Then, for their second Ode, they used damask. They used the damask for their gele (head tie) and their Iborun or Ipele (The cloth that you put on your shoulder. Most young women tie it around their waists.) The damask was a rusty, goldy brown color with red concentric circle design to pick off the red of the Alaari. Then, their third Ode was Aran (velvet, a rich rusty, goldy brown velvet with concentric designs as well but same color all through). They wore the velvet as a second iro (wrapper) knee length on top of the Alaari wrapper. The fourth ode was Swiss voile lace in a lighter shade of rusty, goldy, brown. This, they used for their Buba. But the Buba was not sewn like the Yoruba Buba (blouse), it was sewn like the way the Benin women sew their own. Kind of like a cross between a Yoruba Buba and an Up and Down top.

I have to tell you, these six grand-mothers, all of them in their late sixties to early seventies gave us the younger ones a run for our money. I mean, they were looking A+ okay!! All heavily pancaked faces, eyes all Kohled up, sunglasses, feathered hand fans (do you remember those?), heavily beaded necks and their geles going in all directions. The only thing is none of them could wear high heels. So, they were all in slipper type shoes of some sort or the other. They were a sight to behold on their own. My mumsie, the fashionista, she was feeling so tight with herself on that day. I was like, kilode, na your pickin dey do wedding? I told her she was looking nice. Should she not say thank you? No, she was like Ko s'arugbo Ghana, awa naa gbo fashion o, kini eyin omo isiin mo? (There is no old woman in Ghana, we too we know fashion. What do you children of nowadays think that you know?) As I looked at them, I realized that things like weddings, chieftaincy titles, birthday parties, society events in church (mothers’ guild, father’s union etc) are really their own social life. It is part of what makes the world interesting for them. I mean, while we were home, my parents and Boo’s parents had some social activity or the other every weekend. If it was not a 70th or 80th birthday party, it would be a wedding or someone turning their father’s dead body. They have a much more active social life than I do. And, I am so much younger. Is it something about where we live? Are we so consumed with the American dream that the social life takes a back seat? How do parents who move here to live with their children cope with the change in the social life? I don’t know but just seeing them on that day got me thinking.

So that was Aunty Oyinbo and her friends. Then, we Sasu’s friends, we too, we had our own lace and damask that we all wore. We had light green lace that almost everyone sewed into up and down and then damask that was light green and coffee brown. Come and see up and down styles? My dears, Nigerian women have gone nuclear. That is all that I can say. I mean, we are a very, very fashionable set of women. Please, if no one will praise us on fashion, let us praise ourselves. Kilode? And, it is not a matter of money. You go on the street and you see a girl hawking bread. She has on an Ankara up and down. My dears, the skirt will have an hmph to it. It won’t just be a straight skirt. May be the bottom will slant to one angle or it will be gipsy style. I mean, we are just a stylish people. I made it a point of duty to just look out at people on the street and Nigerian women, forget o! On that fashion thing, we are not taking prisoners.

The guys, Kefe’s friends, were mostly in white (and other light colors) cotton lace or guinea, Senegal style or Agbada, with fila (caps) made out of the same damask that we, Sasu’s friends wore. I tell you, Naija men are pleasing to the eyes. Let no one deceive you. Naija men are good! They are good jo. There is nothing like a group of like 30 to 40 of them hanging out together all in white and light colors at a social event. And, Kefe is a really nice person. Aha, his friends really came out for him. From all over the world, they came o. He is the kind of friend that anyone will want. And, you know the man is already in his early 40s so everyone was like, Kefe wan marry? I get to be there. The best was when all his friends were told to come and greet Sasu’s parents and the rest of her family. Come and see a sea of male homo sapiens all with their caps in hand, horizontal on the floor, including my darling husband o. It was very nice to behold. And, there were more than a fair share of Sisi mi le’ko with all manner of worthy and unworthy intentions right there to behold them. Me, I kept an eye on my Boo o. Abeg, my most precious property, let them not mistake him as lost and decide to do finders keepers. If na joke, make you stop am abeg:-). Aha, you are laughing. Don’t laugh o. Not close marking or anything but only a blind person would have been unaware of a connection between us even though we were hardly together there. Not that one is concerned about anything, but I look after all my valuable possessions. And, my dear, he is no different. Okay, you don’t look after your own possession. Leave it unattended and come back and tell me the result! Shio!!! One is trying to be down and honest with you, you are fronting! Yeye dey smell.

