Ayuka grew up to be told she had to wear distinct clothes that
differentiated her from her brothers. She was a very beautiful girl, and
was a toast of the boys in the village. The boys wore shorts and
shirts, and good looking khaftani with caps to match.
Inna had told her, custom allowed her to wear trousers made for girls once in a while, but to tie the wrapper around her waist, and wear bespoken blouses. In some occasions, she could wear at will, any of the many long, flowing dresses Inna had made for her.
When they could afford the money, Inna took the bale to the local tailor to sew them. Even though he had an old looking machine, and seemed to have too much work to do, girls and their mothers would still troop to the shop, and demand sometimes in angry tones, why their clothes were not ready, or why some different form, or style was made.
When money was scarce; and father would frown when any of the children approached him for money, Inna would just cut the bale in sizes, and use the needle she had bought in dozens, to stitch them together under the lantern, by the hearth after the food was gulped, and the elves of slumber roamed.
Trust in those occasions, the dresses never looked as beautiful as those that had gone to see the tailor. And the girls, Asabe and Ayuka would frown at the clothes, and would prefer only to wear them at home, to avoid the scorn of other girls, when they went out.
She was a very illustrious woman – mother, who had married father when her puberty had just arrived, and stayed in his house twenty four more moons before father could come home and know her. It was the time, when white skinned people filtered through the hinterland, and built houses in compounds, and pleaded with parents to let their children congregate till noon.
Inna’s Abba had refused his children gather with others to learn to clap and sing and play. He would have none of that. Keep a child all morning just to sing and clap and play? It sounded ironic, while farmlands lay overgrown with weeds. Millet that was needed in bountiful harvest, otherwise grandma would have to buy from the market, when one she had had been made into kunu. And the beans that was used for kwose which sprouted with the latter rains needed tend frequently, to enable them spread limbs and multiply well.
He’d rather have his sons in the farm with him, and let his
daughters sit at the village square, and sell vegetables and fry kwose.
Or go hawking of atta and daddawa for their mother. Inna would fry kwose
at the square in the morning, and go selling daddawa till the cock crew
before the sun went down, or when the tray went empty. And that was the
usual culprit.
That was where she first met father. When she stopped hawking daddawa and fried only kwose, her puberty had not even come. She would sit at the village square, preferring it to the market. Father became a regular customer, and would sit and chat a little longer after gulping his kunu with the kwose. It was common sight to find a girl who fried kwose going off to marry one of her customers who came to gulp his kunu with her kwose.
Ayuka was the second of daughters in a house of eight children. She had two elderly brothers, Buba who was now married and his wife had bore two children already, and sold vegetables at the market. As much as he was a strong farmer, Buba was a hunter who went to the wild, tried never to step the ‘evil’ forest, and return each time with fat bloody meat that taste great after it was, grilled with salt and pepper.
He was the next in line to be dabbed Sarkin Farauta – chief hunter. Father was very proud of his firstborn son. With ya Buba, they never lacked meat in the house. Then there was Mailafiya. His name meant a lot to father and Inna.
Told it was, that as a toddler, he was most visited by bouts of illness, which would make his temperature tumble at night, and soar by day. He’d gnaw at his teeth, and convulse till some milk-white saliva poured down the side of his mouth. The marabou had taken him in his hands, and gone to see the Good Spirit. And never again did he ever had any bout of illness.
After him was Asabe, who was born in the farm. She lived fourty two moons older than Ayuka, and had been married off to a bronze smith who paid her dowry in beautiful bronze castings. Asabe had been so happy on her wedding day, and Inna gave her loads of blessing before she left that day, to live with the man, and to make little beautiful girls for him. The marriage was not blessed it was rumored around, because she had not delivered a son to her man.
Ayuka was the fourth child of the family, and had very long hair, with a dimple that posed her smile in a beautiful cast, and made the boys stare at her, long, long times. She had a lithe slimy frame, and silky long hair that poured down her shoulders, till the scapula was well hidden.
She had four younger brothers who called her ya’Bebi, being that she was the younger of the girls in the house. She loved them more than her elder siblings, but loved even more, Hassan and Hussein, the twin that came forth last from their mother. They had come when no one had expected, considering that Inna was ripe with age.
She had greatly helped Inna in caring for them as infants, and they had a strong clinging towards her, than any other in the house. They were still children, about the age when they could sweep the compound and wash the plates, were they girls. But Ayuka had to do all of the chores, while they played a great deal in the Zaure.
