MTN Valentine's Radio Silence

MTN did me shege today. I went to the base for a different business but had to come home with some extra stuff, which are super important but that I had no idea I would get today. That meant I had to come home by Bolt. This was my plan initially, to go home by Bolt. But even if I had wanted to change my mind to returning by public transport, the extra luggage wouldn't have let me. 

Hmm. Please hmm with me. Hmm. It was time to go home but MTN refused to bring their connection icon. What's going on here? I first thought the phone needed to be switched off or restarted. I did both but no way. How would I go home today? By this time, my head was aching. I couldn't see myself with a heavy backpack and a full carton clutched to my chest hopping from one public taxi to the other and crossing roads. Ah!

I stayed outside at the entrance to the base after I had exited, waiting for network to come so I could book my Bolt jejely. But it was all in vain. After what seemed like eternity, I relocated the pieces of wears I had on the carton inside and forced the lid to close. I had to resort to going by public commercial vehicles.

(Taking a drop would have been a good option but I am managing the few notes I have on me for minor purchases and transactions, I couldn't use that to pay for a charter.) 

It was stressful, ehn. From struggling to enter the first Keke Napep (tricycle) while trying to balance the carton which had its partially closed lid threatening to open on my laps and managing to remove my backpack and place it on the box to alighting and arranging myself and my properties. The second vehicle I boarded was a taxi and when I got to my stop, it wasn't easy to come down either. I didn't even know the man didn't park properly. I ensured I didn't come down when other vehicles were close, though. (I sat at the extreme left behind the driver and the passengers to my right were not willing to come down for me to use the other door.)

"O ya, come down now." That was the driver.

"No, I can't." I replied. "I have some load and cars are coming."

"And so far you people won't come down and let me use the other door, I won't risk my life." I added under my breath.

This was when he decided to park well. I finally came down, though not without restraint as usual. 

Now, it was time to cross. I crossed o. But to climb the central reservation was another palaver as my skirt was penciled, a bit tight and short. Normally, I usually use one hand to pull the skirt up a little to enable me climb. However, my two hands were occupied with the box. Let's just thank God I didn't trip and fall. I climbed and crossed successfully to the other side. I, by this time, had one more taxi to go and some distance to walk before getting home. After all the stress, I got home. Praise God. No thanks to MTN.

© February 2023, Ayobami Temitope Kehinde 

Beggie-Beggie Is Not Good

I remember as *JSS 1 students when Feyisola Akinwande and I would converse between ourselves to go and beg for money from Senior Nike Adebayo and Senior Buki of blessed memory. They were in *SS 1 then. How did we get to know them? They had come to our class to preach to us to give our lives to Jesus. Though I had asked Jesus into my heart several times before then but I still gave my life to Him again. We had bowed out heads and said the sinner's prayer after them. (By the way, when I started attending the school fellowship later and we would be asked to go around and preach during break hours, I never had the courage to do so o. I was always worried about what I would say. Throughout secondary school, it was like this.)

So, Feyi and I, as the "Primary Six-and-a-half" students that we were, would always go to them every break to beg for money, it was always one naira we begged for. But one naira then had value sha.

"Senior Nikẹ, Senior Buki, ẹ ẹ̀ dẹ̀ wá fún wa ní 1 naira." We would say with pleading innocent eyes. They would indulge us and give us one naira each and sometimes they would beg us and tell us they didn't have. Then, one day like that, we went to do our beggie-beggie as usual and embarrassed Senior Nike had to tell us the truth.

"Ṣ'ẹ́ẹ mọ nǹkan? Kò dàa kéèyàn máa tọrọ owó." She told us it is not good to beg for money. We nodded our heads rapidly in agreement and went back to our class disappointed but wiser. We never begged any senior for money after that. (Definitely, if our parents knew we were begging at school, they wouldn't have been pleased.)

Well, I just remembered this story now and I thought to write it down. I doubt if Feyi or Sis Nike remember self. But me, Ayobami, I do remember from time to time and laugh my heart out.

