Hey everyone! We have a new story today by Ebosetale Oriarewo. We Hope you enjoyed her previous post(You are a girl oh) and you also enjoy this lovely story. Don’t forget to share, comment and subscribe !
YAGAZIE
I remember my mother. I remember mama, just like yesterday was the last time I laid my head on her chest and listened to her endless stories. I remember how small she was and how slim, she was the type we Nigerians referred to as ‘lepa’. She had to be the most beautiful person I ever set eyes upon. She had lovely big brown eyes and very full lashes, thick well shaped brows, full, dark and thick lips with the nicest set of white teeth that I believed sparkled the very few times she smiled openly. She also had a head full of thick and dark hair. I always wanted her hair, suffice to say I always wanted to be like my mama; have her grace and all.
I remember mama telling me the story of the day I was born, she explained that she had never felt such terrible pain in her entire life and thought that she must have done something wrong to offend the gods for them to send her such pain. She told me that it was late at night, and that she had screamed so badly and endlessly that she assumed the entire village knew she was in labour. My father got the elderly women to assist mama. Some time later, I was born and mama said she laughed when I was placed in her hands for she couldn’t believe how a human so small had made her stomach swell so big. She was excited, but my father wasn’t. He came into the room after mama had been cleaned up, he checked the baby in her arms and after discovering the thing in between its both legs sighed and left the room. Mama said days and weeks and months passed and he never touched me and when she asked why, he in turn asked “what am I to do with a girl?” It was then mama gave me my name Yagazie meaning ‘may it be well with you’ or ‘it is well’, she said it was her constant prayer for me; that things be well with me. And just after the Queen of England visited Nigeria in 1956 mama said Elizabeth would be a great name for me, so that when I was to go to the White man’s land I would be treated nicely and with honour because I was the queen’s namesake. My mama called me Yagazie Elizabeth.
I was raised in a little compound in Aba, a commercial town in Abia state, Nigeria. There wasn’t much people in the house just me, my mama and my father. My father was a real quiet man, I rarely ever heard him speak, he was always either too drunk or too sober. When mama found him dead in their room she called the few family members willing to attend his burial, it was very short, no tears, not many words. My father was but an ordinary man. Mama said being ordinary was never good.
Mama spoke ever so passionately about education, she said people who went to school and could speak the White man’s language- English, would always be respected especially if it was a woman. And so she made it her mission to make sure I got an education. I remember a time she went out and returned with two books- . She was so excited and she told me to take one of the books to the white missionary Miss Mary Jane, so she could teach me to read. It was a beautiful experience as miss Mary Jane was so patient in her teaching and eloquent in her speech, she said I was very lucky to have a mother who wanted me to learn, she said to always thank my mama. Miss Mary Jane taught me more than English, she taught me addition, etiquette and the Bible. And I remember running home each day after my lessons so excited to tell and teach mama what I had learnt.
When mama had enough money to send me to school, she gladly did so. I didn’t have fancy shoes, or a nice pink school bag or a lunch bag with various compartments. All I had were my tired and worn out sandals on my feet, the over sized school uniform that I was supposed to grow into with time, a black nylon that had my slate and pieces of chalks for we couldn’t afford a book and pen then, and my mama by my side. I always went to miss Mary Jane when I could.
With miss Mary Jane and at school we were taught reading with foreign books; books about America or Great Britain. The characters were always Tom and Suzie or Jack and Jill, they never had similar names and they always lived in big houses and sometimes had servants and they always had toast, eggs and bacon for breakfast and drank tea all the time. In my house we had soldier ants that bit our buttocks and rats that ate almost everything we had and for breakfast we had akara and ogi and also drank water. It was still my home though. I wanted to be like the white people, and live like they did, and mama would always say that one day when I become a doctor and I have plenty of money,I would go there and return with tea for her to drink and we would both laugh.
I still recall the day I told my mama that I didn’t want to be a doctor. It was in 1970, I was just sixteen. Her countenance immediately changed. “Mama, I want to be a story teller.” It was like she had encountered the Angel of death first hand, the distress on her face now funny but then worrisome.
“How much will they pay you Yagazie?”
“What kind of work is story telling?”
“So you want to be like me, an old woman telling stories for free, is that it?”
She was so dramatic, it took me a lot of effort to convince mama that the kind of story teller I wanted to be wasn’t the person who gathered the little children and young boys and young girls to the village square to tell them stories of the tortoise and the hare. I had to explain that I wanted to tell the stories of my people, people who bore similar names, wore similar clothes, spoke the same language and ate their yams roasted and with palm oil and with their hands. I told mama that I wanted to tell her stories. I can’t tell if I ever fully convinced her of my decision but I knew my mind was made up. Chinua Achebe’s Okonkwo in the Things Fall Apart had convinced me that my people had stories too.
It was in 1973 that I got a scholarship to study in the United States of America, finally I was to go to the white man’s land. I remember running home to inform mama of my good news, she was behind the house breaking melon seeds for that nights’ supper. I got there panting heavily and sweating profusely, I think I may have scared her.
“Mama, mama, I’m going to travel to America”
“Which America?, How do you want to get there Yagazie?” She hissed.
“But mama we wrote an exam in our school and I passed so they are taking me to school in America”
She immediately dropped her tray of melon seeds on the ground, got up and started singing one of those her songs and dancing to the very beat of her clapping hands. That was one of the few times I ever saw my mama cry, she said they were tears of joy but I knew the tears were more than joyful rains, I was leaving her for the first time, she was to be all alone.
I left Nigeria and my mama on the 24th of September 1974. It forever remains the saddest day my life. I never saw my mama again.
To be continued.
Read the continuation here
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