I have already gisted you about the useless old man that was trying to toast his enemy, not me. His wife does not appear to have been at the engagement, but she was with him kpam-kpam-kpam for the wedding, where he even went to be taking Holy Communion. And then, the girl that went to start trying to get fresh with Boo. In my very before? Infradig! I came to see anoda another woman marry her husband. How does that translate to any woman can take my husband? See me see trouble. It was my friend Derin and my cousin, Silifa that first noticed her. And, both of them are serious troublemakers. So, they came to meet me where I was directing the servers that I am there, directing servers to take food, while someone else is serving my husband. That I should remain there o. Silifa who is a real street girl, said, the way I am going, it is not only Sasu that will get a husband today, Oloyan Tancasu (the girl with breasts big like the town council building) will also a get a husband. I was like look no big deal. So he cannot talk to someone abi kilode? But Silifa and Derin were very insistent that I should come and see. So, that is how me too, I followed them and we went to stand by one side. That is how I saw my Boo, my very own Boo o, come and see how he and this brief, water melon breasted woman were seriously in a conversation. But, while she was doing a lot of talking and gesticulating, my Boo was not really talking his eyes were doing all the talking there was to do. Ehen, they were directly starring down her blouse, which in any event, left little to the imagination. I said sho!!! But, I was like, what do I do? So Derin said that she will go and tell Boo that Kefe’s father is looking for anyone of Kefe’s friends to do something for him. That once Boo leaves, she will engage the girl in conversation and that Silifa and I should come and meet her. I was like no o, ah no fit fight. I love myself too much. Abeg, I love the man but not like that. But, you know group think now. Before I knew what was happening, Derin had delivered the message, Boo left immediately, and she was talking to the girl. So Silifa and I went to meet her.

As soon as we got there, Silifa was like ah, Derin, how are you as if she had not been with Derin all along. Then she now turned to the girl and said, hello, I don’t think we have met. We all introduced ourselves. At this point, the girl was still thinking, you know, just some friendly women talking to her. So Silifa was like who is that guy that you were talking to? He seems like a nice chap. So, the girl too started saying, yes, he is a nice guy. He is Kefe’s friend, I was just getting to know him. So, Silifa now says, ehen. Now, I found my own voice. I said, o, you were getting to know him. Okay, if you want to know him, all you need to do is to speak to me. I am his wife. You can get to know him through me. You should have seen the look on her face. It clicked to her that we all knew each other and we were all together. She was tongue-tied and started stammering about how she did not want any trouble o. So Derin said, no trouble. But, you know, you need to leave right now if you don’t want trouble. Then Silifa said: O l’aya lo fe b’aje pin oko? Ah, ode! (O, you are so timid but you think you can share a husband with a witch? Stupid person!) I don’t know where Silifa got that from. I am not a witch but at that point, it sounded so good and, clearly, it had the desired effect on the girl. Derin and Silifa escorted her out. I felt really sorry for the girl, kind of. I mean, how was she to know that Boo was married? And, when you think of it on one level, what is the big deal about getting to know someone? Wo, ah no know book jare!!

The operation was so fast. When they came back, I was like damn, you guys are quite the tag team. What if she had resisted or caused a scene? Silifa was like, no way. I was like Silifa, keep saying no way. One day, you will deal with a girl that has come ready to deal with you. She said she knew the girl could not have any real connection to either Kefe or Sasu. How did she know, she said I should stop asking questions, she just knows. I mean, looking back at the whole thing, it is only in Naija that one can try that kind of coup. Damn! It was fun and it brought quite an adrenaline rush, but it is not something I would ever dare do on my own, or look forward to repeating again. I never mentioned it to Boo. But, I wonder whether he did find Kefe’s father and what he said to him. And, I also wonder whether he came back looking for his new friend. Unfortunately, I am never going to find out, will I? Ha, ha, ha!! Aha, Naija. And, for Derin and Silifa, it was just another minor incident of the day. For me, even thinking about it now, I am like damn! You just don’t get to do stuff like that and get away with it.

Talking about Silifa, she is another one. She is my cousin in the Naija sense like I said. Her grandmother is my father’s first older half sister. My grandmother and her great-grand mother were co-wives. Her mother is my father’s niece. Silifa is an Iya Gutter. She sells lace in Gutter on Lagos Island. She came to live with us when she was about fourteen because she was not doing well in school and her mother, who was also an Iya Gutter, thought she would do better if she was under my parents’ supervision, especially since my mother used to be a teacher and she was a real disciplinarian. For where? From day one, Silifa told my parents that she did not want to go to school. My parents would hear nothing of it. Silifa took school cert about three times and failed miserably each time. She always said that she wanted to take over her mother’s shop. But, no one was listening to her. They insisted that she had to have an education. It was a real tug of war and my parents were not going to give up on her. So do you know what Silifa did? She got pregnant by her boyfriend, Mooky (Mukaila) who was doing his NYSC. He was staying with his Uncle a couple of streets away from ours. Right under my parents’ roof, Silifa got pregnant. It was my grand mother (Iya Oniru) that discovered.

