. It was ghost quiet. My heart fluttered with each step that took me closer to the tree. The fact that the heat from the orange sun was still gentle to the skin, and there wasn’t any sign that it would drizzle made it more precarious. It was only the scorching heat of the sun or harsh rainfall that could keep the masquerade off the road. I often wondered how possible it was for a spirit to get drenched in water or burnt by the heat of the sun. I kept watchful eyes as I walked slowly closer to the orange tree, but started from time to time, looking over my shoulder to make sure no one was trailing me.

I got to the orange tree and there wasn’t any masquerade in sight. Heaving a sigh of relief, I threw my little steel bowel to the ground, squatted down and began to pick and drop the oranges into the bowl. One, two and three oranges picked. As I stretched my left hand to pick the fourth orange, a strange hand appeared from behind the tree and grabbed my hand with the orange. The strange hand became Ikebunekpe when I raised my eyes. I felt goosebumps flooding my skin. 

Even though there was vigour in my scream, I am sure it couldn't have risen above its loud cackle. In futility, I tried to pull out my hand. As I struggled furiously, my mouth got closer to its hand, and my teeth sank into its skin, making it flinch. Letting out a loud gasp of pain, it lost its grip. Picking up the steel bowl, I flung it at the masquerade and it landed squarely with a thud on its forehead. Its staggering bought me enough time to dive into the bush. As I ran deeper into the heart of the bush, my eyes quickly scanned the bush for any possible prowling masquerade, while I paid little or no attention to the sharp edges of dead grasses jabbing into my barefoot. When it was apparent that the ‘spirit’ must have disappeared, I paced as fast as possible back to the hut. 

When I narrated my ordeal that evening, they couldn’t help but laugh at me. 

That evening, my other Uncle came back with a wound on his forehead. The wound was fresh and conspicuous. It was like a pebble stuck under the skin of his forehead. When I asked him, he said it was an accident but he wouldn’t say the kind of accident it was. Our eyes kept locking that evening and each time they did, I would feel a pang of guilt. His eyes never stopped communicating this message, “See what you have done to me.”

Since he was never going to admit the fact that I almost blinded him, I kept my sympathy to myself, after all, I hit Ikebunekpe who was supposed to be a spirit in the face, not my uncle.

“Odomagana is a spirit,” they would say. 😂😂😂 

#CHA_writes.

By Chukwebuka Harrison Aninze

Journey To A New Beginning

The phone rang just as I was about to leave the lecture hall for my lunch. I had to poke around my handbag which I’ve fondly nicknamed ‘My Life’ because  it virtually contained everything that I’d need for like two weeks if I was on the road and had no time to get home. Ok, I exaggerated a little bit there.  Nevertheless, I had to poke through books, pencils, pens, cosmetics, jewellery, handkerchiefs, and... you know, things that  even other girls would cringe in disgust, at the mere mention of any living human ever moving around with such things on their person. I was almost about to give up the seemingly endless search for the god forsaken instrument of terror which kept screeching away not minding the fact that my classmates were now throwing furtive glances and even murmurs of disapproval towards me, when my fingers hit it.

‘Gotcha!’ I muttered pulling out the phone, hitting the green button and saying ‘hello’ almost at the same time only to hear nothing. I looked at the screen and guess what?  One missed call. I was almost mad with anger for not getting the phone on time until I checked the caller ID and then my heart skipped a bit. It was Nkechi Okonkwo, my old friend from secondary school. We’d been good friends back then, in fact, inseparable was the one word that could be used to describe us. After secondary school, we’d drifted as friends are wont to do, especially if they don’t gain admission into the same university. We still talked though, but once in a while.

Now, I know I should probably be happy that she wanted to speak with me after such a long time, but a part of me couldn’t help but think in terror ‘Oh no! Nky is getting married and she wants me to be on her bridal train!!!’. Ask me why I should think that? Well, If you were a girl like me who keeps getting calls from old friends requesting the exact same thing, then you’d probably think the same way too. Don’t get me wrong, I am not one bit jealous of all my friends who are getting married (everyone seems to be getting married!). I am truly happy for all of them. It’s just that when I think of all I have to go through to be on a bridal train I have to ask myself if it is actually worth it.

Last week I was at yet another old friend’s traditional marriage as one of her ‘asoebi’ and that had cost me serious cash. I had to spend close to fifteen thousand naira just to make my friend happy and at the end of the day, I had gone home telling myself for the thousandth time that this was going to be the last ‘asoebi’ outing for me. I have since then, developed this paranoia for that word such that the mere mention of it gives me goose pimples. I know that the only way to escape the ‘asoebi horror’ is actually to get married. I sure don’t want to get married, not just yet, but thinking of another ‘asoebi’ outing even makes the idea of getting married seem a little bit more inviting. Ok, but I shouldn’t panic at the moment. Maybe I should wait for her to call back and say what she has in mind. Who knows, she may be calling just to know how I’m faring then all this panic would’ve been for nothing. 