©June 2020, Ayobami Temitope Kehinde

#memories

#childhood

*JSS 1 stands for Junior Secondary School 1

*SS 1 stands for Senior Secondary School 1

Goat Fight

I just saw a kid (baby goat) charging at an older sibling of hers now. The older sibling, who still cannot believe her mama weaned her and now has two other babies to cater to, keeps following her and the new kids around.

So, this kid got irritated and cocked back her head to give her big sister a warning. You need to see the look she gave her. That one got a bit scared and staggered back a little. Then she continued following. Baby sister wouldn't have that nonsense again. Why should she be sharing their mama with them, this mama that is exclusively theirs? She charged at her and started fighting her away.
"Leave our mama alone." She bleated.
"No, she is still my mama, and mind you, I am not your mate." Big sister bleated as she fought back. But it was obvious she was somehow afraid of little sister. She would fight and then move back while her sister kept charging.

I was amused and smiled. I wondered how that kid could successfully intimidate her senior. Was she not even afraid of the difference in size? Then it occurred to me, confidence. It was that same confidence (spurred by a working relationship with God, this time around) that made tiny David face ogre Goliath and kill him. This same confidence was what made a cock, yes, a cock, fight off a dog in one viral video I saw sometimes. Confidence!

©2018, Ayobami Temitope Kehinde

A CRITICAL CASE OF TANGLE-UP

Thank God for hairdressers. I don’t know what people like me would do if they did not exist.

I keep my hair unrelaxed and it is fairly long. I don’t have any treatment I use on it save that I pamper the edges by watching the kind of hairstyles I make, not allowing hair stylists touch the tiny edge hairs while braiding with extension and taking out the braids at the edges after a week or two of making the hair. No special hair-cream, I use a mixture of sheabutter and some oils, nothing more.

So I was told about how good it is to use onion juice to treat dandruff; mayonnaise mixed with any oil of your choice as a deep conditioner and okra juice for detangling and leave-in conditioning. I decided to add these to my regimen and I was so excited about the thought. It is not that I didn’t know about these treatments before, just that I was not into them. If I remember well, I had used okra juice as a leave-in conditioner before, but that was just once. There was even a season in my life when I applied finely blended avocado and banana to deep condition my hair. The few times I maintained that regimen, I went through some difficult time getting dried bits of banana and avocado off my hair. I ended up losing some hair because no matter how well you wash your hair after such treatments, some minuscule of the fruits will still remain in the hair. Because of the stress from getting out the particles from my hair after it is dried, I stopped that treatment.

Now that I have been reminded of the onion, mayonnaise and okra treatments, I couldn’t wait to apply them after loosening my previous hairstyle. So I loosened the hair, detangled and washed. I then grated the onions (added a piece of ginger) and strained out the juice using a handkerchief. I applied the resulting juice to my hair making sure every strand of hair got soaked and the scalp was well reached. I was told to not wash it away because it is a good leave-in conditioner too and gives more shine to the hair. I let the onion-ginger juice dry out and afterwards rubbed the mayonnaise-oil mix through the hair tips to the scalp. I covered the hair with a plastic bag from 5pm till the next morning, I wanted the best result. When morning came, I washed off the substance and then set to prepare the okra juice. My hair by this time was so tangled up. But I wasn’t bothered because I knew the okra juice would perform magic on the knots.

The okra juice eventually landed on my hair and scalp. But, nah, it wouldn’t unknot the tangles. What! I finished applying and came out of the bathroom, waited for the okra juice to dry out and the see if I could detangle the hair. For where? I couldn’t o. Ha! Thus, I sat down with the hair hoping to be able to finger-comb, but no, that was a Herculean task. I spent hours, not two nor three nor four, to detangle just a tiny portion of hair. It was then I realised the hair needed a professional touch. It was past midnight, however, I had no choice than to send a text message to my natural hair stylist if I could come over to her lounge later in the day to get the hair deknotted. You need to feel the hair, 'o di koko bii yanma', extremely tangled. There was no more remedy from my end. On this note, I went to bed. I recall asking the Holy Spirit to give me wisdom on what to do. It just occurred to me now that contacting my stylist was His idea because it was after I prayed that it occurred to me to send her a text.

