Moonbows

When it rains...it pours, every drop pelting rooftops noisily like thousands of tiny baked clay, the night is dark, the air is cold and damp, the wind billows like Boreas' breath, forks of lightening strikes across the icy dark-blue sky, thunder rumbling like the earth is cracking and ready to throw up its contents...I shiver, we shiver...not literally but in the face of difficulties we were facing collectively as a family financially and emotionally, individually...Where is our Moonbow....What are Moonbows?

 Sallah celebration after the fasting was very lukewarm in the Adagiri household this year, apparently, the recession is still in full swing and everyone just pretty much kept a lowkey celebration! Mom had called me to discuss our plans for the day and what type of delicious meal will be cheaper to prepare,

"...I think white rice with stew will be better with beef...after all, we aren't giving out food to any of our neighbors or what do you think"

She asked me, I pondered over my thoughts for a bit and suggested fried rice will be cheaper, I opined,

"Tomatoes and peppers are now quite expensive, then we'll need much more vegetable oil than we'll need for fried rice, I think fried rice will be cheaper, the ingredients don't cost so much and it'll look more pleasing to the eyes than white rice and stew which we've been having literally all day every year"

I said with a chuckle, Hamz's voice interjected from behind suddenly, almost startling us, suggesting we go with fried rice, Mom twitched her lips irritated, saying she knows Hamz will go with fried rice to which he grinned happily from ear to ear,

 "Fried rice is bae anytime Mom"

He chuckled, Mom shook her head in a show of mock sadness, stood up to leave the sitting room then asked me to remind her about the money I will need for buying the items for the fried rice before she goes out to visit a friend before remembering something as her face squeezed into a puzzled frown, looked directly at me then went,

 "What of my mom? I would need to send some food to her and she obviously wouldn't like fried rice and as I'm low on cash, I wouldn't want to be cooking separate "feast" meals for us and another for her"

I couldn't immediately give a response as she looked at me for answer when Karl who just walked in on that conversation offered to help with some money,

 "My mom promised to send me some money tomorrow, so being the last working day before the sallah celebrations, I'll cash it and that should help out with the things we need"




We all smiled happily as Mom ruffled his tousled jet-black hair like a child!

 "Awww! That's so sweet, one could almost assume you're his black mother who gave birth to an almost white mullatto kid"

I said with a loud laugh, Mom smiled and replied as she left the room,

"He's my son, your father's son is my son, there's a reason fate and Natalie allowed me take on the role as his mom"

 I went, "awwww" again. On sallah day, everything went pretty well...ok, almost well because, I had a bathroom emergency at the Eid praying ground when for some weird reason, I had to quickly use the toilet to poo and being far from home, I quickly became sweaty and bothered as there was no public restroom in sight as Eid praying ground by Islamic standards are meant to be located almost outskirts of town or at least a neat and secluded area of town unless if the town planning or other reasons of security, etc doesn't permit it but in my case, it was actually within close proximity to residential buildings to the south and a sparse open land to the north  and had to run and look for a hidden corner in a bush to defecate...don't judge me... thank goodness I was with tissue paper and I still felt unclean and had to rush home, leaving my brothers wondering what the hell was wrong with me, so as to avoid "skid marks" on my boxers....if you know what I mean.

Maze of the mind.

We often hear or come across this statement which I had considered a cliche about the mind being a powerhouse...How we are shaped by our thoughts thus we become what we think, when the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves, yada yada yada, in my opinion, words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality but then again, learning never exhausts the mind, I'm about to find out! 

 

The rest of the ramadan fasting period went without drama post DISS-TANT RELATIVE and now the only drama that I need to quell was the one starting to billow in my head. The pertinent questions about where the Kuwda blog is going and what I should be doing with my life... sometimes, being unsure where life is taking you makes you so scared.

 

 It was a few days after the sallah "festive" celebration following the ramadan fasting period and I guess I got sucked into one of those worry-induced mood swings where I get really unhappy for no cogent reason. I was lying on the cool tiled floor watching a repeat episode of a telenovela series when Hamz sauntered into the sitting room holding the hand of one of his female friends-with-benefit. They greeted me and I just looked at them with the corner of my eyes as I was too tired and sleepy at the time to even raise my upper body up and respond properly to them, Hamz walked up to me and asked if I was alright seeing as I looked dull like a water-soaked dough of bread, I said I was fine and without pressing further, he excitedly turned around quickly and went to take a sit beside his friend, moments later, I dozed off!

 

 I don't know for how long I had dozed off but I thought I heard moans of pleasure, like I was walking alone along a lonely, sandy street and then stopped in my tracks when I heard the moans. It must have been a blend of reality and dream...a state of subconsciousness because it felt like I was dreaming but channeled by the sounds my sleeping body was hearing to direct how my dream went, there was a slight giggle, like one who got tickled then a deeper moan, I shook and woke up, I was still and tried to flick open my eyelids but felt glued down by eye sugar...that sticky substance that gums your eye down and you have to scratch it off to open your eyes, I did and in an initial blurry view, I thought I saw Hamz's body in an animated motion on top of his friend on the sofa making love, I was so mad that my brain was in an instant flooding my mind with several ideas of what I should do to make them pay or spoil their fun, I thought to stay still and let them finish their little party or just feign a cough and get them jittery, I couldn't decide but I felt Hamz is such a fool who totally disrespected me and our house. As brothers, many would think I should let it pass... mind over matter kind of thing, If I don't mind it then it shouldn't matter hence allow him but do you know his track record with women? No, I do mind and so this matters. 

Diss-tant Relatives

The role of family in any society cannot be overemphasized and in a place like Africa, more so West-Africa and Nigeria to be precise, family is everything, they shape us, mould us, serves as a form of security, the list is endless.

Our society in this part of the world is hugely patriarchal and emphasis is placed on the male children and the unity of all offspring of the male line of the family even though in our case, we are closer to our matriarchal cousins than our patriarchal's but try to get along just  to make our patchy relationship work. It was a few days to ramadan and I was on my bed on a humid morning, reading a novel, the past couple of weeks had been particularly hard on me because this year has been the slowest on #Kuwda and it bothered me a lot that I couldn't do much about the situation amongst other personal issues disturbing my thoughts so in other to stop myself from worrying, I decided get lost in the reverie of reading a novel. Karl came into our shared room moments later looking a little outwardly disheveled with a rather serious expression, I looked up from my book wearing a suspicious look on my face about him that says he had been up to something especially so as he was avoiding eye contact with me.

 He picked up his heavy "daddy" towel and went straight into the bathroom, I smiled inwardly as I sensed he was going to have the Islamic cleansing bath "Janabah" after meeting a woman...obviously Shalewa, I continued reading and few minutes later, Karl came out of the bathroom, staring straight at me with a knowing smile, I just shook my head with a smirk and continued with my novel,

 "You should know Shalewa and I are now sort of official...don't judge the girl and I'm a man, I've taken my time before dating so you wouldn't call me a player and.."