Well, as usual for days of occasions in this part of the world, I got up to waves of murmurs from ladies and women of the kitchen and trust me everywhere was well occupied.
After stretching out the fogs in my sleepy eyes, I went for the normal rituals (to compensate the soil with some urine flavour) and straight up to my sister who was well kept from public notice in our mother's muddy palace.
"Alagha" (greeting her in our dialect) my colour! She sharply gave a stunning smile and I could see excitement and joy written all over her beautiful face. She could barely feel a pinch at that moment.
Things started heating up at the other side where the women possessed and carried out their rights. Complains about meat for preparation of food not arriving on time, many people serving the purpose of onlookers and various disagreements concerning quantities of seasonings to add. This was where it all started; the smile and excitement my sister wore started wearing out as she received and made various calls to ensure orders were received and she was saved from the arriving or imminent shame from the way things were going.
Finally, all things came to expectations and time was come for the traditional rights to take place. I went out to assist with the beautification and placement of chairs and canopies only for rain to show up it's wrath like it was asked to redeem lands plagued by dryness for years. At this point, the only thing that came to my mind and others as well was when the event was going to start with rain causing a standstill. Well, after a couple of hours the rain kissed us good luck and waved us byes to return later.
While trying to take care of the compound for the event to finally kick-start, guests from far started arriving; all chairs were wet and they had expected the event to have neared it's end.
Time crawled at its own speed and the event started but there was another trouble lingering. The youths of the village after collecting everything they asked for came for an extra five thousand Naira else they would scatter the event. At this point, desperation, anger, fear and tears started pulling it's shot on me. Minutes passed and the youths finally left.
Celebrations kicked off and my friends from school arrived adding colour to my face and day with chants of "aluta" and "great Nigerian students" yells.