By: Esther Ubong-Abasi

A heartfelt letter to every ‘aunty’

At a social gathering I once attended where close families and relatives were in attendance, I had the opportunity of meeting a lot of ‘aunties’ and ‘uncles’ who for some reason or the other I hadn’t seen in a long time, most of them, since I was born. Of course, everyone was excited to catch up, many of them where surprised that I had actually grown (yeah! Right, like time was supposed to freeze on me) and of course, they were even more surprised since I couldn’t remember them immediately.

Now these older relatives didn’t necessarily have to be related to us by blood but most times in Nigeria anyone who is way older is just generally referred to as your aunty or uncle and the kids somehow just pick that up and have it registered. Fine. But isn’t it also very weird that we never confuse their kids as our cousins? Well, let me not digress, back to my story.

Occasionally, some of these adults will make some of these comments and you are just obligated to laugh, smile, agree and, if you really like the person or you want to be polite, you follow up with conversation:
‘wow, you have grown’.Amen! Thank you Sir, have a blessed day.
‘the last time l saw you , you were…’
‘how time flies, it was just yesterday you were…’
These phrases are often times followed up by extremely outrageous claims and accusations about you that are usually very highly exaggerated, and you should never dare to complain.
The nice elders would ask about what you are up to and such likes but the rest pretty much stick to the script.

On this fateful day, this particular aunty (whom l couldn’t remember very much) played her part, said all the right lines and just as I was about to move on to the next person, she held me and proceeded to inform me all about her son, who was about 4 or 5 years older and would be perfect for me. She didn’t waste time at all. I had a brief history lesson as well, l was told that we were as close as 7 and 8 when we were much younger before he traveled outside the country to study. Everyone used to call me his wife and I guess now she wanted to follow up on all those prophecies over the years. She also felt it was very necessary to inform me he was studying to be a doctor and had a thick British accent. I guess that was a package I simply should not be able to resist. To tell you the truth I was a little bit horrified.

I stood there for a while and allowed her to talk, eyes wide opened, and mouth shut. When she was done, I simply couldn’t respond. Here she was, telling me to hook up with someone I could not even remember! Anyway to cut the story short (actually lengthen it) she probably didn’t understand my reaction very well and felt may be I didn’t believe her, so she dragged me to my mum who was in the midst of other aunties and asked them if her son and I would be perfect for each other. My mother just laughed but all the other women seemed to agree and recall the same story she told me. A few others disagreed stating they had sons who came first to claim me or who were much better candidates based on outrageous criteria I wouldn’t bothered to bring to remembrance. Before I knew it, they had all collected my number, took a snapshot pictures of me and l had about 3 phone numbers on my phone with instructions on how to talk to each of the guys. I left their company feeling like a piece of article about to be auctioned to the highest bidder.


Read more: http://economicplatform.ng/will-not-marry-son/