The Adagiri nuptials!

"Off I go to the market boys!"

Mom declared with a sassy wave of hand over her head as she stepped out of the front door on her way out! My brothers and I nodded almost absentmindedly one after the other where we were, engrossed with whatever it was we were busy with, me with my phone scrolling through social media, Karl on his laptop, Hamz with the playstation and QT with his headphones on listening to midday news on radio- his recent obsession being...news- .

 It was towards the end of the rainy season with a very hot sun usually preceding a heavy downpour of rain so Mom decided to hurry to the market to get a few supplies before it gets intensely hot followed by a torrential rainfall.

 On approaching the ever busy and bubbling Garki market, she saw the sea of heads in the hot sun simmering ahead in their hustle and bustle with bodies brushing against each other as people passed each other by, she quietly said a silent prayer to herself as she's accustomed to doing when entering any market as she once told us, the market place is a gathering of not just humans but also evil spirits and jinns in the form of humans who also came to sell and make purchases and deposit problems in people's lives hence we should always commit ourselves to God's protection before entering the market...Mom is heavily hinged on things spiritual, religious and supernatural so, I've chosen to believe her...after all, mothers knows best.

Soon, Mom was bargaining with different sellers of wares when she bumped into our paternal cousin, Aunt Wati (Hint: NAIRA, DOLLARS AND PESEWAS ) she was also in the market to make some purchases and naturally, they got into an exchange of pleasantries when a busty lady, a friend of Aunt Wati passes by and sighting Aunt, stopped and greeted her  so she paused her exchange with Mom to say hello to her, the friend went on,

 "I got the "aso ebi" uniform cloth material for the wedding, my son said you left it with him and he also gave you 35,000 naira, the money for the cloth"

Aunt looking a little disconcerted, dragged through her response, saying yes, that indeed, the son gave her the money and that she's grateful, her friend went on to pray for her, wishing the upcoming marriage, a huge success and so she left. A confused Mom stared hard at Aunt and asked her who was getting married, Aunt stammered a bit and said it was Khalid, her younger brother and also our cousin! Let me remind you that our late fathers are direct blood brothers. Mom was shocked,

"So I'm suppose to find out about this in the market? In fact through a friend of yours? So the Adagiri family chose to not tell me before hand about this? Not even after the sons I gave  you people? Wow! That's fantastic!"


Mom spewed angrily. Aunt quickly apologised, saying she had the intention of visiting her at home to tell her about the news plus to bring our own "aso ebi", that is the chosen uniform cloth material to be worn on that day as it is tradition in this part of the globe, Mom sighed disapprovingly but said it was fine, they bid each other farewell and left.

 On getting home and as I helped her offload the groceries and other stuff she got from the market, Mom kept heaving heavy sighs intermittently, I had to pause and ask her what the problem was, she asked me to go call my brothers and that even scared me the more as I wondered what the problem could possibly be, a fight with her sisters, stress from work or what? So I called everyone and we all gathered around her in the kitchen,

"Your cousin Khalid is getting married!"

Mom blurted out, Hamz and QT didn't look surprised, they were like, "ok?", I went,

"But I see him on facebook chat everyday, why didn't he tell me?"

Mom shook her head sadly and explained how she found out,

 "...apparently, the preparation has been going on for months and I got to find out at the market when everyone...outsiders I mean, already got their invitations and "aso ebi" and we had never even being informed, your cousin-aunty said she intended to tell me personally about it by visiting...at the eleventh hour? The wedding is in two weeks! You guys' family never cease to shock me, can you believe my horror in finding about such news in the market? From an outsider? Like aren't you guys as outraged as I am?"

Mom ranted, I sighed as Karl told her to calm down and forget about it,

"...family is overrated, however someone thinks you matter or not to them is what it is regardless of if you're related by blood or not"

Hamz also chipped in, saying it doesn't matter as it also saves us the expenses of contributing to the wedding financially and materially. Mom slowly calmed down, occasionally taking deep breaths and together with her, we started preparing lunch.

