Prayer

God, I pray You reward our mothers and their friends and age-mates with paradise. God, I pray You reward our sisters and their friends. God, give us so much money and means to make the life of our mothers and sisters comfortable. Yesterday I met an elderly woman who said she was my mother. Strange! I did not know her but I tended to agree.

She acted like my mothers and reminded one growing up in village where every woman in the extended family is your mother. Every woman in the neighborhood is also your mother. They beat you and washed the clothes you jumped into the gutter and spoilt and said that they would show your wife and your children the open gutter you normally swam whenever you were angry. I am talking of Hajiya Ya’Abba. Hajiya Liyan you also beat me! I carried your name here while you have never understood what we do when you see us mute glued to our phones. This is what we do.

“Kai jama’a, wai ‘ya’yannan me suke yi ne?” It is Juma when you hear that. So Juma, your name is also here. Apology to Bilyan Juma for he would say I am abusing him. We also had that kind of thinking when we were young. But the name is precisely given to be mentioned. Yes, but not in such rude and reckless way.

That was how they disciplined you. Every mother could act on you without feeling anything, that your mother would be angry.  They were intent to mold you into a good gentle man. You are their son, their errand boy and often made you hawk their things.

Those women who’d never call their first born by their real names, their friends would see you in the streets and buy you things because they knew one woman in your homestead. Women you had been visiting and collecting their money thinking they were your blood relatives only to discover their grandparents and your grandparents were once children in the same neighborhood. I pray for comfort and good health for those women who would see a little boy on their way to gidan shan zabaina trying to buy roasted maize with 50 kobo and begin fumbling at their kullaka telling the person “give him, he is my son” and the man selling the maize would not collect the money when he heard you are the son of so-and-so. The son of that man, and that woman, gidan Alhaji Isa. All manner of description until he understood. He would realize your family’s farmland shared a border with his family’s farmland at Yakufawa or Kudumin Dole or Faraq Qaya. And then you would be visiting him regularly and constantly boasting to other children on your way to his place about a certain relative of yours selling masara. He would never disappoint despite your countless visit with horde of children.

You really did not know that woman, but when you went home and told your mother about the woman who bought you awara or masara, your mother would understand and they would discuss further in their next meeting at shan zabaina or budar kai. People, do you have shan zabaina still and the fatai-fatai I have been missing?

When a chicken was killed or someone’s pot saw a change from boring to a palatable food (I am not abusing tuwo), the food or meet would go round to every door in the family. It was days when you carried salt and daddawa to many families every Sallah and gathered some coins in your pocket that made you feel like you owned all the Euro bond to yourself. Your grandmother who is now dead would give you 50 kobo coins only worth one Naira so that they would look much while she gave your sister Two Naira. People who went to the Binni would buy a loaf of bread at Bichi on their return as gift for little children.

You missed all the rural comfort when you moved to the city. On visit to Bagwai, you ate from a big tray with other children and Muba was constantly angry and reminding you that you were eating his father’s food. You split yourself between Hama’s room and Uwajiya’s room because they are all your mothers. You can’t understand the division and politics of polygamous home because no one tried to make you understand. You also split your time shuttling between Gidan Baban Tukur and Gidan Hajiya, each family eternally asking you to eat their food the moment you arrived. You played football and went to dam at eleven o’clock and proceeded to steal maize and sugarcane from people’ farm who were in a way your relatives. That’s why you enjoyed visiting village.  Your home was a prison. They killed you with chores and orders and arrangements while nobody here would intrude into your world with fetching water in the morning, endless errand or waking you up at dawn to perform subhi prayer.

I pray for our sisters and their friends who would see you in the streets and buy you things like kokon yara. They would see you in the street kicking and rolling and dirtying your clothes after a fight and collect you to your mother because you’re the younger brother of their friends. Never mind if that sister happened to be someone in a very far and distant connection. But these sisters were always close. I am talking about Nanatu and Rafi’atu and Usaina and many others in their bracket. Everyone was afraid to fight you because you are many in your family. Touch one and ten would come out. Came out they did in their number and defended you even when you were wrong. Even when you were the one to pinch another child first. But they would first defend you before asking question. And when no one was seeing, they would beat the child and quickly run home.

You threw words to each other between those who went to Islamiyya on Saturday and those who went to Boko on Friday. In the evening, while fetching water, you would be singing “duro ya kusan cika saura na wanka” before going to Irshadu. Wasila, Jidda, Ummin “Ya’Abba, do you remember this? I am sure Abban Yabi remembers. I am not insulting you o? Your mama na my sister.

An elder brother would promise you money if ever you pronounced tsire correctly. “Tsire, not chiye.” One day, you got it right and he never gave you anything.

So I was trying to buy things in a shop yesterday when I met an elderly woman. I had only twenty Naira. There was no change and the shop owner refused to “follow” me ten Naira. I turned to leave. “My son, why didn’t you buy?” Concerned, like that old woman in village whom I did not know, the woman called me back. I didn’t have change but before I could lie she proceeded to say “Give him, what is ten Naira. Muma ya’yanmu suna can suna karatu.” I was deeply touched. Her words brought tears to my eyes. I have been hearing them at home when our parents are helping others.

But I am hedging. I was actually broke and went to the shop that night with my only twenty Naira change to buy Kwaki. Players in my stomach had taken to street in riotous action to protest against what they considered an affront and blatant disregard to their sensibilities. My last card was two-hundred Naira after paying the repairman who fixed my computer. You must learn to calculate if you are self-employed as I wrote on my Facebook profile, a euphuism they said for someone in hell. And the woman understood I was self-employed. She paid ten Naira for the Kwaki and also gave me free groundnut worth twenty Naira. This moving experience tells me my life is not my own alone. 

For ladies who are persistently looking you with an eye to part you with the little you have, God, I pray, give us so much money malala gashin tinkiya. If You give them two cars, give us ten for without money we are dead.