It's quite unbelievable, but I actually did it.
It all happened on Christmas eve - last Christmas eve.
There was this bag of rice that had been sitting at one corner of my kitchen self since I moved into my new apartment.
Mama forced it on me when I was moving out of the house a month ago.
I had a new job at Calabar. So I had to relocate there.
She said to me before handing over the bag to me, "son, you will be new in that old town and may not know where to get things".
I never wanted to travel with any thing like that. So I resisted.
Besides, my traveling bag was already full, and I still had things more important like my favorite books to carry. But since my traveling bag was full, I was left with no choice but to leave them behind until next visit.
I tried to explain this to Mumcy (another way to say mummy in some part of Nigeria), but she refused to understand.
Like my existence in calabar depended on those grains, she kept insisting I should create the damn rice a space.
She was really annoying me but she didn't know.
Some how while I wasn't watching, she forced that bloody bag of rice down into the belly of my traveling bag. Up till now, am still wondering how she did that to a traveling bag that was officially full. Believe me, Mothers are geniuses.
She did me much good smuggling that rice down to that corner of my kitchen shelf . But I was only going to realize that later.
Like that, that bag of rice followed me to my new apartment in Calabar, ended up at that corner of my kitchen self, and remained there ever since.
Ever since then, I had always wondered when am going to cook that rice since I was always eating at restaurants because i never how to cook most of the food I would like to eat and was too lazy to start learning how.
But, when I looked at that bag of rice again last Sunday's afternoon with the consciousness that the following day will be Christmas; it did not only become clear to me when am going to cook that rice. At the same time, I also knew what am going to cook out of it.
¹Rice and stew!
I knew what necessary ingredients rice and stew will require, so without the company of any list of ingredients of any kind, I left for the market and got my condiments.
The problem started when I returned.
I had forgotten I don't know how to cook anything, including rice and stew, and had exhausted my phone's battery hours earlier.
I had no idea I was going to make stew few later, I would have Googled out how to make stew and kept or phoned a ¹girlfriend for help before my battery ran out.
My girlfriend would have laughed at me at first, but she would have help me after all.
I was still wondering what to do when an idea crept from nowhere into my mind. A very crazy but cool idea. It seemed like it would be a fun way to introduce myself to my new neighbors and get to know them faster than I ever could. So i decided to give it a try.
What my crazy idea was? Don't worry, just read on and you will find out.
* * * * *
So after I got my crazy idea, I stepped out into my balcony, held the rails, said to myself, "let the fun begin!", and shouted loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Hi everyone in the neighbor hood", I said. "My name is aniekan and am new in the neighborhood. You will get to know more about me with time. For now i just need a little help from you guys." "I want to make rice and stew; sorry, stew. . ." I continued, "but I don't know how. I will really appreciate if you guys can help me out…." I was still talking when a voice interrupted with a response.
The voice seemed to be coming from the direction of a cluster of small bungalows right opposite my apartment - over the fence. The voice happened to be male. He started his response with a ridiculous laughter, then he said... "you are very funny, guy… where do you come from?". Without waiting to get my reply; this guy that responded, in *Efik, started to call his neighbours to come out and join him and watch "coming to Etta - Agbor Street, Calabar".
One by one they started coming out male and female. Before I knew it, i had a crowd of mostly young people before me. (My place is closed to a university, so young people own the area)
My apartment was high up. The second room from the left on the first floor of a two story building. The surrounding houses where clusters of bungalows. So I was high up, where all my pack of jesters, who where all gathered around me could see me, even though they were separated from my building with a fence.
From the way they where all looking at me laughing, I knew the first guy who replied me had told them why I was up there.
I smiled back at them and said, "I bought everything. So how do I do it?"
"Did you buy ³periwinkle?".
Everyone bursted into laughter, when someone asked that from the crowd.
I laughed too and said, "No!"
"Then you have to go back to the market if so", someone else replied.
Laughter was everywhere again.
At this point my co-tenants started coming out too to see who the new crazy tenant was.
They couldn't believe my madness. But at the same time, it was obvious they admired my style.
The jest kept coming in, and everyone was laughing so hard. At a point I just had to keep quiet and laugh along with them.
Then someone said, "get a girlfriend" and all of them responded in unison " Yeeeeeaaah!" in a way that suggested they all agreed to that suggestion.
It happened that the person who suggested I should get a girlfriend was a young voluptuous beautiful girl. So I saw opportunity in that, and quickly asked her if she could be my girlfriend.
Her response left everyone laughing at me again, this time hardest.
She said, "No you are too dumb for me. Where were you when your mummy was cooking?"
As I was still having fun with my new neighbors, somebody shouted, "⁴NEPA!", and that was the end of the show.
Immediately everyone started dispersing one by one as they came, till no one was left.
You see, in Nigeria ⁿlight, as is commonly called doesnt come all the time.
The few time it comes, everyone has to use it wisely.
The funniest part was that at the end, no one solved my problem.
No one told me how to make stew.
After everyone left, I got inside too, got my phone charged and googled out how to make my stew.
Hours later my stew was done and I served myself.
Just when I was about settling down to eat, I heard a knock on my door.
I went and opened the door. Guess who was at my door? It was that girl I asked if she could be my girlfriend. There she was, standing with a tray that had a beautiful bowl in it.
"This is for you", she said.
She handed it over to me and said.
"Merry Christmas!" and left.
I smiled in a way that suggested something good will soon happen, took the tray inside, kept it along side with my rice and stew. The meal this girl brought turned my dinning table into a battlefield of "the rice and stew i cooked" VS "the salad rice, with green beans, carrots and a big fat roasted chicken she brought."
Both food, where battling to be chosen by me.
If you where me, which would you choose to eat?
The one you cooked or the one the beautiful girl brought?
¹one of my friend that's a girl I left back at home.
² Right from the time Africans, especially most middle class Nigerians discovered rice and stew, that food won a special place in their heart and stomach of, especially on festive days like Christmas.
³ Periwinkle is a snail like seafood. Down here in the southern part of Nigeria, It has never been heard it has been used to make stew before, and it would be extremely ridiculous for me to be the first to try that. That's why they where all laughing at me when someone asked if I bought periwinkle.
⁴ NEPA is acronym for National Electric Power Authority. It's the former name of electricity regulatory body in Nigeria. The new Nigerian electric power regulatory body's name is PHCN(Power Holding Company of Nigeria). But people became too use to the former name such that they still call the regulatory body by their old name.
*Efik is Local dialect of Calabar people of nigeria.
ⁿ Light in the Nigerian context means electric power.