Hey everyone! Hope you have been enjoying the latest posts and stories on the blog? If you can remember “Yagazie” by Ebosetale Oriarewo, we hope you can enjoy the sequel as much as you enjoyed the first part and if you haven’t read the first part, just click this link Yagazie. Don’t forget to share and comment. Enjoy this very beautiful and emotional story.
I remember getting to America and feeling like I had arrived heaven. I remember also feeling strange and out of place; hardly could I see a person who resembled me in any way. I had a white room mate, her name was Joan. I found her questions and comments quite stupid and offensive. It wasn’t only Joan, some other white people asked funny questions, made silly comments and some just completely avoided me. I was fully aware of my residence in America during the winter season, it was nothing like harmattan in Nigeria. The weather was something else, I recall wearing several layers of coats, head warmers and gloves and applying Robb on my chest and feet but to no avail. I missed home and mama so much. I missed the food too, I didn’t like eating my vegetables raw in the name of salad, I liked them cooked and in my Oha soup with lots of kpomo and shaki. I found eating with a cutlery too hectic and boring, with my hand the contact was direct and the effect immediate. I needed Nigeria.
I wrote to mama when I could and sent her pictures too, she couldn’t read so some of the school goers in the village would read the letters to her and when they could, they helped mama write to me. I kept all of her letters; the very few of them. I still keep them.
In my letters, I wrote to mama about the white flakes that fell from heaven, the ones they called snow. I told mama of how they were so beautiful. I wrote to mama about the first time I used red lipstick, I told how of how it made me so beautiful and different, I was very excited. Mama on the other hand wrote to me about the New Yam festival masquerades and the traditional dancers, she wrote telling me of the perverted Chief Maduabuchi who had taken for himself a new wife. Again. This was his fifth one. She also told me about how people referred to her as mama America because she had a daughter in America. She said she was very proud and will always pray for me. I believed so.
A month had turned into two, and now two months into several months and I had gotten no letter from mama. This was very strange and unlike her. I had a feeling something bad had happened but as Miss Mary Jane’s Bible said, ‘resist the devil and temptation will flee from you’, I decided to obey the Bible. Time went and still no word from mama.
She was sitting in the corner of the room, her head in between both her legs and she was crying so loudly and painfully. I could feel the pain. I didn’t like to see her cry, I had never liked it before and so I made efforts to reach out to her but the harder I tried the harder the rope around my legs pulled me backwards until she was invincible. And then I woke up. It was just a dream, a dream that confirmed my evil thoughts and fears. Mama had died. My tears were uncontrollable.
Exactly a week after my dream, I received a letter from the village. It read:
“Dear Yagazie,
It is with a heavy heart that we write you this letter. Your mother died. Don’t worry, it was a peaceful death; she slept and never awoke again. We found her lifeless body at your house on the last market day and she was buried two days after.
We hope your God grants you comfort and the white man’s land make you forget your sorrows. Your mother is resting above.
Your people.”
Such stupidity! Firstly, how was the White man’s land supposed to make me forget my sorrows, how was it supposed to make me forget the person I had loved the longest and the most, what was in the land and on the land that was going to make the pain I felt go away? What exactly? And secondly, she was not my mother, she was my mama. I saw a difference in the two, she didn’t just carry me around for nine months and give me life like mothers do, she sacrificed everything to give me comfort, she wiped my tears and sorrows with her love and care and if she hadn’t cared enough for her girl child to get an education I wouldn’t be in the white man’s land that they expected to ship away my sorrows.
She wasn’t my mother, she was my Mama!
Who was I supposed to tell about about my boring philosophy class or my new roommate Millicent who snored so loudly and sometimes spoke in her sleep? Who was I supposed to tell about my new found love Femi? Who?
Femi was one of the only three Nigerians I ever saw on my campus. It was me, Ejiro; a girl that spoke so much and ate a lot too but only around us, and then pretended to be white when the white students were around, and then Femi.
I met him at the school cafe one fine day and I remember he was so excited to meet another Nigerian. I liked him from that very moment. He was so tall, dark and handsome and he was very strong. As it turned out he was also very smart like mama would have liked. We talked a lot and I got to know that he was a Business major and that he really liked Fela.
Femi had CD’s of all Fela’s albums. His best song was ‘Zombie’. He said he had never heard lyrics so true, I remember once Femi said Fela had to be the prophet Elijah of our time; preaching and prophesying things yet to come and stating the things of the now, so aptly with his drums, Afro beats and boisterous dancers – these were Fela Kuti’s medium of message. The song I hated the most was ‘Lady’, I found it offensive in some way. So what if she wanted a piece of meat before anybody? And who made the man the master over her or any other woman? I had a very big problem with Fela, I thought he was sexist but Femi thought he was a prophet.
Graduation day came in the fall of 1979, there were people cheering, hands clapping, faces beaming with smiles, tight hugs from every corner and most importantly there was family. I had no family, no mama for she was my only family. The day she had longed to see the most, she could see but from a very far distance. I wondered what she would be saying, probably letting all the angels and everyone else know that the short girl with the turquoise dress and big braids, who was struggling with her heels was her Yagazie. Maybe she would dance after that.
