A 50 litre 'baff' was #30 while the smaller ones were #20 and #10 respectively. Sometimes we fetch nothing less than #500 worth of water just to fill the drums and buckets. It was a succour and relief because the stress of walking the whole Street as far as 'Jonku' and 'bobata' stopped forever.
I could remember whenever the water scarcity hits like a tornado, everyone's bathing water was measured, not more than a bucket, if you like let it not be enough, the towel will finish the remaining job.
My sister, sister Moyo can bath for Africa, if she's permitted, she'll bath 4 times a day, we would scream and scream for her not to use more than 2 bowls of water to bath at night o as every drop of water counts.
At a point, my mum had to bring a big bowl inside the bathroom where you stand inside and take your bath so that the water can be used to flush and for every pee, you have to flush, we learnt that while growing up, you dare not leave your pee not flushed let alone poo, you're in for maximum 'shishi' and slaps that will reset your brain to default settings by Iya Ijesha.
You also dare not throw away the water you've used in washing clothes, it was a taboo during the dry season, if you mistakenly do and mum catches you, she'll almost tell you to scoop it from the gutter unless the situation of the washing water is beyond redemption.
I remembered a time my eldest sis got a job at the bank, she doesn't like washing anyways so we made a deal for me to start washing her clothes at an agreed fee of #20 for her trousers and jeans and #10 for her shirts and T shirts, oh, I made quite some amount of money then, I always made sure I washed my clothes on Friday so that I could wash hers on Saturday, it was a luxury washing
When it came to fetching water at the well, remember I said we all come out almost at the same time to fetch from the well. In short, we all monitor each other, we had some neighbours who wouldn't hesitate to come out and fetch as early as 4am, so you had to sleep with your soul and ears attached to the sound of the well cover. Once you hear any peem, omo see race, even the baffs and basia sleeps at the entrance of the door at night to avoid stories that touch.
The sizes of our 'doro' fetching pail' are very scary, 2 scoops from the well fills a 15 to 20 litre container, the struggle was real. At a point, mum bought 2 doro tied at both ends of the rope, the rope itself is excessively long so that in case one drops into the well we don't have to start looking for an anchor to remove it, you throw in the other one and continue fetching.
My mum had a sister who had the strength of 2 men combined, she was really strong, she stands on the well cover to fetch water, whenever she was around, victory was sure at the well
Some of the things we have now that we don't even see as luxury but as a necessity in every home were what looked like luxury to me while growing up. I either saw them at my friend's place, on the television or in the market, things like Generator, washing machine, some kitchen gadgets to name a few.
We all know how bad Nigeria's Electricity has been since 19kpindirin, in all those years we only heard the sounds of generator from afar, nobody including us had a generator for a long time until one of our neighbours got one. I'm sure it never even came up in our discussions at home then to buy one, what we had were lots of different shapes and sizes of Lanterns. We had the 'Fuere hand' stainless lanterns and the Majestically looking 'big blue' lantern, that was the largest lantern I've ever seen and still seen up till today, it could contain almost 2 litres of Kerosene and it's wick was really big. It's a tradition for us to wash the shades with soap and rinse with water then you dry before lighting it.
The largest of them all had the largest kind of shade too and it was difficult getting the shade in the market whenever it broke. There was a time it got broken and we couldn't get the shade in the market for a long time, we had to put the pieces together and get a duct tape to hold it in place until we found another one as it was the brightest and we couldn't afford not to light it.
Our stoves for cooking in the kitchen had 'k-legs', at some point they all started leaking out Kerosene so mum placed little bowls inside the tanks and that was where we poured the Kerosene. It was a means devised by many homes then, African mothers were truly creative and it also serve as a means to control the usage of Kerosene at that time.
We had one 'badass' freezer and fridge, the freezer had an uncommon name I can't recollect but the fridge was Thermocool, the fridge used to be older than our first born, I think it was bought when my parents got married. They were really good electronics, especially the freezer, it freezes so much that we began selling ice block to people who sold soft drinks and pure water until it got spoilt, ewo!!! Mum's precious freezer passed away peacefully. The technician tried fixing it but it just won't work so we 'kuku' turned it into a mini food stuff store since the 'cat like' mouse we lived with kept eating the foods in the kitchen more than we consumed.
