For
whatever the reason can be, I remember today Baba Kazeem, the neigbourhood
barber, who proudly wears his Oyo tribal marks, his shop is right in front of
his house, the roof is the very sky above us the walls the people waiting in
queue to have their monthly or bimonthly hair cut, boys, girls, and men alike.
I remember he’s just right smark in the middle of the spectrum of short to
tall, blak shining skin, with 4 boys of his own whom he regularly uses to
advertise his trade.
I
cannot count how many visits I paid to him, and how dreadful I become each time
the visit was near, for me it was going into an hospital to have an
intramuscular injection. The menacing look of the iron clippers and his own
mean look does not make it any better.
There
is the forest growing without control on my head and right in front of me is
baba akeem and his tool of trade, I’m sure he considers himself a landscape
artist, he cloths me with a little rag to protect my cloth, takes a step
backwards and accesses the work at hand where best to start from, he asks me
“the usual or tyson or is it bobby brown you want?” You are wondering what the
usual is? Ok its skin or fadon(scrape it clean), of course I tell him the usual, cannot afford
to face my father’s wrath. Off he sets to work, clip, clip, clip goes his
clippers accompanied by wince and groans from me. Sweat breaking out from his
forehead in the mid day sun, he tells me he’s almost true and shortly after he
hands me the mirror to take a look at my new self, not to criticise what he has
done just to let me know what I now look like. If I dare utter a word reports
would have reached my father before I arived home. I stand up dust myself and
pay him his statutory fees.
Baba
Akeem is noted for his no nonsense stance in the community so he becomes the
chief disciplinarian and parents a wont to inform their erring kids of their intention
to report them to baba akeem. Of course this is enough to make one straighten
up his or her acts.
Mr.
B, thats waht we all call him, not because his name was too long or difficult
to pronounce, but he continously reminds of one of the characters in a Tv
serial which was on at that time. He was not a comedian I don’t think he ever
was at any point, but the name stuck and today my memory fails me in my bid to
recollect his actual name. So I am stuck with Mr. B, for want of his real name,
he was my teacher at one of the early stages of my education. He was a graduate
from one of the first generation nigerian universities, tall and lanky, moved
as one carried by the sheer force of the wind, seem his feet never had any
cause to kiss the ground with each step he took. The moment we see his head
from afar everywhere becomes still and the upper and lower lips stay glued to
one another like newly found loves. From the moment he steps into the class
till he leaves my heart races at the speed of light, both hands sweat and shake
with cold battering through my body. Why I grew to fear him that much, my
memroies fails me once again, maybe it was his height and the never smiling
grim face he wears around. I remember when a rumour was going round the school
that he was living with his mother at such an old age, 27years! Fours years now
when I am well passed that old age, I seat to take an account of where I was
and I remember vividly-how I wish my memory will fail me just this one more
time- I was still in university and totally dependent on my parents for my
upkeep. How ridiculous it sounds to me now, to have rejoiced at that little
tale concerning Mr. B.
Ridiculous
as it may sound there is a part of my life which is totally erased from my
memories and it dates back to many years ago, when I was growing up and coming
to understand the beauty of life and the many shades it can come in. All I can
remember till date was seing my mum in the kithchen making amala for dinner. I
have never had the courage to ask my mum what realy happened, when and how I
returned to school and when the stitch was removed from my occiput remains a
mystery to me till date, but really I still have memories.
Raising
boys is fraught with alot of dangers, think its not true? Ask my mum, she
raised four very active non-docile boys who all had a streak of stubborness in
them. Accident prone, we were, from trauma to the head in a domestic squabble
to laceration to the digits of the hand in a tussle for who will hold the empty
bottle of soft drink we were to buy to celebrate, celebrate what? I can’t
remember. One of us simply got angry and lashed out at the glass sliding doors
which simply came crumbling down not giving a fight, it remained there as a
memorial for many years before my parents decided to replace it. Looking back
now I give kudos to my parents who braced the odds of us turning out bad by believing
in us all the way and giving us the best education there was available. I am
sure there are many days they had their hearts in their mouth whenever they
were called that one of us was in trouble again. The heartache, the fear of
what will be surely was with them all the way. Looking back at then and the
discipline they inculcated into us, the prayers they prayed no wonder we turned
out this good. I will end this with a quote fron Frances Bacon, an English
philosopher, statesman and lawyer, “The joys of parents are secret,
and so are their grieves and fears.”
