AJEBO

I sat behind in my primary six days. I had classmates around me who didn’t think being serious in class was a priority in life and sitting near them influenced my emotions. I longed to be moved to the front rows but somehow it never happened. I couldn’t see the blackboard clearly from my back seat and I believed the distance was the cause. I made up my mind that when I get to secondary school I would not sit behind anymore

From my junior secondary days till I graduated from senior class, I never

I got into the higher institution and it was a different ball game, if you couldn’t wake up three hours before the lecture, you get no seat and if you delay further, no space to even stand. It was like a refugee camp. I thought my dad paid my tuition? What was going on here?  I didn’t need the answer, for not long before then I acclimatized to the situation and didn’t even notice the crowd. I only noticed that I couldn’t see the blackboard clearly.

It was then it dawned on me that this had nothing to do with sitting in the front rows or coming early. I had to see a doctor. I did see one and after flashing bright lights into my eyes and telling me I had Compound Astigmatic Myopia, I felt he had insulted me enough and I left. Few weeks later I had to utilize the insult and I went ahead to get myself a pair of eyeglasses. That was in my fourth year in the university.

I felt so strange and odd. A friend of mine one day told me that she never knew I could join all these guys that were doing “guy” meaning the ones that wanted to be noticed. I was disappointed that she couldn’t tell a medicated lens from a fashion-inclined one. At least my person should have told her that I wouldn’t do such and if I chose to do anything in line with that I would choose another part of my body system rather than pick my eye.

People thought I was trying to be different. Some concluded that I had decided to become a guru so I needed a piece of adornment. I couldn’t explain to everyone so I let their words fly not minding how I felt. Many walked up to me and told me to my face that I was fragile, delicate and they wondered what I did with my childhood. It was so funny. Some said they have never imagined me playing football or doing other things that guys my age and size do. It became annoying when we played ball sometime in final year or there about and someone said he never knew I could be useful on a football pitch. For crying out loud, I played ball every Sunday morning way back in secondary school with Chukwudi and John. I wasn’t born again then.

Today people still believe that I am a spoilt child or one that was pampered beyond the normal culture. Well if that is what they can read from the pair of eyeglasses I wore then I would not attempt to blame them. I was once in their shoes. Anyone who looked lean and wore lenses was an “Ajebo”, a mummy’s boy. I believed they were of no use in the rough, rugged world that boys are known for. But here I was mistaken for an indigene of the pampered tribe. I wish they knew my background. I wish they knew that I could have given up the glasses in exchange for anything that would conceal my presence and make people forget I am even around. I wish they could see through me and see the real me. But wishes are wishes and always will be.

If only they knew I grew up working a farm with my parents. My mum in her red trousers and NYSC boots. My dad in his white-striped, black pants and brown-looking white shirt. He would go with his cutlass and my mum with hers. We tagged along with little hoes and basins depending on the season. We farmed beans, maize, melon and cassava. I always wanted to outdo others and it was a very foolish quest because I set standards I couldn’t maintain especially when I became hungry or tired.

The beans farming would start from the seeds until we harvested, beat them out of their pulse cases and bagged the seeds. The maize would go from grains, till they were ripe for harvesting and boiling and roasting (that was the coolest part). The ones that didn’t make the pot would ripen and dry and we would de-husk them with hand machines and process them into pap or corn flour.

The cassava would go through a lot in the farm and the harvesting was tough. No root should be broken in the soil else you could be whacked for your inexperience. We would peel and grind and then fry them to garri, white and yellow. We never let the starch go free. My dad and I loved this part, he used it to prove to me that he was a scientist. It was fun. The egusi or melon farming was the worst for me. Was it the smell or the dirty river we washed it in or the breaking or the drying or the grinding? It was work all through. At the end all that would come out of it would be soup and then I never really liked “swallow”. It was killing but we went through it all. We did all locally and it was life-consuming. I was part of it all.

I had my fun times, making my younger sisters hair with thread. I played ten-ten and knitted belts with crotchets and knitting pins with different coloured balls of wool. I hunted lizards and made arrows and office pin-pointed guns. We made catapults, kites and carton cars. We played house and family. We played heroes and super beings and when we were stung by bees, it added feathers to our caps. We broke bones and sprained ankles. We played football like our lives depended on it. We set traps for birds and caught lizards. We made spears, threw javelins and fetched water on our heads. Scrubbed the floored and washed the dirty toilets.

I sold “Okirika” (bend down boutique), I sold “kankara” (ice blocks) and ice water, and I sold pap and soft drinks. Yes, it was part of my upbringing. I carried a video camera for about two years in higher institution. I used the family clipper to learn and shave my dad and siblings and that made me know how to shave my own hair for years before I decided to befriend a barber. I had a personal camera I used to take shots in my fellowship unit and washed the pictures for money.

I helped my friend make calls during the era of phone calling business. I had a workshop in my room at home for electronic repairs and experiments. I rode a motorbike for two years. I went to the market every Thursday for my mum until a market woman asked in my mum was in good health. My mum taught me to cook and I taught my little sister one or two steps in some dishes though verbally. A friend taught me to bake and I baked the only birthday cake I ever had till date, one that my neighbours ate and thought I had hidden a girl in my kitchen overnight.

I stayed in school during strikes and holidays to learn and teach computer repairs and programming. I never hunted to eat or carried building blocks to survive but I had my own share of trainings and it really doesn’t matter what I look like right now. I am a full blooded and bodied Nigerian. We were rough, we learnt to be modest and we have grown beyond our basis. I will always look like this but until you have established a relationship with me, your judgment of me from pictures and hear-say would never be complete and would mostly be assumed.

No matter what we look like, we all know who we are and what we have been through. What we do does not necessarily define us. I may be neck deep in computers, it doesn’t make me a software. I may be a lecturer, it doesn’t make me a brilliant Don.

Our growing up years do not matter so much until we have utilized what we have learnt in making our world better place. Do I look ajebo? Maybe. Am I ajebo? You judge.

Heb 5:8 even He also, being a Son, learned obedience from that which He suffered." (CLV)