I remembered a time I came back from school, I was already in OND 1 at the Polytechnic Ibadan Eruwa campus, a friend of mine, that's the only male friend I made throughout our long stay in that area before me moved came visiting, I wouldn't let him in, who born my monkey to allow a man enter and visit you, If Iya Moyo catches you, she'll beat the living daylight out of you, iya ijesha ti o gba nonsense.
He came along with his friend, one big headed guy called Tunde who was always forming an imaginary fine boy, well in his mind sha, I never liked him because he was one of those guys who kisses and tell. I said hello to my friend without saying same to him, that was how he started ranting... Ehn, I've known you for years and you've never for once said hello, I'm like sorry, are you talking to me? It's cos I don't like you and i can't pretend I do, he was blabbing on and on and I really gave him a dose of his prescription that I've kept for a long time... Nansense and ingredients lool.
My siblings and I just didn't mix with them cos it was one hell of a crazy Street where the noise that wakes us up is Ojoo, Ojoo, that's the advertisement and callings from conductors as early as 4.30am and it doesn't stop until like 12am.
So it takes lots of God's grace not to lose one's sanity in my area.
I could remember a time my dad's elder brother came around, we had a wedding at Offa to marry Aunty Salaudeen Idayat Adewole (now our wife lool), he was awake as early as 5 am and the question he asked was, how do you sleep in this neighbourhood? We looked at him and bursted into laughter like, it's a part and parcel of us, we are used to it.
Especially when Brother Francis decides to blast Danfo driver or Obesere's new album, oh my God, you'll dance from morning till night, it was that crazy!
As crazy as the area was, we had our share of fun too, Christmas was always very interesting, that's when everyone forgets their grudges and comes out to throw fireworks popularly called banger. It was always a competition between our compound and iya Ijesha's compound, the next compound. Trust us to always win considering the number of children in our Civilian barracks, it was mad fun. Oh, how I miss that house so much.
Years rolled by and the water in the well began to dry up, it was a crazy time, the 2 Wells couldn't serve us all, that was when we had to start looking for alternatives...
The only option we had since the landlord wasn't forth coming with another alternative was to carry our 'baff and basia' and start looking for more water.
So you can imagine all of us from our own blocks of 8 flats going to look for water at the same time, we looked like herds of cattle being moved around by the Fulani herdsmen,
There was a place called 'bobata' off your shoe or slippers' it was a very far place to our house, in short it was another Street entirely. As early as 5.30 after the early morning prayers we are all off in search of water. It was tiring but fun going in mass to get water, almost everybody knew the people from Adebayo's compound.
Some will lock their gates and not open no matter how much we knocked because once we descended on the well, if the water doesn't turn to 'pronto' or dries up we won't leave.
I could remember one April fool my sister Oladimeji Mayowa Ajekigbe played on everyone in the house, after we had fetched water for hours and filled the biggest drum we had, it was about a 300 litres drum, we call it 'agbaya', she ran inside to say the drum was leaking and all the water we fetched was pouring away, the race we all ran was more than 440, including my dad and mum, we all ran like Olympic athletes to the backyard just to salvage what we could, there she was laughing and saying it was April fool. That's how water in my area was, it was like gold.
These went on for months unending especially when it was the dry season.
Eventually succour came from our Landlord, he rigged a borehole at the next adjoining compound for us and the general public, he made his first son be in charge of selling the water to outsiders. Did we get the water for free or we also bought? Your guess is as good as mine...
To be continued
Aisha Ajekigbe is a lawyer, social commentator and businesswoman based in Ibadan. She can be reached on alabiaisha86@gmail.com
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