Many decades
after I have become a man in my own home, I still take pleasure in taking a
walk down memory lane. Fear of the unknwon, the joy of glad tidings, the expectation of the forth
coming holidays and the fear of Open Days at schol when parents come in to
check on their wards school perfomance.
Open days,
its meant to bring pride to the parents; a time for them to meet and discuss,
share ideas on how best to improve their children and a time for we the students
to go home with our heart in our mouth. You just wonder why? Why should I be
afraid of going home after such a day, considering I have done well, might not
be top of the class but I am just right there, right there in the middle, not
too way down and niether to high up. My parents will have none of that not my
mum in particular, she just has a way of letting you know you have not done
well enough even if you came first in class.
This
morning i remember many years ago, i should be in nursery 3 then, a cloudy,
morning, the sky threatning to weep endlessly. We all were on the morning
assembly, patriotism was been inculcated into us by the recital of our national
anthem and recitation of the names of the head os state and his second in
command, it was buhari/idagbon then. I remeber this day clearly, so lucidly i
ask myself why, why is it so deeply etched in my memory? I still wonder, but it
was a morning like no other, droplets of cool rain rest on our brows, our
anoraks glistening from the pelting droplets,yet we stood reciting the national
anthem, the eldest amongs us then could not have been more than 5 years of age.
Wish
i could go back to that day, i had something new to show off, a ruler with an
iron edge my dad just bougth for me, a novel thing it was. So i was in a haste
for the assembly to be dispersed, as soon as we were let go, and i hit my desk,
i scrambled inside my little bag for my ruler and whipped it out for the admiration
of my seat mate, he looked on in wonder, what contraption is this? We were used
to the yellow flat thing, that we could easily chew on, not this bulky iron
edged one. Soon it was making the rounds, and too many visiors, than what my
young mind could handle kept coming in to take a look and feel it. Suddenly it
became a magic wand of sort, a filled day i had, what made itmore interesting,
the rain came down stronger, unrelenting in its mission to fload and make as
much noise to disturb our classes, as possible.
Memories
of the days which keep, creeping into my mind astound me, since i thought it
was all gone in a moment, when someone pressed the delete button of my memoryso
many years ago. That is another story of the vegeance the human mind was encrypted
with at birth. A simple slip and i was marked out for retaliation, it was
carried out but it ended horrible, bleeding from my occiput witht he light
gradually becoming darkness before my very eyes, how many days i used in the
hospital i do not know, did it affect my school attendance, when did i return
to class, who did what, which doctor stitched the head i do not know the answer
to all this and i have refused to ask questions, lest i am disappointed with
the answer i get. I think i have a gap in my memory, that is what i call it.
Just a gap of say days or weeks but not more than that.
The
wonderful life of abandonement of a child, i remember the cries of protest at
been left alone by our parents at school in the morning, the many teared
stained faces, our back packs, dragging on the floor in despondency, soon all
the trauma of been separated from our parents is forgotten at the sighting of
each other and the counsolatory voices of our teachers we have come to adore
and grown attached to. The day passes so quickly, with the teaching sessions
interspersed with afternoon meal and play time, and a period of napping- we are
threathened before we sleep off and have to be shaken several times before we
are arosed form the beauty of a sleep we have launched into. The day comes to
an end , we eargly look forward to the next day, we load ourselves into our
make shift school bus, Mrs. Shobakin’s pick-up, a humanitarian service she is
rendering to our parents at no cost, one after the other we drop off at our
various stops and trudge home on our tiny feets filled with stories to tell, to
anyone willing to listen. Next day rises bright and glorious and we are kicking
and frantically doing all we can not to return to school!!
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