The evening of that day, Aunt brought the "aso ebi" for us all and hinted that we need to pay for it, Mom acted like she didn't hear her well and she repeated what she said,

"I didn't realise that family members will have to pay to be able to wear the aso ebi"

Aunt subtly hit back, saying it wasn't collected on credit, that money was used to purchase it in bulk from the market thus family members have to pay, Mom swiftly responded saying it isn't compulsory then that we wear the aso ebi  as we got the information very late,

 "...And to start giving a tailor at this time to get it sewn before the D-day will be a waste of time, money and material! May Allah bless the union though!"

Aunt got the undertone of the message and what it portends for the family on the wedding day when we receive visitors and they see we aren't all cladded in a uniform cloth and of course how the new in-laws will also perceive this as a sign of disunity in the family, then handed the clothes to Mom, Mom insisted she has no money to pay and Aunt said she could pay whenever she could, Mom told her we have lovely clothes we could wear and for her not to bother, just then the new matriarch of the family called Aunt and she told her she was at our place and gave Mom the phone to speak to her.

Mom again lamented to the new matriarch over finding out late about the wedding and thus wouldn't be able to buy the aso ebi, the new matriarch instructed Aunt not to charge family members for the clothes as the family will bear the cost of the clothes, Mom nodded with satisfaction and collected the clothes. On logging to my Facebook account, Khalid had sent me and as I was to learn later, my brothers also, soft copies of the invitation to our inboxes. We thereafter went to our tailors, took measurements and handed them our clothes to be sewn.

The next day was Karl's birthday and days before then, Shalewa had spoken with me on what my thoughts were about her throwing him a surprise birthday house party and wanted to also know his major likes and dislikes, I wanted to trick her and tell her all his dislikes but quickly thought it could backfire if Karl finds out I had given her all the bad advice so I just told her all the good stuff. The house party was quite nice, we all attended and Karl had a nice time and I was really proud of Shalewa for going above board to make the day memorable for him, I began to think of seeing her differently from the notion of the whore past everyone seems to have about her...to get out of my head and view her from another angle. She had floating balloons all over the sitting room, expensive spirits and wines, a big cake with Karl's initials on it, a female DJ friend of hers was in charge of music, delicious food and small chops was in abundance I was almost jealous of him, the party went on into the night and soon, no one saw Karl and Shalewa again, obviously, they went somewhere to do the "deed", hmmmn!

Few days to the wedding, Mom had handed them our large cooking pots to help with the cooking for the day to show support to the union and family as we also prepared for the trip to our hometown, Karl made sure to get enough petrol for the trip and also service the car, we got our neatly sewn and embroidered clothes and got set for our trip. QT drove as we undertook the two hour drive to our hometown in Kogi state, the trip was quite smooth and I slept all through except when I woke up lazily when we stopped on the road to buy humongous dried curled-up pieces of delicious catfish by the bank of the river Niger from fish sellers, including dried locust bean seeds and yam flour to present to the family on our arrival at our hometown, again to show support so they won't indirectly accuse us of coming empty-handed. On arriving at the palatial family home of the Adagiris, the atmosphere was rife with pre-wedding arrangements and activities going on, soft music on loud speaker played somewhere within the house which livened up the area, different groups of men, both family and friends unrelated to us engaged in loud happy conversations with a lot of mirth as dense smoke of burning firewood used in cooking food for the occasion rose to the sky behind the palatial home while women groups of all ages chatted noisily while cooking. Canopy company cars arrived behind us to drop tents, loud speakers and chairs while we alighted from our car and shook hands with cousins and our paternal relatives we hadn't seen in years and took selfies, Karl felt at home and was the cynosure of all eyes as everyone clouded around the one unusual Adagiri grandchild who seem rather white like a westerner and couldn't get enough of. Mom had already given us the eye on not letting just about anyone touch our heads..lol, again, very spiritual and maybe fetish our mommy can sometimes be but one can't be too protective of her children, can she? So we settled down and helped in arranging chairs, setting up tents while I swept the floor even though I was asked not to by grand aunties and other old women around as we were considered too big and refined for such but Mom countered instantly, saying I sweep at home and so I should continue.

