...For mother is supreme!

"...A man belongs to his Fatherland when things are good and life is sweet but when there is sorrow and bitterness, he finds refuge in his Motherland, your mother is there to protect you...and that is why we say that mother is supreme" - Chinua Achebe, (Things fall apart).

A last stroke of makeup brush swept ever so lightly across  her fair cheeks to blend in her dull pink blush and she was ready as she assessed her overall facial makeup in her tiny oval mirror attached to her makeup block powder case to ensure it was perfect,

 "How do I look son?"

 She asked me, turning to look at me, I smiled and spurted out "Flawless" as I thought she was the strongest woman I know. Here she is, in a ramshackle of a house, in a room lacking her usual giant mirror and well placed lighting yet not letting her present situation dampen her soul, she still applies makeup and in lieu of her giant mirror, improvised by using a tiny powder case mirror, still looking high in spirit and ready to go, it made me be in awe of her as in a millisecond, memories of the many times she's  shown incredible strength flashed across my eyes, from  moments as a young child when Dad died and she was put in the midst of her sisters-in-law, her hair disheveled and was emotionally and psychologically tortured yet stood her ground and proclaimed her innocence to raising three boys on her own, enrolling back in school with the determination to change her story and make a success of her life, oh! How I remember the struggle or the memories of us eating low quality meals yet coming out with toothpicks in our mouth acting like we've just had a bountifully delicious meal just as I remember her late night cries when she thinks we were all asleep so we won't see her breakdown and how shocked she was as she shivered upon my hands resting on her shoulders to comfort her..I could go on and on.


She took her purse and with a peck on my cheek, bid me farewell and left the house. I walked casually into the compound of the house and met Hamz sitting on a plank, jamming his head along to songs pouring into his ears from his ear piece which brought smiles to my lips as it seemed to me, everyone had swiftly adapted to our new way of living and our new environment. I tapped him playfully on the shoulder and asked him if he saw a beautiful damsel walked past, his face instantly wore a puzzled look as he tried to figure out when that happened, it took him a few seconds before he realised the damsel I was referring to was Mom and he broke into a chuckle and nodded rapidly in affirmation that indeed, he did see a damsel,

 "You know... Mom is the strongest woman I know"

 I started, looking ahead as though I was soliloquizing, Hamz stopped his music and with a deep sigh agreed with me, he went,

 "What would we do without Mom, I don't think any one of us took after her in that area, she's an amazon, she's kept things classy and stayed grounded regardless of how things had been, imagine if Aunt Hubaida had being our mother",

"God forbids"

I rebuked sharply as we both broke into a raucous laughter,

 "She couldn't possibly be our mom, she's too short-sighted, innately hypocritical, wasteful, dumb and clearly doesn't have what it takes to raise guys like us..."

I said, continuing,

 "... You know, sometimes, I look upon her kids with pity... children learn so much from their parent's actions rather than from their words, Aunt Hubaida's kids have clearly been watching their Mom chew like the proverbial nanny goat and her kids... She never learns, she always speaks in proverbs and am always like, does she take a minute to hear herself speak? She speaks in parables that she herself ought to learn from but she never does, I don't know how many times she will have to be bitten for her to be shy, I don't get it, she never ever learns" .

Hamz sighed and tenderly stroking my knee, told me we would be fine. A while later, a thin, almost frail, haggard looking hausa man with severe vericose veins all over his arms and who clearly from his stained, crocked dentition and black lips is a heavy smoker came towards our gate and banged heavily at the metal shield, Hamz and I sprang to our feet and quickly went and peep across the low leveled fence and asked what he wanted, he introduced himself as Musa and demanded to know what we were doing in his house, with an amused grin flashing through my lips, I took a quizzical head to toe assessment of him then told him we don't know who he is, he got enraged and started banging at the gate and demanding we get out of the house, this got the attention of neighbors around who later confirmed he was indeed the agent of the house, we soft-pedalled then calmly told him we didn't know him and as such couldn't have known he was the agent to the house, we went further to explain our situation and why we were there and that a friend of Mom's was the one who allowed us in, he confirmed he knows this friend of Mom's, inevitably, he asked for money to keep his mouth shut and asked us how long we intended to be there, Hamz spoke up asking him why he would be demanding money from us,

 "There's no money bro! If there was money, we won't be here, so do this for God and let him reward you abundantly".

 Musa obviously took offence and flared up, chastising Hamz for asking him to allow us stay there because of God,

"You want to put me for trouble? If Alhaji wey get the house, see una now, na yawa be that for me straight up, so make I do am for God? No oo, If I wan give alms, I know where to go".

 I raised my hand to shut him as he had created such a scene and our situation now exposed and known by our new neighbors and it was very embarrassing so I told him to come back in the evening as Mom wasn't around. He went with it and left and by the time Mom got back and we relayed what had happened, she called her friend and he did confirm Musa was the agent and told Mom he was going to settle Musa which he did but Musa kept threatening us every week for money and we knew we just had to do something, Mom thought deeply and chose to threaten him back with police arrest if he keeps barging into our privacy the way he does and humiliating us but Musa wasn't buying it as his "skunk" apparently has emboldened him, he went out and came back with some goons who all claimed were working for Alhaji who owns the house and that they needed us out whilst casting quick glances at our venza and at Karl and probably wondering what we must have gone through to land in our current predicament. QT, Hamz and Karl wasted no time in picking up jagged rocks and planks, ready to fight but Mom asked them to calm down and yet again gave Musa some money and he left,

"Mom you can't keep giving Musa money, next week, he will be here again, what we need to do is call his bluff, not feed it"

Mom told us violence would only fuel more drama,

 "Everyone around here including our former neighbors probably thinks we owed money that's why we were sent out of our house, they see our venza and probably think we were busy trying to put up a facade of fakery and not sell the car when the rent kept piling, they won't get it, so if we are here again fighting with the agent of the house, it would simply cement their thoughts about us and what if they damage the car? What would we do?"

 "They will die!"

Karl said which made us laugh but Mom assured us what she did was only buying us time, peace and space to fashion out what next to do. We went along with it and in our downtimes, whilst reflecting on the events from earlier, we all realised how smart Mom really is, getting violent would have ended bad for us as we would be on the loosing end, so throwing a little carrot to distract the rabbit is all the best for now. The week went buy pretty fast and soon, it was time for fasting again and as usual, Karl expressed concerns about whether fasting would be conducive in such a house that we were in but Mom assured him there's absolutely nothing we can't barrage through, so with the boys going to fill our gas cylinder whilst Mom and I rearranged the house and kitchen to create more space, then when they came back, Karl, Mom and I went to the market to get food stuffs and on monday night, we as a family prayed the voluntary "Nafilats" that's ushers in the month of Ramadan.

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