From the Frying Pan To Fire
\nIf ever there was a migration from frying pan to fire, I typify it
\nI embody it
\nI had no choice, in the matter
\nI had no say
\nI was born into a family of a father and three wives
\nMy mother was the second wife
\nEach wife tried to out do herself in the procreation aspect
\nTwas as if the more the children they had, the greater their say in the household
\nStupid reasoning, if you ask me
\nBecause the increasing number of kids
\nOnly added to the poverty we had come to know, all our lives
\nA poverty, we had come to see as the norm
\nWe were as poor as church rats
\nNay,
\nWe were poorer
\nSo dirt poor
\nThat we all co habited in one tiny room
\nIn a face me, I face you apartment
\nThere ,we were all born
\nThe wives would take it in turns to sleep beside my father on the line, creaking iron bed
\nIt would creak so badly especially when Baami and any of the wives were on it
\nEspecially when they were engaged in the \u2018gymnastics’ parents engage in, in the middle of the night!
\nYou\u2019d be surprised I call it \u2018gymnastics’
\nYes, what else can one describe it?
\nThe activity made no sense to me
\nI would watch with my siblings, silently, because we were all supposed to be asleep
\nAnd blissfully unaware of the \u2018 gymnastics’
\nTo me it looked like painful activity
\nBaami would lie grunting untop of any of the Maamis’
\nMy Maami, inclusive
\nI would wonder at the sheer weight of Baami lying and breathing on anyone
\nLike a whale about to devour its prey!
\nBecause, for some strange reason, regardless of the abject poverty that defined our lives
\nBaami was big,and was he big!
\nHe was a well over six feet human mountain, with a pot belly the size of a six month old pregnant woman
\nI had often wondered how he got so big whilst the rest of us were so very scrawny
\nWe ate only once a day, when some kind of food could be scrapped together for us at night
\nDuring the day, if we had Garri, we drank that, else, we stayed hungry
\nDuring the day, I tried to imagine the kind of torture the Maamis’ experienced having the immense weight of Baami stretched over them
\nMy elder brother said that was the way we were conceived and subsequently, born
\nBut
\nI doubted this
\nWhat was the mathematics to the rhythm of Baami’s movement on each of the Maamis?
\nWhat was the science behind it?
\nObviously there was no pleasure to be gained!
\nWhat a painful way to be conceived!
\nAt night, we would all stretch out by the side so as to be able to sleep on the tattered mats strewn on the floor
\nWe were fifteen kids and the room was exceedingly small
\nWe would be packed and arranged like sardines in the can
\nOf course, breathing on each other was the norm
\nSome shuffling and adjustment howbeit futile would be done.
\nNudgings and whispers of \u2018 can\u2019t you be still, you\u2019re hurting me!\u2019 were not infrequent, because of the innate discomfort.
\nThe intense heat was another matter, back to back against each other, almost like roasting bacon
\nThere was no money to pay the electricity bill and so more often than not, we stayed in darkness inclusive of plenty of bodily heat.
\nWe couldn\u2019t sleep in any other position asides on our side, because of the paucity of space
\nThere was no question of sleeping on one\u2019s back or front\u2026.no space for such luxury
\nBaami was a gardener of sorts
\nI prefer to use gardener as it sounds so very grand
\nWell,
\nHis own kind of \u2018gardening\u2019 was to weed people\u2019s houses for a fee
\nI always could recognise when he was paid
\nHe would come home roaring drunk!
\nSo drunk, he would pee on himself
\nOnce he even defeacated on himself and vomited
\nThe Maamis scampered, falling over themselves to clean him up!
\nI looked on, with carefully concealed scorn!
\nThe left over change , better yet , the pittance left over, after Baami’s drunken binge, was what we had to live on.
