Love on Paper 4

Life with an infant was not anything I could have been prepared for. You can’t explain the shock of being a new nursing mother to anyone. If you felt nine months was difficult, you’d better have another think.  The baby arrived and what an arrival!!! The first night back home, I didn’t even hear the baby cry. I slept right through his cries and woke up to Mummy rocking him, trying to calm him. The sleepless nights were not funny. I remember a particular day when Kev’s brother visited us and we were going shopping. I got dressed, picked up my handbag and was on my way to the car, completely oblivious to the fact that I had a new born. Mummy rushed out suddenly, out of nowhere gasping, “Hennang”, and handed me the baby. She was smiling.

After three months of being pampered, mummy had to return to the family home and I was left alone with my niece Ajala. We were advised by the hospital not to bottle feed but rather to do a 100% breastfeeding. They highlighted all the benefits and forgot to mention the cost. I hope it doesn’t sound as if I was a bad mother but the Baby Friendly thing was not for the faint hearted. It was all consuming. I was the only one that could feed the baby and couldn’t go anywhere without him. It meant that he eventually became clingy and needy. He would not allow anyone else carry him and the breast milk made him very heavy. I remember carrying him in a sling one day and this lady saw me. She stopped and exclaimed loudly, “shuooo, whish kind pikin you carry so, wey big pass you” (meaning: why are you carrying a baby that’s bigger than you!) All other babies usually felt very light.

The first three years were beautiful. Kev and I agreed that I should not work but stay home to take care of the children. He had his oil job and things were looking rosy. I could visit Kinty’s without breaking the bank. My family was not too excited about my not working. I remember my aunty L in Lagos who asked me what job I was into. I proudly told her I was a housewife. He couldn’t hide her irritation, “what’s a housewife? an idiot can be a housewife. So you don’t want to work and help others.” On the contrary, I wanted to work and help others but there were just no good jobs available. In the end, we had counted the cost and decided that taking care of the young children was a better investment as we didn’t have anyone reliable to leave them with. The only jobs available were teaching jobs and they didn’t pay much. Thankfully, Kev’s job was able to provide adequately although he had to be away a lot.

By this time, I was getting used to living in Warri with the rampant armed robberies going on. I was never afraid of harm as I felt my life and times were in God’s hands. I remember one night while nursing the baby I counted 18-gun shots as I laid down. Hearing gun shots was such a natural phenomenon that it didn’t alarm me or anyone else. I would calmly count them off as if they were oranges; one two, three, four, five up to eighteen. This would have been within the span of one hour while I nursed baby Josiah. My luck ran out one day when armed robbers indeed visited.  By this time, we had two boys and I was in the process of weaning the second one. It was a hot night and the electricity had gone off. I had opened all the windows and drawn the curtains to allow some cool air in so we could sleep. That night, as usual my husband was away and I was with my niece Sarah, who was assisting me with the process. I was woken up from sleep with the sound of screams from a house nearby. The lady was screaming “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” and you could hear the terror in her voice. “Shut up,” a male voice responded violently.  I started praying for that household, asking God to protect them so no one would get shot. A lady had been killed in a similar situation a few days earlier. Armed robbers had visited their home and were about leaving when she started screaming. They had turned around and “unalived” her with a bullet through her head. With that picture in mind, I continued praying fervently. After a few moments, it went quiet, and I started falling asleep. All of a sudden, I heard a loud thud behind my window, as if something heavy had dropped to the ground. It was a pitch-black night and I turned my head in fear towards the sound. I saw the bright light of a torch being handed over from across the fence to someone just outside my window. I can’t explain the kind of terror I felt. It was as if my stomach twisted in fear and agony. All they needed to do was to shine their torch and they would have seen us all in the room. I was on the bed with Josiah and Sarah was with Danny on a mattress on the floor. 

I froze for a moment, with frightening images running wildly through my mind. The adrenalin kicked in and I jumped up, racing out of the room. My heart was thumping so loudly I could hear it with my ears. I held the doorknob for a second, thinking about the best option. Should I slam it hard or shut it quietly? I gave it the biggest slam ever, letting them know that I was awake and had seen them. What a stupid decision!! I stood in the corridor shaking and whispering one scripture from the Bible. “As the mountains surround Jerusalem so is the Lord around His people”, I kept on muttering that over and over again. I watched them flicker their torchlight around the toom. I saw their torchlight through the kitchen window and from the living room. Their normal modus operandi would be to call out to someone in the house and threaten to shoot those in sight except the door was opened. It was a perfect setting but Jesus saved us. To this day, I don’t know what happened and why they didn’t threaten us because I would have flown to open the door for them.

They eventually left our house and went to the next bungalow where Mike and Patricia lived. That couple had just had a baby after waiting many years and it was their first night back from the hospital. Suddenly there was a piercing scream and doors banging. All I can say is that God watched over both houses and the armed robbers did not get in. After this episode, I became traumatised and couldn’t sleep in the room. I would always imagine a flashlight flickering and would wake up in a panic clutching Kev and telling him I saw a torchlight. He decided we needed to move house, if nothing else, to help me relax when he was away.

