The Adagiri Wives! (SEASON FINALE)

They are delectable, elegant and stunning, naturally in varying degrees...this based on the amount of natural beauty allotted each by God Almighty and the much...or less that they could garner from their own respective mothers to which undeniably and objectively, Mom holds sway.

All fast thinkers, good in varying proportion with anecdotes, metaphors and sarcasm, strong women, amazons in their own right, amazing mothers with a unifying title...MRS ADAGIRI...Meet the Adagiri Wives.

For the #Kuwda uninitiated, that is, a newbie fan, this is a basic intro. to the kind of women my late Dad and his 12 brothers married thus with this number of strong-willed women in one room naturally comes with it, a whole lot of drama! Their late mother-in-law and original Matriarch of the Adagiri family knew this and being a strong woman herself,  knowing this about the women, used that information to play the thirteen women like a game of chess, turning them against each other and stirring in them, a sense of intense competition and a common fear for her. Of course everything went pretty well for the original Matriarch with one glitch...Mom...she was the rebel, the one who dared their monster-in-law and challenged her at different occasions and when Dad had died and she was hounding Mom along with rest of the extended family, rather than wail and bemoan her fate, she had had the audacity to square up to a most feared woman in our immediate community.

Thus, the other wives thinking Mom must be some kind of super woman, would pitch sides with whoever seems to be having the upper hand whenever it was convenient. Long story short, the Matriarch has long passed on and her daughter, the new Matriarch who had inherited the long standing feud between Mom and her mom hope to keep the flame burning and Mom is clearly perturbed in the least but lately, it seems as though something has changed and we are to find out.

After the very annoying outing at our  cousin's wedding in ADAGIRI NUPTIAL , given how disappointed everyone were with the planning et al, this weirdly brought Mom and the new Matriarch closer when we all gathered at our family country home for the annual family reunion.

 72 HOURS EARLIER- It was a cold night, I couldn't sleep, I was ecstatic, it was 11:45 pm and at the stroke of midnight, it will be my birthday, so I stayed awake, awaiting flood of text messages, calls, etc from friends and acquaintances! The rest of my family were sound asleep. At midnight, no one called or texted, I was shocked because I felt let down by people who should know...if everyone forgot my birthday, my best friend shouldn't. Arranging my duvet to prepare myself to sleep by a quarter past midnight, his text came in and couple of other texts messages plus messages on Facebook, it made me smile. By morning, my family just wished me a happy birthday and we had a hearty breakfast where Mom then announced over food the date for the annual family reunion with Hamz quickly interjecting, saying he has plans and the family won't miss him if he doesn't attend as Mom's eyes went saucers in shock, shaking her head slowly in protest, she cut him short, telling him she doesn't like attending the reunions either but every son of the family has to attend and for security reasons, every mother accompanies their son so he has to go and whatever plans he had has to be cancelled or rescheduled. As the day progressed and my bothers took me out to fete me for my birthday, sponsored by Shalewa to obviously work my way into my heart and have an ally in me, Mom got dressed up to go visit her islamic marabouts just to make findings about our intended trip to the annual reunion to ensure all will be well. She was told to carry out some little acts of charity just to ward off trouble which she did.

 By evening, tired from our birthday hangout, Mom understood and suggested we all eat out so we went to eat at a nearby restaurant, she kept asking us to get our things ready to travel in 2days. The next day, while in my room folding my neatly ironed clothes into my traveling bag for the trip, my phone made a chat beep so I picked it up to see who it was and thus take a short break, it was one of my paternal cousins Qamas and he wanted to let me know he'd just stumbled upon my blog and had shown his mom who read through some posts and thought I must be foolish to not just talk about our immediate family on blog but also the rest of the family to entertain the world, asking who the hell do I think I am to do that and would definitely be bringing up the issue at the reunion...

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!"

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.."

Headed for the stars?

When the guardians of heaven on the command of God banished ibliss and his accomplices who were equally former angels whom he tainted with his mischievous ideas to revolt against God from paradise to earth thus regarded as the fallen angels, they fell in great thuds in different places on earth, regrouped, took on human skin and lived amongst humans, taking beautiful female humans as wives and their offspring, a hybrid of human and angel, became giants.

Apparently more knowledgeable and powerful than mere mortals, they seemed to the rest of humankind as geniuses and  taught humans about the stars and their meaning and how it rules every aspect of our lives, romance, success or failures, dreams and aspiration, etc, assigning signs and demi gods to each star and its month thus we came about astrology. Unknown to us, they didn't give us this knowledge because they were fond of us, instead, it was to sow a seed of a growing rebellion in us for having as much knowledge about our own destinies and beings as God does because apparently God put a certain spirit in all humans of being able to choose between good and bad, something the devil hates which enables us to gravitate towards spiritual induced events that happens to us by default.