Sometimes, they called their friends and went off to the stream that watered the village, play in it for long and then go off hunting Agama lizards in the surrounding shrubs.
Ayuka’s other siblings, Abba, because he was named after father, and dan’Fari who was very fair in complexion, were of age to mingle with the youth of the village, and thus went to the farm with father. They also went to learn to sing and clap and play with other children in the district, who assemble at the compound every five days, in Alkaleri.
But they went for four days. On Friday, they didn’t go to the place, a mile and half from Bwompe, when they went to the farm with father very early in the morning. Ayuka never went with the boys. It was never heard, of a girl who went in the midst of the boys.
Bwompe sat close on a pass. The towering hills kept it away from Fulani and Anaguta invaders centuries past, and now, the taller hills formed its watch tower, and refuge. A very remote village, not all Lorries could maneuver the steep road that led to it. Thus only the giant lorry in the fleet that ply the long route between seven villages come only once in four days.
It carried all the commodities Bwompe needed, and the district nurse that came once every week, to administer the medicine that cured diseases. Even though people still beckoned the marabou, they still tried the concoctions of the nurse who came in crystal clear dress with a headgear to match.
But a few motorcycles plied the trail often. The district officer’s bike was most distinctive of all. The D.O. as he was called was a white skinned man, who wore something over his eyes. The messenger who worked in his house, a young man from Bwompe here, said it helped him see his way better, and to read well. Said of it, that it helped to see djins at night, when they prowled, and cast spells on children exposed, when the turare was not lit by parents. The man was learning the local dialect already, and could say some words well. His house was said to have plenty rooms in it, and a nice lane of blossoming flowers.
Children would abandon their play, and wave as he rode bye to the village head’s house. It was a giant Honda CG-250, and its roar was distinct from the others. This announced its arrival each time. Because the village head’s compound hedged not too far from the square, the D.O. would park his bike at the square, and walk to see the village head.
Ayuka went to the village square like her mother did, to fry kwose in the mornings. Men bound for the farm, would sit with kunu and kwose and fill their bellies before they left for their farms. And then Ayuka would retire home to wash plates, and sweep the compound, and cook while the twins played in the Zaure.
A few times, when the D.O. came, children who trail the bike would buy off the remaining kwose that left unsold all morning. But most times, the few that left were usually being taken home to the twins and their friends, who devoured with much gusto.
And there was this young man, just initiated into manhood, who came to sit, and gulp before heading for the farm. Their house was in the other side of the village, and he was named Babangida. He had a nice physique, and his biceps gleamed in the morning sun. His hands were firm, and strong.
He had the humor that chuckled your sides, every time he was around. His father had sent him to the place where children gathered to learn to play and to sing and to clap. It was said, that they taught to count and to write and to read too. The piece of wood at the entrance of the compound read, “Rop District Elementary School”.
Ayuka liked him a lot. His company every morning seems to make the time travel fast. He would share some of the stories they were told by the white people who taught at the school. Sometimes, he would urge her to count after him. He no longer went to the school. He had finished learning from there, and was encouraged to proceed to the city to finish his learning.
He had been going there since he was the age of Hassan and Hussein. He had elder brothers who helped his father in the farm, and who were not privileged to attend the school. Those days, there were usually great lorries coming from the city, full of people and bands who rolled out across the district, visiting village and gathering people to the squares. Accompanying the D.O., they often came to encourage fathers to send their children to the school. “All the male children, and the girls too, if you can” the man who compered would say after the D.O. had given his speech.
After the second time they came, and had a boy from the village climb the wooden platform to count to ten, fathers began to send their wards to school. That was when Babangida had gotten the chance to attend. And his father had managed to pay his fees of fifty naira for each class, till he graduated. But his father had declined, rather choosing to have him around helping in the farm.
But he had enough learning already that helped him count his father’s goats. He was the shepherd who took them out to eat in the morning before they left for the farm, and returned them to the manger at dusk. And by the time he was done taking the goats out, his father and brothers were usually gone for the farm already. So, he had time to drink his kunu and kwose at the square, before joining them. and he would turn up at Ayuka’s hearth, to take kwose. He preferred her kwose to others, because hers tasted better in his mouth, and because she liked to laugh to his jokes.
And he liked the way her smile radiated. He always looked, unending. She would look at his eyes, and find something that she never sees in her father’s eyes, or Inna’s or her brothers’. It radiated warmth, and caught her off her feet each time. Every time, she asked herself what it was, that drew him closer to her heart.