This morning, I prayed that the Lord would give my stylist the wisdom needed to demat my hair in such a way that I wouldn’t lose too much hair. Later in the day, I went to her shop and she was afraid when she saw the hair. It was a really critical case of tangling-up. She then told me that my order of applying the treatments was wrong. I should have divided the okra juice into two parts, use a part to ravel out the hair properly before washing and then apply after washing as leave-in conditioner and for final detangling. It is after that step that I ought to add the mayonnaise mix. The purpose of the mayonnaise treatment is for curl definition. That was actually what knotted up the hair. 'Emi o mo o'. I didn’t know. Glory to God anyway, I didn’t lose much hair, just the normal amount of hair you lose when you comb your hair.

Do you now see why I thanked God at the beginning for hairdressers? What can someone like me do without them?

©2016, Ayobami Temitope Kehinde

BODA FEMI

 

 

BODA FEMI

Growing up, we had a few kinspersons stay with us. One of them was a paternal cousin, *Boda Femi, who used to come around everytime he was not on campus. He was at the polytechnic then. He had a lot of correspondence Bible courses he was taking in those days. He was always receiving mails for them. Usually, the packages came not only with materials he needed to read to pass the tests, but some extra Christian books and booklets too. It was in one of those materials that I read about how several years back in a certain country that I cannot remember its name, because it was forbidden to have the Bible in your possession, a woman plastered bread dough around her copy and baked it to hide it from authorities that came to check her house. I remember a birthday gift he gave my older sister too. It was the book, ‘The Great Controversy.’

We were obviously fond of Boda Femi and somehow we knew he loved the Lord (he still does). We were also fascinated by his Bible courses and he was just too glad to introduce us to them. We in turn introduced the course to our landlord’s children who were in the same age range with us. Lamp and Light and World Bible School were some of the courses. I was ten or eleven when I started Lamp and Light against the publishers’ rule to not touch the programme if you were under sixteen. But I couldn’t wait till I was sixteen, and the rest of us too, I was so hungry for the Word. I suppose they made the rule like that because they thought a child below sixteen may not understand the course content. But I bet I did, I always paid all the attention in the world to read through my materials and the accompanying Scriptures before taking the tests.

Looking back now, I remember I used to experience the enveloping presence of God anytime I was studying for my tests. I didn’t know it was called God’s presence then, but I knew it was something supercool, something beyond the natural, something from God. Years later, I didn’t have peace about my claiming to be old enough to take the course and I wrote them a letter to apologise. I hope the rule has changed now because it is not all U-16 children that cannot understand spiritual matters. World Bible School course and others did not have such restrictions.

I enjoyed taking those courses and the truth is they were part of the building blocks of my foundation in Christ.

Like I pointed earlier, we were fond of Boda Femi, we loved him and really respected him (we still do, though time and distance have separated us now), we were sometimes naughty to him too. The naughty we here were my younger sister, my younger brother and myself. For example, he was speaking 'too much' English one day, maybe because we angered him or something, I can’t remember, so I quickly made up a *senwele song for him which my younger siblings backed up. We sang, danced and laughed while he shook his head for us:

Call: Boda oloyinbo de

Response: Boda oloyinbo de

Call: O fe foyinbo fo wa lori

Response: O fe foyinbo fo wa lori

All: Nigba to wa n soyinbo nko o

Wa kawa naa loyinbo

Translation

Call: English speaking brother has come

Response: English speaking brother has come

Call: He wants to use English to scatter our heads

Response: He wants to use English to scatter our heads

All: And so what, you are speaking English?

Teach us to speak English too!

And he gave me two nicknames that I didn’t like then. He would call me ‘philosopher’ each time I made my knowing comments and ‘questionnaire’ when I asked him questions. Yes, I was really a questionnaire and I dare to say I am still one. I got that from my day. My dad could ask questions!

