Anambra State University,
Igbariam Campus.
Faculty of Law.

22nd August, 2012.

Dear Precious,

I would have asked you how things were but I won’t, because I would not want you to bite your lips the way you normally did, and stifle tears. I know how things are. Things are no more like it used be. Things have clumsily shed our past like molted snakeskin. Well, maybe not absolutely. I guess Ghana is treating you fine? The weather and everything.

I still wake up every morning to greet Mama, GOOD MORNING MA, like Mama said we should. It showed that we were trained at home; that we did not grow up like those good-for-nothing boys that snatched her bag at the park. Those boys that she said smelt like Nkakwu- squirrel. I had pictured Mama at the park, bewildered; fright glistening in her eyes. I had imagined what I knew she would never do. I knew she had not screamed. She had not chased after those boys like a mad market woman. She had just gaped; speechless, perhaps trying to make a good impression; standing, possibly as erect as Papa. Papa always stood so erect that you would imagine his back would snap. There were many things like that about him, many of which Mama disliked. She did not like that papa was bald. She did not like that papa was another man’s secretary in the U.K even as a graduate- a job as she had described was meant for women. She did not also like that Papa’s belly was threatening to bulge. It was one of the things she always told Papa about. When she talked to him about his pot-belly, she did not talk with that familiar ideal-housewife tone she used while eliciting money from Papa in those days, she told him point blank over the webcam that he had better stop drinking; that the drunks outside were watching; waiting for him to finally fit in. Then Papa would grin from ear to ear, and tell Mama to stop being funny. You know, Papa found a lot of things funny about Mama. He had once said that was why he married her; not because Mama was the slimmest girl around with buttocks shaking like ishaka, but because he could not stay a minute with Mama without laughing at her jokes. You see, Papa and Mama were childhood rivals. Papa said Mama was so strong she could beat a good number of boys. They had grown up together in Okporo, a small village; miles and miles from Asaba. Mama looked very big as a kid, and always led fights between the boys and the girls at Etavo, a secret clearing were feuding kids hid to exchange blows until they smelt of fight. Mama could beat many of the boys and stuff sand into their mouths, until the boys started crying and running to their mammies. I wonder how this same Papa that hated Mama so much before, now thinks she was funny. He always told Mama this, much to Mama’s irritation. Once, she had explained to Papa that she hated it; that men were meant to be funny and women were meant to be the ones laughing at their jokes, and not the other way round. Only irresponsible women were funny, she said.

As for my writing, I am not getting any support from Papa, he finds it difficult to understand why I cannot face my law studies and back off writing. He always said his visit to the white mans land for a greener pasture is damaging a lot of things in the home. Just last week he emailed me instructing me to halt all ‘THE VOICE PROJECT’; a program I designed for upcoming poets like me, creating an avenue for writers to exchange ideas.
I hated to think of those days I hurt him; the days I failed to show example like he always wished; Mama would always report me on the grounds of disobedience. How I wished I never contributed to a single frown on his face. How do I let him understand that my disobedience were innocent and a bold step to better my future and that of all of us. But it’s well. When I told him that I would be attending ‘Farafina Trust Creative Writing Workshop’ a workshop I am currently gate crashing; he stood out on it saying it’s irrelevant. I am not finding things easy at all. The transport fairs to ‘Lagos Resource Centre’ the venue of the workshop use to be my major problem. Coming everyday from aunty Ogoo’s house at Ogun state is a hail lot of money, spending close to 2000 naira on daily basis. God has been good to me through one Mr. Senan



To be continued

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