Well Raised Nigerian Girl.

     

This one is dedicated to all the Nigerian girls who can relate. Here's to you. 

                                                 

It's Friday afternoon, the day before Christmas, I am dreading getting up because I have been ignoring my mother's toxic side eye since and now I am just tired. I know how to complain well and I might even have a PhD in it so I turn on my complaining spirit and face it on my sister who is just desperately tired of hearing me groan. ’’Nwa stand up let's just start the work so we can have some breathing space before midnight mass".

So we get up and go to the kitchen where my Mum has already stated defrosting ram meat, turkey and chicken for Christmas day. She tells us to get useful frying the buns and ‘puff puff’ from the dough she has already prepared and if we are lucky ‘chin chin’ is thrown in the mix. All this work and it only Christmas eve. There will be an early morning snacking session after mass which we have to prepare for, so that the boys can pop drinks into a fridge and freezer and maybe put diesel in a generator (since we are in Nigeria and there is no light) so we can see the hot oil in the pan. The boys can act as if someone is trying to kill them with work (this can only happen if we mistakenly lay eyes on them oh). Don't mind that we have been standing the whole day, our backs are supposedly made of steel we are Nigerian girls.

Well raised Nigerian girls.

It's Christmas day, we have eaten and are stuffed but we have to start our immediate system (which we invested to save time if I may say so myself) of cleaning out dishes and washing plates while every other person can act like they have died with so much work from just eating food. But we are okay, the walking up and down and carting empty dishes from the table and trying to decipher where to put leftovers because everywhere is full, that's our work it will even help us burn some of those calories we have just eaten. It's our work, we are Nigerian Girls.

Well raised Nigerian girls.

It's a regular Friday night at home. Everyone is going out, but we won't be able to join, of course we had been given very plausible excuses for why we cannot even be out till 4pm. We wouldn't want anyone to think we are loose oh, so we get back in early. No need for a huge social or professional network to advance a career that's for men not Nigerian girls.

Well raised Nigerian girls.

We don't talk to boys in church or banks or markets or anywhere because a woman who knows our family might see and maybe communicate our walk down "Corinthian Avenue" to our mother or worse still, our father, then we will not be marriage material. As we should be, after all we are well raised Nigerian girls, what else are you on this planet for? If not to get married, procreate and have children. It's our duty, we are Nigerian Girls.

Well raised Nigerian girls.

We don't go to night clubs but thank God we can drink alcohol (maybe we are not so well raised) We don't stay out after work to socialise with co-workers because we have to be home at a respectable hour so we can show how well raised we are. But we will soon be in our thirties 30 and everyone is asking for our husband/boy friend anyone that will agree to marry us and our problems away. If we roll our eyes they will ask us, is that what you will do in your husband's house.

We have to learn all these rules and nuances so that we are great wives, praying hard in church for us to complete a rib cage. Our hands are calloused and our backs hurt but we are not yet married we have not yet been spit in two to know profound joy, the cry of a baby. We are well trained in getting up early, cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing so that we can show our husbands one day how well brought up Nigerian girls behave.

Makes one wonder why boys are not trained in the art of being good husbands. They are men and are therefore expected to know what to do or learn on the job?

Our mothers did this to us because their mothers did this to them not because of hate but because of love. They wanted us to compete fairly, stand tall and keep a man. That's how you know a well brought up Nigerian girl. That's why a man can expect a woman to operate like a machine. Never sick, never breaks because that's what he saw his mother doing, that's what he saw his sisters doing. Never complain. So desensitised that she can pick of the cover for a boiling pot with her bare hands and still think of her as an article of commercial value. 

The Nigerian Girl is raised in fire. Let's learn to appreciate the Nigerian girl.  We have to remember though that it is possible for a woman who doesn’t do house work to have a happy home. It is possible for a woman who does not cook to have a happy home. It is possible that a woman can decide if she wants to or does not want to and everyone will be okay. Maybe we stop raising girls to think they have to be everything, to give everything and are responsible for everything. We are not God. Just raise a balanced content human adult. Not a slave or house keeper but a multi-functional and multi-dimensional woman. Maybe she cooks, maybe she cleans, maybe she breastfeeds kids till they are 10 years old. It doesn't matter. Is she happy? Is she valuable? Is she balanced? That way she will be all the things she needs to be and even more. They will still be,

Well raised Nigerian girls.

xoxo

Also published on the Pan-Atlantic Journal As Nigerian Girl.