You know how some days start normal but somehow manage to turn into small episodes of chaos? That was exactly what happened that Wednesday morning in our compound, The sun had barely come out, people were still stretching and looking for where to find strength, and I was in the kitchen boiling water for tea when the whole drama started.
Our compound is the type where everybody knows everybody’s business not because we want to, but because the walls are thin, the windows face each other, and Lagos noise doesn’t allow secrets to breathe, We have Mama Peace who sells food, Tunde the always on TikTok guy, Aunty Ronke the drama queen, and then there’s me, minding my business but somehow always landing inside people’s gist.
That morning, as I was stirring my tea, I suddenly heard Shayo screaming outside.
“Jesus! Somebody help me! Fire oo!”
My heart jumped, I dropped the spoon and rushed out, forgetting the gas was still on in the kitchen, If you see the way everybody flew out of their rooms that day ehn, you will think we were running from rapture.
“Ah! What happened? Where the fire dey?” Tunde shouted, still holding his phone like he wanted to record it for TikTok.
Shayo pointed at the backyard, “My mama pot don catch fire! I wan warm stew, next thing flame just jump up!”
We all rushed behind, and truly, the aluminum pot was sitting on a small charcoal stove, flames licking the sides like it wanted to swallow the whole thing, the plastic bucket beside it was already starting to melt.
“Ah! If that bucket catch fire, na the whole kitchen go follow!” Aunty Ronke screamed. “Somebody bring water!”
But trust Nigeria , the tap had stopped running since morning , “Where water wan come from?” I asked.
Everybody looked at each other, even the well inside the compound was dry that day, No water anywhere, Just fire growing like it was happy to see us panicking.
Shayo started crying, “My mama go kill me oo! She said make I just warm stew!”
Tunde finally dropped his TikTok mode and grabbed a big cover cloth that Mama Peace uses for her coolers, “Make we suffocate the fire,” he said.
Before anybody could say “be careful,” he threw the cloth over the burning pot, but the cloth only caught fire on the edges.
“Hey! Tunde you wan burn all of us?!” Aunty Ronke shouted.
I don’t know what came over me at that point, but I just rushed inside, grabbed the bag of table salt I bought the previous night, and ran back like some firefighter trainee.
“Shift! Shift make I try something!”
They shifted back as I poured the entire salt inside the burning pot. Immediately, the flames went down, hissing like a snake that was annoyed.
Everyone froze, then slowly, the fire died completely.
Shayo screamed out of relief, “Ah! The Crisis averted!!”
Everybody burst into laughter, even Tunde who almost burnt the cloth was clapping like I had performed some kind of magic.
“Ahn Ahn Treasure, how you take know say salt dey quench fire?” Mama Peace asked when she finally came out, tying her wrapper.
“Ma, I saw it in one TikTok DIY video,” I replied. “I no know say it go even work.”
Tunde immediately raised his phone again, “Abeg repeat that last thing. I wan do video.”
“Waka!” I shouted, laughing, “You no go carry my face put on TikTok today!”
After the whole drama, we all moved to the front of the compound to recover from the shock, Someone brought stools, someone brought zobo, and everybody started giving their own version of the story.
Shayo kept apologizing even though her mother was not angry, “Make una no vex, I no sabi say the charcoal go catch fire like that.”
Aunty Ronke shook her head, “See next time, don’t warm stew near plastic anything, this your generation no dey fear fire.”
Everyone laughed again, you know, as we sat there joking about it, I realized something, it was not just about the fire or the panic, It was how everybody moved immediately to help, nobody stood back to watch, nobody said ‘na your problem.’ even Tunde, that one that is always glued to his phone, dropped everything and tried to assist.
So that’s the thing about compounds like this,see we might argue, fight over water, quarrel about NEPA, or complain about noise, but when something is happening, everyone shows up.
Shayo’s mum later came out with the rescued stew, still intact, though smelling slightly smoky and shared it among us.
“Oya Make una chop, at least something survive,” she said jokingly.
And as we all laughed and dipped our bread that was given to us inside the stew, Tunde then lifted his plastic cup dramatically and said, to Treasure, our compound firefighter!
Everybody cheered, and just like that, our morning crisis then turned into a funny memory that we all kept talking about for weeks.
Crisis truly was averted.
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