With this in mind, I went for my lunch.

Nkechi called me again much later in the day and this time, I was able to pick the call on the third ring.

‘Hmmm... Ifeoma, how are you??’ she asked in a breathless voice.

‘hey, Nky! I’m ok. It’s been a while’ I replied.

‘Yes I know my dear. How is everything?’

And so we kept on trying to catch up for a while, even going back in time trying to find out who was doing what at the time. Mostly, who was married and who had just given birth. I shuddered when I realised that almost all our mutual friends then in school had gotten married. It seemed as if we, Nkechi and me, were the only ones not yet married till she said

‘Ermm....Ify, there’s this big event that will be taking place at my hometown in about two months time....’.

Then I realised it was no longer the two of us but just me who was not hitched yet. I had to keep up the pretence though, just so it wouldn’t seem as if I was actually thinking about her getting married.

‘Really?? Hmm... Please which event is that?’ I asked as if I hadn’t guessed already, meanwhile I’d already started making up an excuse in my mind on how to avoid the whole ‘asoebi’ affair because I knew that that would be the next thing to come up. I could tell her that I won’t be in town around that period or that my cousin would be wedding around that period and I just have to help her plan her wedding, or even better, I’d be writing my ‘exams’ around that period. I was so busy trying to decide which one would be the best excuse to fit the situation at hand when I realised I was no longer listening  to what she was saying.

‘Sorry, I didn’t get that’

‘I said the event will be my Traditional marriage ceremony. It’s going to take place on the 12^th of December and I’ll really appreciate it if you’ll be one of my ‘asoebi’’ she repeated

‘O my God! Congratulations girl! Wow, it’s not easy!’ I gushed.

‘Here goes’ I thought silently. Will this never end?

I’d been through this same situation for six times this year and I knew basically what would come next. If I say yes, then she’ll thank me profusely, and then follow it up immediately by telling me that she has the material that we’d wear on that day and the price. I’d buy it from her of course, and then sew it. Maybe not the latest style but I wouldn’t want to be out of place when I get there so I have to tell my tailor to design something really nice which I’d have to pay for of course. Then, I’ll have to buy new shoes because the old ones won’t go with the new dress, then I’ll have to make my hair, maybe not the latest hair style in town but at least, one that would live up to expectations, it was going to be a grand affair of course and not forgetting that other girls will be at their best so, I would not want to be looking like one drab street waif on that day. And then the make-up. Oh yes, of course THE make-up. I have to look really perfect on that day so that I would be able to attract a nice young man who would be there to look for a wife, which doesn’t really make sense to me because I’m not even looking for a husband. 

Well, not everything we do in this life makes sense. So, for this simply stupid reason, I have to buy really expensive make-up so that I’ll look expensive enough to the fine young man, whoever he is. Then of course, I have to fix my nails which I don’t fix normally because everybody else would be fixing their nails and I don’t want to look like I can’t afford it...The expensive look remember?? Then I’ll have to think of the means of transport to her place, how to sleep away from my bed for at least two days. I’m no longer talking about the financial aspect here but the stress aspect. God, merely thinking about it was making me tired already.  

I wanted more than anything to scream ‘No dearie! I sure can’t do this again!’

But I thought of us back then in school. How we’d shared almost everything. We used to take turns sleeping over at each other’s houses. Nkechi knew the littlest of my secrets. My first period, my first crush, my first heartbreak, my first sexual experience...we shared almost everything like I said before. I still remember vividly how she stood by me when I lost my father, in JSS 3. How she seemed to always be with me to console me whenever I’d start crying. How she’d spent almost a month at my house taking care of me when I was so filled with grief to think of anything. How could I say no to Nkechi. She was and still is the closest friend I’ve ever had. Saying no was definitely not an option. 

So I found myself saying

‘Yes Nky, Of course I’ll be there. You didn’t even have to ask.’

So with that, I start preparing my mind for the stress and inconveniences as I listened to her go on and on and on about preparations and how she’d really need my help to run a lot of things since she would be in Port-Harcourt most of the time. I had to sigh out of relief when I finally dropped the phone.

Two weeks later she sent the ‘asoebi’ material to me. I had to do the usual stuff, like getting the material to my tailor and choosing a style. If only people know what stress I have to go through to pick out a style, they’d really understand why I hate getting new dresses and stop asking me to be one of their ‘asoebi’. Anyway, I finally agreed to pay my tailor a sum of 5000 naira for the dress, plus the 1000 I’d pay Nkechi for the material, now how much is that? I reminded myself for the umpteenth time that I was not going to look at the money because Nkechi has always been there for me and I’m sure she’d do the same for me. Next, I had to go shopping for the shoes, accessories for the dress and of course the make-up...never forget the makeup. Now, I probably won’t say how much I spent on all these things lest I start sounding like a miser or a really selfish person who can’t make sacrifices even for a true friend.

