Hey my toothaches, how have y'all been doing? miss me much? *nods* i thought so. lol. Anyways, i don miss una die o! A little birdie told me that while i was on my little trip, some of my dearly beloved bloggers departed! How true is that?! But i will try not to dwell on sad memories and move on with my blogging life. So, down to business. This is a continuation of a post i did a loooong while back. never thought i would continue it but last week something happened that got my knickers in a knot nor be small. It all began when my friend got her hair braided. Now, those of you females who are abroad know what i mean when i say that i have never braided my hair since i crossed Alhaji Murtala Mohammed airport. walai talai! Because those things they call braids over here heh! Since i came into this country, i have had this recurring nightmare that i will step into a salon to get my hair braided and come out looking like medusa. *shudders* (yes o, it is that serious) But as i was saying, i saw my friend's braids and was never the same again. (reciting poetry) Just imagine; long silky tresses with smooth twists, smooth twists that cry of the mastery of their maker! smooth long tresses that run the length of her back! smooth long tresses that made me hunger to be under the Ikeja bridge on a hot sweaty day, having five people poke their hands up in my head and give me headache that lasts for weeks. smooth long tresses that... Heh...i'm sure you get my point. So as i was saying, i saw my friend's hair o! and if you see the way i begged her for the number of the person who made such a master piece heh? you would have thought that i was a starved man begging for bread. well, in a way, i was. so, long story short, it was a couple of Camerounian girls who had just came into the country and i got an appointment to make my hair that very same day. I got to their house and they started braiding my hair. as they were in the middle of it, some friends of theirs came over and them con start to speak their pidgin english. And from what i could understand which is most of it, apparently these babes nor get kpali(legal papers)and according to them, they can get it by only two ways.
1. Marry a not so wise guy who is aware that you have no papers but convince him that you have fallen in love with him in the two weeks since you met him and get him to marry you in a month.
2. Sit in front of a panel of investigators and lie that you are seeking asylum from the on going war in your country and risk going to jail for the rest of your not so longer long life if you misanswer one of the about five thousand questions they ask you.
Tough decision that. Now according to these girls, the cons about option 1 is that the Camerounian community here is very small and when a guy "courts" you, he will want to sample the goods abi? and before you find the mugu you are looking for, word don spread say you dey spread your leg. their words, not mine. which leaves us with option number two. As they started rehearsing the answer to the questions, curiosty got the best of me and i asked them a question. Bad move.
Me: So you go tell the embassy say una run from una country?
chic 1: yea. you nor hear this kine lie before now?
Me: No o.
Chic 2: you be from Nigerian yes?
Me: yes
Chic 1&2: hmm hmm
Me: wetin be hmm hmm?
Chic 2: you Nigeria people, u get am easy
Me: how?
chic 2: becos una come here, get job, get house, get car. nor get problems
me: because we dey work.
chic 1: becos una dey help unaself. nor help other people. Nigeria people selfish
me: how we wan take help una? by marriage?
chic 2: God forbid am for me! marry NIgeria? No way!
chic 1: i go back to me country instead of marry Nigeria boy. them evil
Me; so how we go take help if una nor go even marry us?
chic 2; una know road for this country well well. una suppose show us how to get una kine job, show us road
chic 1: but una stay together, nor make friends with anybody else but nigeria, carry your nose for air like say the rest of us dey smell. una feel too good than us. we are neighbours, you suppose to help us
chci 3: yes, everywhere you go Nigerians. school, church, club. nigerians. dem feel too big. dem think dem own everything here.
Chei! i don start to see blue and black right now!
me: ok, e don do.
chic 2: no, we nor mean to insult you, you just tell you how it is
me: but you are insulting me.i am a nigerian afterall.
chic 1: yes, which is why we tell you how it is. so you know.
me: no, i nor know anything. una think say na only una dey come here come suffer? everybody comes here and suffer. before we get jobs we suffer too. you know what your problem is, you come here expecting miracles and maybe because people have told you that in America, there are trees of money and all you have to do is pluck. and now you think that we Nigerians have hidden this tree in our backyards
I nor know why but when i start to get pissed off, i subconciously switch to grammar. lol go figure.
Chic 3: no, no its not like that. okay, there are a lot of nigerians here right? and because of that you all know things and how they work so you help eachother but you don't tell nobody these things to help them too.
chic 1; because them are selfish! and wicked! i used to have this nigerian boyfriend. for 2 years, him nor give me 1 penny. nor even buy me vaseline.
chic 2: and the girls, dem think they are too all that. and try to steal your man.
me: i beg i beg, lets not even go into that. i be just dey ask about the asylum thing. every foreign country get the thing when dem dey take lie if them dey look for papers. if una own na asylum, do your thing. but see una dey say Nigerian nor dey help people. but since i dey here na curse una just dey curse us. how i go take help una like that? if say i get job or something when i for fit help you with, you think say i go tell u now?
that definately shut them up. and really truely, my aunt just opened aan African shop and she is looking for workers she can pay "under the table" and if those chicas hadn't opened their mouth to utter such insults i would have hooked them up. but now, how can i let them work for my aunt who is a Nigerian? make them nor carry their hateration enter her shop i beg. so, too bad.
But before we got into our little debate, one of the girls told a story of how she got her own asylum. Apparently, when they started asking her her questions, she started to falter. smart babe when she be, she turned her problem to her advantage. the investigator guy asked her what made her run away from Cameroun. The babe say when he ask her that one, her head nor fit find any answer so she tell am say them rape her. she said she bent her head because she dey think for her head say, "na im be this! dem don catch me today" but the man mistook her palava for shame and said "its okay, its okay, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. i understand that it is painful for you and i'm sorry. but i just still have to ask you a couple of questions. do you think you are up to that?" the babe say she nod head like person when never eat for weeks. the guy con tell her to expand on how she was raped. the kine tory when this babe come up with heh? and me i thought i had an imagination. she tell the man say after they raped her, she had a baby but that some villagers came and threw her baby into a fire because the man who raped her was from the tribe they were fighting against. of course none of this is true. the babe laughed so hard after relating the story, i actually felt sorry for that investigator man. Genius right?! the babe is too much. but you know how the oyibos are out to save the world. they take a little fight between two communities and when they say it on the news, you would think they were talking about world war III. Now, i'm not saying that they are wrong or that it is wrong of them to help but you have to admit that sometimes they tend to get carried away. especially in relation to Africa.
I remember one time in Warri when they were having one of the ishekiri and ijaw fights. i was going back to uniben that day and i took the Edegbe line. Deal is, when you have lived in Warri for a while, you tend to get used to their tantrums. and you learn where to go and when to go there at this period of time when they are doing this certain thing. so even if they are fighting, life goes on. most of the markets are still open, people still go to school and life goes on as usual. now, i'm not saying that they don't have really major fights where the state is really closed down, because they do. but this particular fight was a mild one. when i got to Benin that day, i was watching CNN when i heard..."there is a major war crisis on going between two tribes in the city of warri, delta state in Nigeria. This war has been going on concurrently for the past two weeks and the government fears that there is no stopping them this time. the market places are shut down, schools are closed and people are living in fear in their houses of being sluttered to death at the hands of these blood thirsty touts. As of now, the governement is contemplating sending in wagons of food into the state..." In Naija, say who die! anyways, you understand when i say, they tend to over exaggerate.