\nI was a girl of fifteen
\nI had just the cloth on my back and an Ankara gown for the Jumat service in the mosque on Fridays
\nI was small for my age
\nBut I had lofty dreams
\nDreams of seeing myself rich and educated
\nLiving in an enormous house
\nHaving servants
\nBoxes full of the finest clothing
\nI dreamt of becoming a graduate, even though I could only attend the primary school after which Maami, in her wisdom, enrolled me to learn hair dressing
\nAnd that was where the migration from frying pan to fire started
\nI was often hungry, but surprisingly I had a full figure at the age of eighteen
\nBut the older I got, the hungrier it appeared I became
\nI had no capital to start up a business
\nBut I still dreamt of having a good life
\nUntil, abruptly ,my dreams ended
\nI got pregnant!
\nTill this moment, I cannot explain to myself, the rationality of this pregnancy
\nI was drugged, yes, but couldn\u2019t there have been another way around it
\nA good ending to my story?
\nApparently, not
\nHe used to hang around our shop
\nThe man
\nHe told me he loved me
\nSaid, the man
\nLove held no attraction for me
\nWasn\u2019t it how my Maami ended up, barefoot and pregnant in my Baami’s house?
\nI had always thought love was over rated, anyways
\nHe would come, regular as a clock work
\nTalking about his love
\nThey said he was an Omo Onile, what can best be described as one of the sons of the soil of the village
\nAlways engaged in selling land, here and there
\nHe mostly smelt of local gin
\nAfter a while, his smell, nay stench, didn\u2019t matter, wasn\u2019t quite so offensive anymore
\nAs he had started to give me money
\nMoney to eat!
\nI was elated!
\nHappily I could order for bread and ewa goyin from the hawker
\nI was eating three times a day
\nIt wasn\u2019t that the money was much , but at least I could feed well
\nHunger, my constant friend became an unknown phenomenom
\nWell, until I woke up one morning, on his bed, raped and bruised
\nI tried to recollect groggily, \u2018how the Hell, did I get here?\u2019
\nIn bits, my memory came back
\nI remember his insistence on me coming to pay him a visit
\nI was reluctant to
\nBut he insisted and I , very stupidly agreed.
\nI even agreed to take the bottle of Fanta he offered me, in my mind, a harmless drink, seeing as it appeared unopened
\nThat was all I could remember
\nHow I left his house, in bruises, my hymen crudely and callously torn apart, I cannot explain
\nHow I left his house my womanity, degraded
\nMy self worth in shambles
\nThat was just the beginning of my long epistle of sorrow
\nThe beginning of my heart ache
\nI could not find the words to say to him
\nAll I know, all i felt was that I had lost something precious, something inordinately intrinsic to my dignity in the hands of a man, another beast
\nPregnancy was the grand finale in this, badly orchestrated story of my life
\nHe, the man came to claim full responsibility, whatever that means.
\nI think the \u201c full\u201d is always over rated
\nI became wife, to the man
\nI entered his house only to discover he had three other wives stashed away
\nI also discovered very bitterly, that the money for meals was just a fa\u00e7ade
\nI had married, a poverty stricken, focussless man!
\nAnother, Baami!
\nIs this not from frying pan to fire?
\nThe only time he had money was when he sold land and promptly drunk himself to stupor. He would lure another unsuspecting girl, into his lair, with his monetary gifts.
\nShe becomes pregnant and then, automatically becomes Iyawo
\nI cried bitter tears, I cried till I thought my heart would break
\nI suffered in pregnancy
\nHe had no money to take care of me
\nMy Maami said I had let her down
\nMy Baami said I was a slut
\nIs it that nobody understands what it means to be gullible?
\nNo one understands the meaning of being drugged?
\nWhat part of \u2018 I was drugged and subsequently raped’ is difficult to comprehend?
\nI was laid off from my place of apprenticeship, apparently pregnancy was a misnomer, an embarassment to my Madam.
\nI was as thin as a rake, as there was no money for ante natals
\nI gave birth to my son in the one room apartment,my hubby owned, assisted by a local midwife
\nThe sight of my son in my arms, gives me no comfort
\nWhat life have I to offer him?
\nWhat prospects has he?
\nThis is my Hell, my living breathing Hell
\nMy frying pan to Fire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From the Frying Pan To Fire If ever there was a migration from frying pan to fire, I typify it I embody it I had no choice, in the matter I had no say I was born into a family of a father and three…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1421,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1421"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71012,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70321\/revisions\/71012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}