A day to the traditional marriage ceremony, I had to travel to her hometown where the ceremony was to take place with the directions she gave me. It really a bumpy ride from Enugu town to her village, added to hauling of my big travelling bag which I filled with all the necessary things that I would need for the whole weekend. Not only do I hate borrowing, I also hate bothering people whenever I come to stay over as a guest so I basically go with everything I would possibly need throughout my stay, down to my own slippers.

Nkechi was ecstatic to see me. She screamed in delight and rushed to hug me as soon as she saw me. For a moment, as we exchanged that embrace, I felt happy and I just completely forgot all the stress I had to go through to make it to her hometown. Her mom was delighted to see me after all these years, so were her brothers and cousins. Nkechi still as tall and slim as I remembered her. Fair skinned, full lips was looking really beautiful with the ‘about-to-wed’ glow, as I have fondly named the look. I was really dying to know how she met this guy who had finally captured my dear friend’s heart.  I was expecting to hear one very romantic story but it turned out she’d met him in Church, at her niece’s christening. We were still talking old school gists when she looked up suddenly, smiled and whispered into my ear in excitement

‘He’s here’

I didn’t need to ask who because, face it, who could it possibly be if not HIM? One look at her face and I could just tell how deeply in love she was with this man. He wasn’t bad looking at all. Tall, fair and handsome with a very charming smile and a touch of dimple on his left cheek. I felt really happy for Nky and for just one split second, I wondered what it would be like for me if I was in her shoes. Just as soon as that thought crept into my mind, I shrugged it off immediately. I still have a lot to achieve in my life and settling down at the moment will be a big setback for me. I was not ready for such a responsibility.

The long-awaited day at last. All the other girls who were supposed to be in the ‘asoebi’ train have arrived and we were all running around trying to get ready for the ceremony. Nkechi just finished taking her bath and was dressing up in her first attire which they call ‘welcome’ attire, meaning that she was supposed to wear that dress to walk out and welcome her husband and his people once they arrive. 

Then she would change into another attire called the ‘show’ attire. Now that’s where we come in. We’ll lead her out the second time to greet everybody else who’d come to grace the occasion then we’ll also help her sell eggs, sweets or gums as the case may be. After that she’ll have to go back and change into her third and final attire now called the ‘final’ attire. Her husband would be seated inconspicuously at the back of the crowd, wearing a dress made out of the same material. Then we’ll lead her out again to find her husband with a glass of palm wine which has been blessed by her father. 

Did I mention that we’re expected to dance our hearts out on each occasion? Well, yes, that’s what we are expected to do. I’m going to dance on my incredibly high heels which I can barely walk on and I’m so not looking forward to it. I could not wait for the whole thing to come to an end.

After the final outing, I could barely walk. I limped back into the house, collapsed on the nearest seat in sight and removed my incredibly uncomfortable shoes. I was massaging my feet and praying silently to God to forgive me for crippling myself when I heard;

‘hahaha...You walk terribly on those heels. I can tell you are not used to it.’

I looked up to see a tall, dark young man smiling at me mischievously. He had such an infectious smile and I couldn’t help but smile back even though I was annoyed that all my efforts to make it appear as if I’d been walking on heels since I was born had been worthless.

‘And I thought I had fooled you all’, I said still smiling

‘Nope. You certainly did not fool me one bit.’

I smiled again and continued rubbing my feet vigorously.

‘I just hope I haven’t caused some permanent damage to my poor, poor feet.’

He laughed. Even his laugh was wonderful too.

‘I’m Ikenna Okafor’, He said stepping forward and offering his hand for a shake.

‘Ifeoma Nwodo’ I replied shaking him. 

I can remember thinking to myself as we shook hands

‘God, I love the feel of his hand.’

* * * *

It’s almost a year and a half after Nkechi’s traditional marriage. A year and a half since I met my one true love Ikenna. I find myself getting ready to pick up my phone to start calling all my old friends, who are still single, asking them to come and buy ‘asoebi’ material for my own traditional marriage. In about two month’s time, I’d be getting married to Ikenna. I never thought I could be so fulfilled in my whole life. I’d always seen marriage as a huge responsibility which would just grind the rest of my life to a halt. I would have to face a lot of responsibilities like having and taking care of kids which would bring my dream to a halt.

Looking back at those days now, all my sensible reasons for not wanting to settle down seemed almost childish and senseless. Now, I see this as a whole new beginning for me. A fresh start. A better start at that because I will not walk this path alone. I have someone who would be by my side giving me strength and encouragement for what lay ahead. Instead of giving up my dreams, I found someone who was as passionate about the dream as I was and who believed in me. I sighed blissfully as I thought of this journey to a new beginning. I knew I would not be making any mistakes on this one for sure. 

My only regret was that my dad would not be there to witness the wonderful event.

I held my breath as I dialled Ukamaka Ndukwe’s number, and then slowly let out my breath as the phone began to ring.