This cousin of ours influenced us without him knowing. If only he knew God sent him to our house to be a spur for us children to seek the Lord and not give up at a time when there was little or no encouragement from home to know and love the Lord.

Boda Femi Wuyi Akinlade, today, I have chosen to call you out publicly and celebrate you. Thank you for giving to the Lord. Thank you for being an example of a child of God to us. We were quite young, but you touched us so much without even knowing. Thank you so much. May you be found in the Lord our Father till the end. The Lord will strategically position people that will positively influence your children around them too. He will teach them by Himself.

*Boda is the Yorubalised version of ‘brother’

*Senwele is a traditional Yoruba musical genre

THE GPS AND DIRECTIONS

Some months back, I needed to go to a place I was not sure of the direction to take to get there. So, I punched the address on my GPS and left my garage. But my naughty GPS would not say anything to me about where I was going. I was worried and wondering why it was quiet. I pulled up somewhere to check if I mistakenly set it to mute. No. So what was the problem with that thing? Well, I resumed driving. By this time, I was already out of the community’s gate and just as I approached the end of the driveway and was still worrying my head about whether to make a right or left turn, the GPS spoke up. Really?! “So, why did you keep your mouth shut all this while?” I asked, rolling my eyes. Okay, I can’t remember if I rolled my eyes but I most likely did.

I was relieved it started talking at last and I continued my journey. I noticed that it was sometimes quiet and sometimes chatty. If I was on a route where there was no need for me to make a turn soon, it would be silent until I was like a half or a quarter mile away from where I had to turn. That went on and on. I therefore learnt to trust my GPS knowing that it would speak up when there was need to.

But you know something, that was a season in my life that I was at a crossroad. I needed direction about a lot of things and I needed it right there and then. I was constantly searching my spirit to see what the Lord would say, but it seemed like nothing was coming forth. Thus, I was in a way frustrated.

“Father You know I need to know what You are saying at this time. You know Your word says this and this and this and that. Please speak Lord.” I’d moan.

As I was driving and ruminating on how the GPS works, I realised God was speaking. He was teaching me about how He leads. The fact that He is silent does not mean He is not guiding. If you are on the right track and you do not need to turn to the right or to the left, He won’t say anything in that line. God’s guidance is one step at a time, one day at a time. We just have to trust Him that He will surely guide us to that beautiful end. Definitely He will speak at every junction, He will tell us where to turn to. He has promised that our teachers will no longer be hidden and that we will hear a voice from them at every crossroad to turn to the right or to the left (Isaiah 30:20b). Note that those teachers might be people God has placed around you to guide you aright in a difficult time.

I am learning to trust God one day at a time, to trust that He is guiding me even when it seems like He is silent. I know He is pleased with me and that it delights Him to lead me aright always. But you know, it is sometimes difficult to be still and just trust Him. I sometimes work myself up for nothing.

©2016, Ayobami Temitope Kehinde

Image Credit: http://electronics.toptenreviews.com/use-a-gps-to-talk-safely-while-driving.html

WEATHER TALKS

When folks do not know what to say to you and they really want to say something, they talk about the weather.
 

I was returning from my mailbox this evening and met one of my neighbours at the front of his apartment which is beside mine. Head clad in helmet, he was with another guy and they were tending to a bike. I hey-ed at them and they hey-ed back. As I held out my key to open the door, he asked a question about the weather. He asked if I knew whether the bad weather would end soon. In my head, I was thinking that the weather was not bad and that I did not watch the TV today and so had no idea of what the weather would be like the next day. I honestly did not know the right response to give him. Finally, I replied.

"I don't really know.... But I do hope it gets better soon."

"I hope so too, I really do." He said, with a chuckle.

As I walked in through my door, I remembered reading in books of how people talk about weather, then the whole scenario made sense. I simultaneously recollected how another young man, a worker in a hotel I was once lodged in, always mentioned the weather every morning he greeted me.