As soon as I had weaned number two, I found out that I was pregnant for the third baby. By now, we had moved to another house and was fortunate to have my friend Moji as my neighbour.  Life was going so well that I felt we had never had it so good. I could visit Kintys without breaking the bank and we had bought our first car. As if on cue, my husband lost his job again.

It was a devastating blow and the timing couldn’t have been worse.  Just prior to that, an opportunity to do a Master’s programme in Industrial and Labour Relations (HR) had come along and I had jumped at it. Kev and I had not discussed it and I didn’t want to lose the chance that year. These were some of the challenges of not having mobile phones back then. I wonder how we survived that era, but as they say, you don’t miss what you don’t know. I had applied and gotten the admission. It was a tough season for my husband as we had two boys in nursery school, one pregnant wife, lectures every Saturday in Abraka, university fees to be paid, my nieces living with me and him not working. It put a lot of pressure on our marriage, but we were willing to work through it. Whenever it was time to pay the children’s school fees, my husband would get called to do a private survey job that would meet the immediate need. There was never any savings, just enough to pay the very barest basic needs. When I had a hole in my only good shoe and I knew I couldn’t get another one, I pressed down the centre cardboard of a toilet roll and fitted it in. Problem solved and nobody knew, not even my husband. I never liked telling him about my needs because I felt it would put pressure on him.  I would wait until I felt he had a bit of money. My strategy wasn’t appreciated by Kev as he was a man of lists and of budgets. He would often get upset with me for springing things on him “like that.” He wanted me to add my needs to his list so we could tick them off together. It took some time for me to learn and to adjust to his ways.

In that season, one of my major problems was that I couldn’t afford any deodorant and perfume. I had to survive with my sweaty, smelly armpits and unstylish clothes. Sometimes I envied others that could afford to look so good and smell so fresh.  We belonged to a Church, and it came with its own challenges. I wanted to look beautiful and stylish, but I couldn’t. I remember times when we would be in Church and the female leaders would be elegantly dressed and dancing happily. They were mostly wives or staff of oil companies in Warri. I would smirk in my heart and say, “yes, I would dance happily too if I knew what we would be eating today.” On some of those days, I would have to visit my friends around lunch time to ensure that the children and I ate. I felt I was looking 100 years old and I didn’t like it. I once complained to my husband that people said I wasn’t looking good. He was genuinely concerned but said he thought I looked very beautiful. In all this, I had forgotten what the Lord had told me about passing us through fire. I wondered if I was being punished for some sin or disobedience. I convinced myself that it was because I wasn’t praying enough and reading my bible enough. The harder I tried to improve, the harder I failed and the more discouraged I got. I was tired of living in constant lack.

One day, I decided to try my hands at business. My lecturer in school, who was also a Christian had challenged us by saying that God could only bless what was in our hands. I looked at my hands and knew there was nothing there to be blessed. The only skill I could boast of was of making moimoi which I decided to put to good use. The next weekend going to school, I had a big basin of steamed moimoi and peppered chicken. I took my niece Sarah to be my sales assistant. By the end of the day, we had made over 30% profit which Moji my financial consultant said was a reasonable profit. I was finally in business.

One weekend, I went to school and there was no way of getting back home to Warri. I didn’t have any money and the person that had given me a lift to campus had gone back and unknowingly left me stranded. I guess they didn’t know that I didn’t have any other option than them to get back home. I asked around to see if anyone else could help, but to no avail. Eventually, the whole school emptied, and I was the only one left. This was 1998 and there were no mobile phones yet and no way of getting in touch with my husband in Warri. I was about 6 months pregnant, very tired, hungry and afraid. I sat by myself and prayed, contemplating what to do next. As it was the holiday season, there were no students to make enquiries from. It was not safe either for me to wander into the village, so I chose to sit by the gate. Slowly, it got dark, and the mosquitoes became relentless. As I pondered about my life, I eventually drifted into a pity party; feeling like nobody loved me and the whole world was against me. I began to think that maybe I was a big sinner and that was why things were just now working out for us. This only heightened my sense of hunger, fear and the accompanying nausea. It was hard to keep God in focus that night alone in Abraka. I waited impatiently, hoping for a miracle. By about 9pm, I could see some headlamps in the distance approaching. My heart was thumping, hoping and praying it might be my Kev. It was, he was very terse and unsmiling, not saying a word to me. To be honest, I didn’t care, I was too relieved from being rescued to worry about him then.

