Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 22
It was like Childhood days again but this
time around, not in penury but in
abundance. I spent over a month with Mama
and Baba Miko, freedom is sweet! It takes
people like us to appreciate the importance
of freedom.
Imagine a situation where I wake up in the
morning and take my bath and eat Mama’s
or Baba Miko’s delicious meal, then I decide
on how to spend the day; do I go to Mama’s
Shop? or do I go with Baba Miko to work?
or do I just enter into the Campus of Ebonyi
state university and feed my eyes? It was
1998 and Ebonyi state had been carved out
of Enugu state so they have their own
university now. Abakaliki had become a
Capital City and the prospect for
development in the town had made Baba
Miko changed his mind about going back
home, he planned to set up a furniture
making business in Abakaliki because he
envisaged that the demand for Wood works
would increase with the influx of People
into the new Capital City.
Sometimes I just sit at home and watch
movies as long as N.E.P.A permits, the
generator Baba Miko bought had been
transferred to Mama’s Shop but they
planned to buy another for home use. I was
indeed enjoying myself here with Mama, I
determine the food that we eat in the House
as Mama would always ask me of my choice
of food before entering the Kitchen to cook,
if it was Baba Miko that wants to cook too,
he does the same. Baba Miko was never
married so he had been doing his own
cooking all his adult life.
The family bond that eluded me as a Child, I
began to experience at adult hood. Baba
Miko was a natural Father figure to me and I
took him as such immediately, the
relationship between him and Mama was
like that of two Pigeons in love.
The two of us were always teasing Mama in
her pregnant state; we assisted with the
house chores and in the Kitchen too. I do
the dishes after our meals and I clean up the
house in the Mornings, that is if Baba Miko
does not beat me to it, but it was generally
fun and peaceful, I never heard the two
raise voice at each other through out my
stay with them, Baba Miko has a very large
heart and he still sees my mother as that
sixteen year old Girl he wooed twenty six
years ago, he adored her and now that she
was expecting his baby, he practically
pampers her like a baby. This is what my
mother had missed all this years for
marrying the lazy handsome honey coated
tongued Man called My Father!
I was excited with the fact that I was
expecting a younger Sibling, mama and I
wished it would be a Boy because we
thought it would make Baba Miko happy but
Baba Miko insisted he preferred a girl as he
already had a Son in me, he said he needs
just a daughter to join me in the family and
after that, he doesn’t want any more
Children, he wanted Mama to rest. But Mama
told me in secret that if God permits, she will
bear him three Kids within three years, she
said she cannot have just one Child for him,
she said he needs Children that would bear
his name.
The first day I followed Mama to her Shop
was a Friday and I was over whelmed. The
way Students trooped into her Shop to
make their hair for weekend runs was
alarming; there was no more space to sit
down and the Students were collecting
numbers as they waited for their turns.
Mama had two paid assistants that helped
out at the Shop yet they could not rest
because the Students kept pouring in.
The Students say Mama’s hand does not give
them headache couple with the fact that her
job was very neat. Mama had no choice than
give them value for their money because she
knew where she was coming from. In the
Village where she was, she could plait
someone hair and at the end they resort to
quarreling because the Person would not
tell her from the onset that she does not
have money. In the Village the hair she plaits
for one hundred naira, she collects three
hundred naira at Abakaliki. Washing and
setting in Abakaliki is done at three times
the price in the Village so why won’t she put
in her best?
I had to assist in plaiting and fixing weave-
on for some of the Students that day and I
received a lot of tips. The Girls were
confused as to who should make their hair
between me and mama because our works
are exactly the same. They said we were
apprenticed under the same Tutor. Mama
was to them my elder Sister for no one
could ever believe she was my mother so
there was no need telling them otherwise.
Even though they heard me calling her
Mama, they thought it was her pet name
from Childhood.
Mama’s level in Abakaliki had actually
changed and for the fact that she does
business in a Campus environment, she had
to change and adapt to the fashion en-
vogue, she never wore Buba and wrapper
to work, she wears jeans and T shirts or
Skirt and blouse, her graying hair now looks
dark and lovely courtesy of the several
sheens and hair treatments she applied for
she changed her hair style weekly, mama
had a Baby face naturally so she passed for
a young educated lady in her twenties. The
only handicap was that she could not speak
fluent English and she has a strong Yoruba
accent so she settled for the Pidgin English
she could speak well.
I started to frequent her Shop regularly for
the next two weeks, first because I needed
to help her make more money and secondly
to flirt with the Girls. It was not easy for me
to take my eyes off the girls that came to
mama’s Shop! My Gawd! Igbo girls are
beautiful! In all my life I had never been in
company of young girls like this, I had never
being in a position where I interfaced with
so many girls, I had not gone to the
university by then so it was very difficult for
me to see a skimpily dressed beautiful Lady
without losing concentration, I tried not to
stare by could not help it, how could one be
plaiting a lady’s hair and just below my eyes
her cleavage is open and gaping at me? My
heart beat was always running fast.
And just as one girl is leaving another
beauty comes in with her charms. I was in
bondage, a bondage I did not want to be
free from. It was at mama’s shop that I came
to understand the term ‘beauty is in the eyes
of the beholder’ and beauty comes in
different sizes and shapes!
It was mama that came to my rescue, she
had been watching me all this while as my
mouth dropped open and my eyes pop out
at the sight of any beautiful or skimpily
dressed Lady. She said I should voice out my
thoughts instead of staring like the severed
head of a cow on the butcher’s slab.
Pay them compliments! She had told me; tell
them what you admire in them, if it is the
eyes or the dress or the hair! Tell them how
beautiful they look and flatter them, tell them
they are torturing you and you would have
loved to go out with them if not that you are
engaged to their sister! She said if a girl
comes to make her hair I should pay her
compliments and when she is done I should
flatter her more.
That was how I earned the name “Ogo” or
in-law amongst the girls and I was free with
all of them, I was free to stare freely and
openly while paying compliments while the
girls purposely flaunt it for me to see the
more! Jeez I missed mama’s Shop in
Abakaliki. But that was when I started to
respect male stylists everywhere in the
world. They are actually living in self
imposed psychological bondage.
Some of the Students wanted to know my
department as they thought I was a student
of Ebonyi state University helping out my
elder Sister at my lecture free periods, I told
them I was in E.S.U.T Enugu.
I started going to mama’s shop earlier than
mama while she comes later with my food
and we work together till 5.30PM before
going home to prepare and eat dinner with
Babe Miko if he is on day duty, but if he is on
night duty, he prepares dinner for us before
leaving for work, he leaves the house by
5.30pm till 6.00am the next day.
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