When they sang that song, "mumu, mumu, make them call me mumu, I no need sense to love o, your love makes me a happy mumu," I imagined my then love-life used for the music video.
I was a fool for love and maybe I don't regret anything. I was young and just starting to feel all that different, high-level emotions. But I sincerely want to understand what it is about first loves that make them so thrilling and sweet and even stupid, all at once.
This girl I had serious crush on back then lived a few compounds after mine. I'd see her and get mesmerized by how she talked and gesticulated and smiled. Even though she was on sunshine(low cut) due to school rules then, I liked her very much. She was the "do re mi in my "fa so la ti do."
Whenever I was around her, it was like cat got my tongue. I went from being a rascal to a cool kid. I talked less and acted like somebody that had sense. And as Soka-overdo, I would go as far as wearing nice clothes, applying lotion and my eldest brother's body spray so I could catch her eye.
Anytime she was around me, I couldn't speak the regular Pidgin. While everyone else(including her) spoke it, I was doing nonsense supri-supri. We didn't get to see much since we didn't live in same compound but I tried and made friends with one of my agemates in her compound so I could get to see her often. It still wasn't so easy but I learned an important information about her that would go ahead to water the ground for me; she fetched water in the evenings from the public tap.
You can decipher from here that it wasn't my duty at home to fetch water but I begged to perform that task. My family must have thought that I wanted to join my other mates in doing that, but they didn't know what was going on.
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In the evenings, I would go out to check if my crush was at the tap and if she was, I'd go in, get a bucket and rush down there. It started with me letting her take my turn at the tap,(if I was earlier) to offering to help her loft her bucket to her head(almost breaking my back in the process) to jumping into discussions she was having with other mutual friends and then we started saying hi to ourselves and before I knew it, we were exchanging jokes and laughs.
In the disguise of "oh, you're tired? Let me help you," I began to help her fetch some buckets of water and take to her house. Her house was farther from the tap then mine but I didn't care. Love fuelled me and gave me strength. The other guys would laugh and make jokes around us and we would laugh too. But inside my heart, I was serious.
One time I helped her fetch until her drums-two of them- were full before I went back to mine. By the time I was to fetch my third bucket, the people in charge of the tap had locked it. Time had gone by. We are a large number at home and just three buckets of water wouldn't have been enough to cook nor even bathe. At home, they almost roasted me alive. Did that stop me from doing the work of the ministry?? Of course not. By the next day, I was at it again.
I was really stupid sha. Then, I asked my mum to stop giving me lunch and give me money instead, just so I could be giving to a girl that took both lunch and snacks and juice to school(certainly, I didn't tell my mum that). Then I'd stay very hungry all through the day and I know that if it wasn't for God's love and mercy, I'd have died of ulcer and starvation. In the mornings, I'd wait up for her to finish whatever she was doing so we could go to school together. It was same route to our different schools although hers was farther down and had more turns. I didn't mind and would see her off to the gate of her school and then make a u-turn and head for mind. This got me serving steady punishments at school, but love conquered all.
I did her assignments for her, copied notes too, helped her do her Saturday cleanup chores, run random errands and many more. This got me smiles and "thank yous" said in a lovely voice. In my mind, "I was getting there."
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When my eyes finally cleared was the day I went to fetch water(I had been delayed until it was dark) and on getting there, I saw two figures moving closely to each other, at a dark corner. I looked carefully and saw my crush kissing another boy.
Wetin pain me pass be say, that boy was a dummy, like him no know shingbain. Very raggity looking. Not even half as fine as me. But that guy was loudmouthed and funny. My heart broke a thousand pieces that day.
It was then that it even occured to me that I had done the boy's homework a number of times because the girl brought it and asked me to do so. I was investing and that brat of a boy was taking the interest. My chest tightened the more.
After then, if the girl sees me and calls my name, I'd just ignore. E been pain me. Breakfast served really cold that my chest almost froze.
I blame no one. Na me allow love blind me .
This is a submissive to the Hive Naija Weekly post. You can find it here
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SOKA馃枻