I met Femi’s family on that day; his father; Ayobami, his mother; Bukola and his two sisters; Atinuke and Omotoke. They seemed very lovely people, full of life. I was most impressed by his mother who didn’t fail to let the world know that she was Nigerian with her very big gele and her two piece wrapper. I also met Ejiro’s family, I met her father; Onajite, a very agile yet calm man, her mother; Rukevwe, her elder sister; Isio, whom I thought was way too beautiful and one of her brothers; Ogheneruono. It was very amazing how the both families blended with each other at once, I will never forget what Ejiro’s father said on that day: “The Black man is the next Black mans’ keeper, we should look out for one another, defend each other and celebrate each other because nobody will do that for us.” It struck something deep in me till tomorrow.
I returned to Nigeria in June of 1979. I returned with my fiancé; Femi. The flight back to Nigeria was the most troubled and uncomfortable journey I ever travelled till date. The flight was excellent, the reception okay, but my thoughts and fears were what bothered me for all through. Femi wasn’t bothered about anything, he was never bothered about anything. I thought of how Nigeria was now, thought of how mama’s house was without her there, I wondered if the house was still there or the villagers had done something with it. I planned to do something very drastic to anybody who would have touched my mama’s house.
We finally got to Nigeria. It was my first time in Lagos. I had never been in any other part of Nigeria except Abia state where I was raised, so when Femi asked me to stay 14 days with him and his family I immediately concurred. It was one of the best times of my life, I instantly fell in love with Lagos and its people. The Yoruba people were an interesting group, I loved their spirit, never before had I met people who loved to party, talk and eat. There was no part of Lagos that I visited that the people didn’t communicate in their native language and even tried to include me in their gist. There were so many people in Lagos, that watching the life filled people go about their duties every day gave me so much life. I remember the ever busy Old Carter bridge that looked so beautiful at night, I remember the Ikorodu road express way of then filled with all those small and humble vehicles like the Beetle and the Volkswagen. I also remember visiting the Lagos National Theatre and I remember the Ben Ekanem’s equestrian statue of Queen Amina, I thought it was beautiful art work. I remember watching Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel for the first time at the theatre, it was the highlight of my stay in Lagos.
14 days had gone by and it was time to face my Aba people. The journey by road was very beautiful- passing through so many cities and seeing so many different people and things. We went through Benin city of Edo state and I thought they had very beautiful women and were very rich in red sand, we went through Ughelli of Delta state and I remember the hawkers who ran after our bus shoving in our faces their various goods like bread, drinks, sausage rolls, egg rolls, kpo kpo garri and some others. I still remember the boy in a white singlet and brown shorts that sold bush meat and was very persuasive. I thought these people were survivors , i understood Ejiro a little bit better after that day. We also went through Bayelsa state and the people seemed very peaceful, no noise about them. We finally went through Port Harcourt of Rivers state and I remember noticing how beautiful this place was, how much land and arable vegetation they had and the waters all around. Why was nobody showing the world the beautiful stories from Lagos state to Abia state?
I finally arrived Abia state. I still remember the rust sign post that read “Welcome To Abia State; God’s Own State.” I remember smiling when I read this and I remember saying to myself over and over again ‘God’s own state.’ I remember getting to my little village in Aba and how the people ran to hug me, some ran to call others, some sang Igbo songs, some danced, some offered to carry my things, some even asked what I got them from ‘over there’ but they all called me Eliza; short form of my English name Elizabeth. They said after living and studying with the White man I deserved to be called by their name, no more Yagazie. My people were very proud, if only mama was here to see this. She would still call me Yagazie.
I remember getting to mama’s house. It was still there, not exactly how I left it but who cared, it was still there. I remembered mama sitting in front of the house blowing and picking beans and I saw the rust iron bucket by one corner of the compound and I remembered going to the stream to fetch water that mama and I would use. I started crying. This house was more beautiful than the entire world to me.
October 23rd 1980, I and Femi got married in mama’s house and once again my people as well as Femi’s people danced and sang songs and ate and drank and once more I cried for mama. October 25th we got married at the village church. I wore a very lacy and ill fitted white dress with very puffy shoulders and Femi wore a cream coloured suit, I remember how big the suit jacket was with its four or five buttons. We thought we looked good. I wished for mama on that day like every other day.
I wished for mama on the 16th of August 1981 when I had my first daughter; Oreoluwa Yagazie. I wished for mama again on the 21st of July 1983 when I had my second daughter; Oluwasemipe Ijeoma and once again I wished for mama on the 25th of January 1985 when I had my twin sons; Somachi Taiwo and Onyebuchi Kehinde.
I cannot remember not ever wishing for mama.
September 2015, and all I can think about is my mama. I hope with my sixty one years of existence I have been able to make her smile. I hope I’ve been able to tell stories that she liked, I hope I’ve been able to tell her people’s stories well. I hope I have told her own story; this story well. I remember mama today like always.
‘Who sat and watched my infant head
When sleeping on my cradle bed
And tears of sweet affection shed?
My Mother.
When pain and sickness made me cry,
Who gazed upon my heavy eye,
And wept for fear that I should die?
My Mother,
Who taught my infant lips to pray
And love God’s holy book and day,
And walk in wisdom’s pleasant way?
My Mother,
And can I ever cease to be
Affectionate and kind to thee,
Who wast so very kind to me,
My Mother?
Ah, no! The thought I cannot bear,
And if God please my life to spare
I hope I shall reward thy care,
My mother.
When thou art feeble, old and grey
My healthy arm shall be thy stay,
And I will soothe thy pains away,
My mother.
I remember my Mama.
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