Our diet couldn’t be called sumptuous. I had to be very sensible and basic in planning our meals. My rule with the children was whatever mommy gives you to eat, you say thank you and eat it. There were days when it was just boiled rice, onions and oil. Some days it was garri and some old honey I found, as I couldn’t afford sugar. I remember one day my first son begging me desperately, “mummy please I want some sugar, I don’t want the garri thing (black looking honey), please mummy.” As a mother, it was heart wrenching to hear him cry so desperately because he wanted sugar. There was nothing humanly possible I could do, and I didn’t want to disturb my neighbour Moji for some sugar. I needed to save her for something more urgent. “Whatever mummy gives you to eat, you say thank you and eat it” was my response. Our daily life was very predictable and we were content with what we had. Not long after that episode he asked me, “Mummy are we poor?” I burst out laughing so hard that he became confused. It suddenly occurred to me that the children might be aware of what we were going through. They were in a “posh” school by the grace of God and might be seeing a difference when compared to their classmates. “Noooo, we are not poor” I reassured him. It was another painful moment for me.

 Being pregnant with the third child, it didn’t take long before I started craving certain foods. One day as I was lying down, I started speaking to God in a very casual way. “Father, I’d love to have  some pizza and some apples. I would also love to have some pounded yam and fish pepper soup. I’m sure you don’t like these types of prayers but that’s what I really want to have today. Thank you.” If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. There was no chance of my riding that day as I spotted my husband’s friend Biodun at the door. They were school mates and had later become work mates on one of the oil job projects in Port Harcourt. He had eventually resigned and gone into full time ministry reaching the Ijaw people on the riverine coast. He asked for Kev and I informed him he was in school in Ibadan. While leaving, he gave me a bundle of N2000 as a gift. I recoiled as if I was being offered poison. I said, “no I can’t accept money from you. What will I tell my husband.” This was because we had been financially supporting his work and I knew that he was not on a salary. I knew the money he was giving me was probably a gift he had received from someone. It felt so unjust to take it off him. I took some steps away from him, apologisng that I couldn’t take the gift. He tried so hard to convince me but I wasn’t budging. Finally, he said, “it’s for the children, can’t I give a gift to the children? Please dont tell your husband.” In that same instance, I heard the Lord say, “go and have your pounded yam.” To this day, it brings tears to my eyes when I remember the faithfulness of God in the times of His crushing.

I remember an instance when Josiah was about four years old and his daddy was away in school. That day he was listless and withdrawn, with his temperature rising. I knew instinctively that he had malaria fever. I didn’t have any medication in the house and I didn’t have any money either to take him to the hospital. I laid him on the bed and watched him sleep the whole day. He wouldn’t eat as he had no appetite. The night was especially difficult as his temperature had gone through the roof. All I could do was cry to God to save my son. By the third day, I watched him fearfully on the living room floor convulsing because of his extremely high temperature. I didn’t have any money and I couldn’t disturb anybody with my troubles. I kept calling on God with tears in my eyes to save my son. There was a knock on the door and Sarah answered it. It was my husband’s handy man passing by and had stopped to say hello. As he was leaving, he gave me N200 to buy some bread for the boys. It was Gods provision for the hospital care we desperately needed.

There were frequent riots and local tribal wars in Warri between the three major tribes, Urhobo, Itsekiri and Ijaw. To a non-native like me, the three tribes were very similar. They dressed alike, had similar foods, inter married and lived side by side. Their wars were usually very serious, bloody and with high casualties. We were Urhobo living in an Itsekiri neighbourhood, with an Itsekiri Landlord. One night, one of the tenants in our block of apartments, an Ijaw man warned us of an impending riot being planned for the following week. He warned us all to leave the area as soon as we could, preferably before Thursday. My husband refused, saying no one was going to intimidate him with fear into leaving his home. I was shaking like a leaf and trying to get him to change his mind, all to no avail. The next morning, we saw people with mattresses on their heads fleeing down the side road. My husband calmly got our boys into the car and dropped them off in school. I remained home and could see the chaos already happening. People were running helter skelter with their life possessions bundled up on their heads.  After a nervous few hours, we went to pick them up from school. As we were returning, there were some menacing looking men standing by the road and stopping all cars as they came along. We got stopped by this giant of a man wielding a pistol. He stood beside the driver’s door and barked at my husband “who you be?”.  My heart was in my mouth as I watched the scene unfolding around me with my husband’s calm response. He tried to play it smart by saying,  “we just picked up the children from school and are on the way home.” “I say who you be?”, he responded a notch higher, with a notable sense of impatience and irritation. “Ghenekev Akpos” my husband replied. It was literally a life-or-death moment. If he was an Itsekiri man, we were as good as  dead (and vice versa). He brought down the pistol and waved “Pass.” We “passed on”, but not to our house. We needed a safer place and so went to the Jonah’s. They were close friends and lived in a neutral part of town, we knew it would be safer there for some time. Later in the evening, we were able to make it to the family house which was equally in an Urhobo part of town. We remained there until we felt some calm in the city.

That week, my husband had to leave for school in Ibadan which was a few hundred miles away. He was very concerned about leaving us behind in the house. By the next week, when it seemed that there would be another riot, I ran to mummy and told her I wanted to leave the house. We were able to arrange a van to move our things out of the house. I had to share them around our various friends for safe keeping.  It was also finally decided that my nieces (Sarah and Elizabeth) would return to Jos so as to make the load lighter. Another phase of my life was about to begin, living with my in laws.

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you can find my writings online on lifedoeshappen.co.uk