Growing up, I was pretty enamored with astrology and how almost accurate the daily readings from the astrology sites I signed up to were and for a pretty long while, based and looked forward to happenings in my life, negative or positive based on what I had read. After a while, I outgrew my obsession with astrology I guess due to religious opinions about it which abhorred it and just moved on with life but I never forgot the lessons it taught me and my knowledge of astrology never faded which as an advantage, always comes in handy sometimes in my journey through life especially on a day like this when I need to apply my knowledge of astrology in intervening in the budding love story between my half-brother Karl and Shalewa, the alleged city hoe!

Rumour has it!

"...Rumour has it that your hawt hawt oyinbo brother is now dating Shalewa the sly hoe!"

Amina, a former crush and now a platonic friend of mine upon getting married chimed as we catch up having lunch at an eatery close to my house on her dime along with other mutual friends amidst a lot of mirth.

"Hmmmn! WHAT?"

I exclaimed, chuckled then replied saying I would be the first to know if Karl was seeing someone,

"...We live in the same house and share a room, trust me, I'll know but really, he's not seeing anyone, he's just really taking his time"

 I reckoned with a careless shrug, shoveling a spoonful of fried rice into my mouth. Amina, a mixed, petite lady of Shua Arab and Fulani parentage is a lady who formerly lived on our street and back then, I had a huge crush on her primarily due to her stunning beauty that literally leaves men shaking with awe, very fair complexioned, slim with long black wavy hair but I knew I didn't stand a chance as from the look of things, her strict father already had her betrothed to a wealthy local chief in his hometown from her childhood and she had already resigned herself to that fate but we managed to stay friends and thankfully, because of my soft manly features, I was seen as harmless and without ulterior motives by her family hence our friendship was approved by her family thus I was about her only male friend approved by the family.

Amina shook her head sadly and reiterated her stance that Shalewa was seeing Karl albeit secretly, she knew this because "girls talk", I stopped in my tracks midway chewing a well fried chicken breast, almost choking on my food as Amina quickly handed me a cup of chilled yoghurt which I collected in a snap and downed it to clear my throat,

"Don't die biko, your mom will have my head on a platter"

She said amidst laughter joined in by our other friends Nima, Basherat, Kola and Zubair. Kola then quipped in an obvious banter for me not to freak out as it wasn't such a bad idea for Karl to date Shalewa regardless of public opinion about her as at some point, some man will still end up going to prostrate before her family carrying along barns of yam and other goodies to seek her hand in marriage,

 "Stop it Kola, this isn't funny, I'll find out when I get home but like I said, this is most likely to be false"

The Seventh Schedule

Women are like beautiful flowers in full bloom and like flowers, when they slowly begin to wither, you could almost literally hear their scream of fright!  

So was the case when Mom and I went to the market to shop for food stuffs for the house which is one of my least favourite things to do with her as she's an expert at haggling with market women unnecessarily for so long it wears me and more often than not, the sellers out. 

Her excuse usually is that since I barely know what it feels like to work and cater for a family all on my own, I couldn't understand why she needs to bargain and get the fairest deals on food stuffs to which I always nod with sarcasm. 

After haggling back and forth with a frozen fish seller over a carton of frozen fish for so long, the woman got irritated and sneered derisively at Mom and trust her not to take things lying low, she immediately called her out so loudly it generated curious glances and attention from other close-by sellers who pleaded with Mom to be patient. Seeing that she was having the upper hand and the support of other market women and passers-by, the pitch of her voice went a little higher as she refused to be placated and kept reprimanding the fish seller who kept apologizing, not because she felt sorry but so as to sell the fish and make her money, intermittently saying "I'm sorry ma" whilst packaging the fish, I covered my face in shame as I sensed she was about to get even more upset as Mom takes offence to being regarded as a "Ma" especially from fellow women, more so, women who are also mothers, implying that she's probably aged, she retorted back swiftly, telling the obviously younger woman,

 "Save your sorries...MA" 

I turned away from them, fished out my phone and pretended to be on a call. Still upset while I was still busy on my fake call, Mom slapped me repeatedly on the back to get my attention and collect the packaged bag of fish and carry to the car, I was so incensed at her action that if it weren't for the fact that she is my mom and we were in public, only God knows how much I would have yelled at her, I felt rather embarrassed at her treating me like a child with that action of slapping me repeatedly on the back and she saw the scowl in my face but she didn't care, instead, she snapped at me to be fast about it...good Lord! 