Iya Oniru came to spend a week in our house. One evening, she and my mother were sitting in the family room when Silifa walked past them. As Silifa left like this, my mother said that Iya Oniru told her: Apinke, Silifa ti feraku (Apinke, Silifa is pregnant). Now, the word, "feraku" is not exactly a common one to describe the state of pregnancy. So, my mum said she answered: "Mama, feraku bi ti bawo?" (Mama, pregnant as in how?) Iya Oniru said: Alo feraku! O feraku! O gb’anyan mi! (I say she is pregnant! She is pregnant! She has swallowed a cockroach!) So, my mum said she was like "Mama, o ti o, Silifa ke?" (Mama, no o, not Silifa?) So, that is how both of them sha called Silifa to ask her o. And, Silifa did not even deny or try and be shy about it. My mum said she just said yes, that she is pregnant. That she has been telling them that she is not going to school that they should come and force her to school now with her pregnancy now. Can you imagine? Anyway, long and short sha, popsie got involved, my parents went to strong-arm Mookie’s people and before you know anything, Mookie and Silifa were married. And, Silifa got her way. They had that baby, a girl, Sheri, and then another girl, Azeezat.

But, you know, Silifa really did want to take over her mother’s shop. She did and she has made a real success out of the business. Apart from the two shops in Gutter, she has one outlet in V.I, one in Lekki, and another in Abuja. She has modernized her mother’s processes, my brother, Akin is her lawyer and sometimes, when she is going to St. Gallen or St. Magariette in Switzerland or to Austria to have the lace factories do her designs, he accompanies her. I tell you, upon all my education, I cannot afford to pay a lawyer to travel with me to go and negotiate and finalize a business deal. In fact, which business deal am I doing? I am not saying that education is not important, but Silifa decided that it was not for her and she faced what she believed was for her squarely and has made a success of it. It is not a route that I would recommend, but next time someone says to me, formal education is not for me, I won’t be as deaf as my parents were with Silifa.

Unfortunately, Mookie and Silifa are no longer together. Their marriage finally unraveled about eighteen months ago. But, it had been in trouble for years. Mookie was never able to become a "success" the way we define that in Naija. And, he took solace in womanizing and gambling. Silifa trained her daughters herself. They are both in boarding high school in Ghana now. While I was home, she told me that she finally had to kick him out because she got tired of treating herself for one STD after another. My mother had given me the gist, but I pretended to her so that she could give me herself. Apparently, after she kicked him out, he went to report her to my parents. And, my parents summoned her, you know hoping to help them to patch up. But, Silifa said she was determined that he will soon realize that that was the worst mistake he made, reporting her to them. She said she went to request her medical records from, who else? Derin, of course, the same Derin. Derin is Silifa’s gyne. Then she went to my parents’ house, fully armed. She allowed him to tell his story about how she is insolent and how she thinks because she is the one making the money, she does not respect him. How she has never respected him and long story sha, all so that he can come back home and stop squatting with his younger brother’s family. When he had finished, she said she calmly, knelt down and told my parents that she cannot live with him. She said she explained that rather than have a husband like him, it is better not to have a husband because iku ya j’esin lo (to die is better than to live with indignity). But, that if they want her to die, they can insist that she should let him back home. She said at that point she now handed the medical records to my father that he should please read them. My poor father now started reading all sorts of nonsense about every sort of STD in the book. As she was gisting me she was laughing, that my father read the first page and he looked so thoroughly disgusted and he threw it down like a hot piece of charcoal. That he now put on his horn rimmed glasses and peered down at Mookie from above them and said: Gonorrhea? gonorrhea? Mukaila, ibo ni iyawo e ti ri gonorrhea? (Where did your wife get gonorrhea?) So that Mookie now started stammering and saying it is not the way it looks. She said at that point, she now calmly said, Daddy, o ti o, ki shay gonorrhea ni kan o! (No, daddy o, it is not only gonorrhea!) She now started listing every STD that she had ever had. How she cannot die of AIDs that so, it has nothing to do with respect o. She said that my father was so annoyed that he just ordered Mookie to get out of his sight, and he left her and my mother and went to his study. She said till today, my father has not once asked her anything about Mookie again.

Wo, my peeps, ah dey go. Di one wey ah tell you do. Stay tuned for Random Musing IV, Part D.