We kept all manner of foods except Yam, egg and Yam flour inside it.
The pressure mounted on the fridge became much to the extent that 'it gave up the ghost too' but before it did, it showed us pepper, it started 'shocking'. We didn't know until our kid sis wanted to open it one morning and she screamed out saying her hands were paralysed from the shock of the fridge 
, it was funny but scary, that was how we devised a way of opening it, we will switch it off, carry whatever we needed to carry, close it and then switch it back on until it gave up the ghost.
later on, after all this crazy experience, we moved to our own house leaving the crazy community behind
finis
Aisha Ajekigbe is a lawyer, social commentator and businesswoman based in Ibadan. She can be reached on alabiaisha86@gmail.com
You also dare not throw away the water you've used in washing clothes, it was a taboo during the dry season, if you mistakenly do and mum catches you, she'll almost tell you to scoop it from the gutter unless the situation of the washing water is beyond redemption.
I remembered a time my eldest sis got a job at the bank, she doesn't like washing anyways so we made a deal for me to start washing her clothes at an agreed fee of #20 for her trousers and jeans and #10 for her shirts and T shirts, oh, I made quite some amount of money then, I always made sure I washed my clothes on Friday so that I could wash hers on Saturday, it was a luxury washing
When it came to fetching water at the well, remember I said we all come out almost at the same time to fetch from the well. In short, we all monitor each other, we had some neighbours who wouldn't hesitate to come out and fetch as early as 4am, so you had to sleep with your soul and ears attached to the sound of the well cover. Once you hear any peem, omo see race, even the baffs and basia sleeps at the entrance of the door at night to avoid stories that touch.
The sizes of our 'doro' fetching pail' are very scary, 2 scoops from the well fills a 15 to 20 litre container, the struggle was real. At a point, mum bought 2 doro tied at both ends of the rope, the rope itself is excessively long so that in case one drops into the well we don't have to start looking for an anchor to remove it, you throw in the other one and continue fetching.
My mum had a sister who had the strength of 2 men combined, she was really strong, she stands on the well cover to fetch water, whenever she was around, victory was sure at the well
Some of the things we have now that we don't even see as luxury but as a necessity in every home were what looked like luxury to me while growing up. I either saw them at my friend's place, on the television or in the market, things like Generator, washing machine, some kitchen gadgets to name a few.
We all know how bad Nigeria's Electricity has been since 19kpindirin, in all those years we only heard the sounds of generator from afar, nobody including us had a generator for a long time until one of our neighbours got one. I'm sure it never even came up in our discussions at home then to buy one, what we had were lots of different shapes and sizes of Lanterns. We had the 'Fuere hand' stainless lanterns and the Majestically looking 'big blue' lantern, that was the largest lantern I've ever seen and still seen up till today, it could contain almost 2 litres of Kerosene and it's wick was really big. It's a tradition for us to wash the shades with soap and rinse with water then you dry before lighting it.
The largest of them all had the largest kind of shade too and it was difficult getting the shade in the market whenever it broke. There was a time it got broken and we couldn't get the shade in the market for a long time, we had to put the pieces together and get a duct tape to hold it in place until we found another one as it was the brightest and we couldn't afford not to light it.
Our stoves for cooking in the kitchen had 'k-legs', at some point they all started leaking out Kerosene so mum placed little bowls inside the tanks and that was where we poured the Kerosene. It was a means devised by many homes then, African mothers were truly creative and it also serve as a means to control the usage of Kerosene at that time.
We had one 'badass' freezer and fridge, the freezer had an uncommon name I can't recollect but the fridge was Thermocool, the fridge used to be older than our first born, I think it was bought when my parents got married. They were really good electronics, especially the freezer, it freezes so much that we began selling ice block to people who sold soft drinks and pure water until it got spoilt, ewo!!! Mum's precious freezer passed away peacefully. The technician tried fixing it but it just won't work so we 'kuku' turned it into a mini food stuff store since the 'cat like' mouse we lived with kept eating the foods in the kitchen more than we consumed.
We kept all manner of foods except Yam, egg and Yam flour inside it.
The pressure mounted on the fridge became much to the extent that 'it gave up the ghost too' but before it did, it showed us pepper, it started 'shocking'
later on, after all this crazy experience, we moved to our own house leaving the crazy community behind
finis
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