Scars to my beautiful.

Wisps of condense white smoke floated beautifully in the air around in the living room, saturating the atmosphere with a rich sweet smell of Arabian incense emanating from the dipping red glow end of a stick of burning incense stuck in wax as the pitch of bass male voices of Islamic clerics undulated rhythmically in high and low tones while reciting Quranic verses for the repose of our late father.

It is Dad's annual remembrance and it's amazing to know that it's been over two decades already since his demise and how rather unconsciously, time has really healed us as we had  taken solace in God's love and protection over us through the years.

Earlier in the morning while having a light breakfast, Hamz had asked why Mom wasn't crying as she was now accustomed to doing almost every year, shockingly,  she scoffed and said there was no need to as a lot of years had passed and she has been healed over time as it isn't so fresh in her mind again. Hamz asked if she still loves Dad to which she affirmed with rapids nods while taking a sip of tea then she responded with a question, asking us to be honest that if the tables were turned and she was the one who had transited to the great beyond, would our Dad still be single to this day, to which we all gave a knowing smile of what the answer definitely would be which is an outright no, although I couldn't help but assume in my mind that the many hurts and disappointments Dad had put Mom through from beyond the grave with Karl's existence, issues about his shares' dividends and how it should be shared amongst other ugly surprises had contributed immensely to her gradually becoming emotionally numb to his remembrance.

The murmur of pearls (Season Premiere)

There is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about. The only people who are not the subject of gossip are those at the very bottom of their social world. Gossip is self perpetuating... the more people talk about you, the more important you become and the more important you become, the more people talk about you.

 - IMAM- "Teqbir!"

 - CONGREGATION- "Allahu Akbar!"

- IMAM- "Teqbir!"

- CONGREGATION- "Allahu Akbar!"

-IMAM- We thank Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta Allah, for adding to our fold another illustrious lady, hardworking woman, a dedicated servant of Allah, Hajiya Adagiri, we are indeed happy to welcome you to our As'alatu and may God accept our Ibadah

- CONGREGATION- (In a chorus)- Amin

- MOM- Salam Alaikum Warahmatulahi Wabarakatuh.

-CONGREGATION- Walaikum Salam Warahmatulahi Wabarakatuh.

MOM- Thank you all for the warm welcome, I really am grateful and may Allah continue to hear our prayers, amin. Mom quickly joined the rest of the women in a chorus of religious praising hymns and after an hour and half, the meeting came to an end for the week.

On getting home, Mom kept exclaiming with glee  how spiritually uplifting the Islamic women group was and how she has to not miss a single meeting from then on.

The week went by pretty fast and it was another Sunday again, the day of their weekly meeting. Being a meeting of professional and business women, "religious" socialites, wives of influential men, etc who as women of substance and caliber that they are who are wont to look good and not being looked upon as crass, Mom naturally decided to meet them at the middle fashion wise. Cladded in a beige crocheted gown with a flamboyantly embroided decolletage with a black, shiny and delicately soft undergarment underneath to protect her modesty which covered her entire torso down to below her knee, her fair, almost olive skintone shone luminous through her dress, seen from her arms which were visible through her crocheted dress and of course her face, hands and feet. She accessorized her outfit with a long band of shiny, milky pearl necklace, a vintage Patek Phillipe wristwatch gifted to her by our late dad, lovely Jimmy Choo heels and topping it all by throwing a sparsely sequined cream shawl over her head. Mom was the picture of perfection and I gave her the thumbs up that she was ready to slay.

What we didn't realise was the envy her ensemble would generate because unknown to Mom, most of the rich women "checked out" each other by doing a weekly mental calculation of what each woman was worth based on her sartorial choices, jewelry and...wait for it... How smooth and even her skintone is and while Mom is amongst the youngest of them all, I'd been for ages literally piling her with collagen, green smoothies, infused water, vitamins and also taking care of her skin with shea butter, almond oil... In short, just generally making sure she leads a healthy lifestyle like I do, so no wonder she looks like ten years was knocked off her age.

 On arriving at the prayer center, her entrance generated a rather subtle coos from a section of the room, keeping it subtle apparently so as not to get the attention of the presiding Imam who might rebuke them for being vain and shallow, reminding them that the vanities of life won't save them on judgement day and that however much they pamper their skin, it would end up been feasted upon by maggots.