We quickly settled in and joined in the pre-wedding preparations and planning and soon, Mom couldn't hide her disgust at how some of the preparations were being handled and how everyone kept dropping their rather archaic suggestions on what to buy and how much was needed, etc. Some of the gifts required to be taken to the bride's family house (as it's an Adagiri son going to seek a bride's hand in marriage)weren't included, Mom wasn't allowed to say much as the other sisters-in-law were insinuating Mom was acting like a know-it-all so in order not to loose her cool, she decided to just keep  quiet and watch. Meanwhile, Mom's sister-in-law and mother to the groom who is way older than Mom soon got into a dispute with her own daughters-in-law who accused her of treating them like slaves, asking them to be cleaning rooms which guests will be staying in and washing plates and she had to plead with Mom to help talk to them and some were even ready to pack their belongings and head over to their own family home till after the wedding. Things were looking like it was headed for disaster as the mother of the groom kept getting into disputes with everyone, bossing everyone around and out of control with her unguarded utterances,  asking her own daughters to be in charge of planning everything, leaving the new matriarch of the family feeling upstaged and bitter. Hurriedly, money was gathered to buy a large cow which was slaughtered, cut to pieces and fried to serve guests, Karl, Hamz and QT were part of the group of men who supervised and joined in the slaughtering of the cow, of course I didn't because of my phobia for blood, they were so famished and needed cold drinks afterwards but none was present, the young grand and great-grand Adagiri kids has finished all the earlier bought soft drinks so I had to go out of the compound to get cold soft drinks for them. Guests who had arrived from far and wide and who intend lodging at our family home started arriving in droves.

The Adagiri family home is a vast house of 42 rooms which had been cleaned, the new Matriarch quickly called a meeting of the family, enjoining us to well behaved while we had guests as she knows so far, everyone had one or two grievances against how things were going, we all agreed. By morning of the wedding day, all dressed to the nines, smelling like success with our cocktails of different colognes merging together, us male cousins acting as groom's men and friends of the groom in company of all our family members, friends and relatives, all trooped in a long convoy of vehicles to the bride's family home, a couple of kilometers away and we were warmly received.

Seeing such a long convoy of nice cars, they thought we came loaded financially and at every interval, representatives of the bride's family while conducting marriage rites and ceremony would ask for financial offering from us the groom's family before we can see the bride and take her away, it got to a point where the groom's immediate family had had enough and told them bluntly they had no more money to give, it was beginning to look embarrassing and Mom had to stand up and dropped some money, some members of the bride's family were heard hissing aloud, threatening to seize back their daughter, the bride if we seem incapable of taking good care of her, Karl wanted to just disappear from there out of anger. Eventually, after much persuasion, the bride came out and the marriage rites were conducted and her family still used different tactics to siphon money from us, so when it got to dancing, most of us didn't have money again, even Mom went to the back of the hall and was talking to a friend when she caught sight of the groom's mom picking up money she was being sprayed with by guests from the floor, she was horrified as it doesn't  speak well of her so she went to meet her and stylishly told her to stop doing that, she unashamedly retorted, saying she needed to spray people as well and she kept her money in her pouch below her wrapper and couldn't dig her hand in at such a public gathering so Mom should loan her some money, Mom said no, that she also has her money in a pouch underneath her wrapper, she was so incensed and left her there staring at her. She has a habit of annoying people and tasking everyone for money even when she has lots of it, Mom just couldn't deal.

The day after the wedding, said our goodbyes,  packed our stuff and took off back to the nation's capital. Clearly the union left a bit of bitter pill in the mouth which obviously will be a focal point of discussion when we all gather again for the family re-union soon!

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