Justice According To Vengeance

How much will a father give up, to be his little girl’s Hero?

How far will a woman go to protect the ones she loves?

Is all really fair in love and war?

I had it all. My life was perfect. Until one man took it all from me.
Now, it's time to make him pay.

Read Simon's harrowing story. Now available on Amazon in Paperback and Kindle format, OkadaBooks, and other online stores.

When The Fish Fished a Man

I’ve always loved the Jonah-fish/whale/sea creature story. As a kid, it gave my wild imagination a lot to chew on (we shall not go into my, err, very crazy wild imagination today). So when I got to Church today and my pastor asked us to turn to the book of Jonah, I was like preach it pastor! After having read and heard that story countless times (I even remember a picture book in which Jonah had a desk and a candle in the belly of the fish!), I was quite surprised at the whole new level my pastor took it to and I had several Eureka moments.

The first was the controversy surrounding the fish and how anatomically impossible it is for a whale to swallow a grown man. On one side of the controversy is the school of thought that the entire story couldn’t have happened, hence disproving the authenticity of the Bible. On the other side are the Bible scholars who, maybe in attempting to redeem the reputation of scriptures, say that scripture’s reference to the fish was just metaphorical and could have meant that Jonah went through a difficult and life-threatening situation after he was thrown from the ship. Now, what if it really is impossible for any sea creature at all to swallow a grown man alive? What if it is totally impossible for a man to survive in a digestive system for three long days without maybe getting digested? How was he able to breath? How did he survive three days without at least water? The questions are endless, all pointing to the impossibility of the situation but I think that is the very best explanation for that bit of scripture, it was impossible! And God is a God who shows up and makes the impossible possible. Maybe we don’t need an explanation for the fish or whatever, maybe that is where exactly faith has its work, believing in a God who makes the impossible possible. Maybe it is exactly when we reach the very constraints of reason that faith steps in.

Next Eureka moment was when the pastor said this: there is a BIG difference between discipline and punishment. In fact, they are two totally different things. Punishment is the infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense. Discipline on the other hand is training that corrects, moulds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character. The purpose of discipline is to teach or train, to mould and build character. It is easy to say that God punished Jonah for turning tail and running in the opposite direction, but what God did instead was discipline him. That was huge for me. I can now get rid of the picture in my head of God being this man with a stern look on His face and his fist raised, waiting to punish me when I sin. Instead, I should see Him as a Father who disciplines me in love when I go wrong because He knows that my sin hurts me just as it hurts Him. And besides, God does not need to punish us for our sins anymore because guess what? Christ already took the punishment on Himself on the cross. It is finished already.

In Jonah 2, Jonah cried out to God from the belly of the fish/whale/sea creature and in verse 1 he said “in my distress, I called to the Lord, and He answered me.” The original Hebrew word translated to “distress” here is Tsarah which actually refers to the distress a woman goes through during labour. It seems like an interesting term for Jonah to use but you know what? He described his pain as one that had a promise at the end of it. It has been argued that the pain you feel when you have kidney stones is the closest thing to labour pains but you don’t get a baby at the end of that! Lesson to learn from this? Jonah prayed with understanding, he didn’t just say a prayer of hopelessness. It is one thing to cry and say “Oh God, I don’t have a job and my bills are pilling, what am I going to do? Life is hard.” It is something else entirely to say “Oh God, I don’t have a job and my bills are pilling but I know You’ll supply my needs. Life is so hard right now but You’ll always make a way and You’ll never leave me nor forsake me.” I realized today that it isn’t just enough to cry out to God, it matters how I cry out and what my understanding of God is as I cry out. Am I crying out hopelessly or in bitterness or in faith, even in the face of the most impossible of situations (ask Jonah, he knew a thing or two about impossible). One thing I need to always remember is this: God will ALWAYS come through, always. I don’t need to stress about the how or the what, He will. Who knows, maybe it just might be an ant swallowing a man next, what does it matter? God will always come through!

Giddi Commute: Navigator

This beautiful Saturday morning (aren’t they all beautiful!), I spent 45 minutes in Obàléndé waiting for the Bus to Berger to fill up. When it was finally full, the conductor sauntered over and proceeded to collect his money.

“Oga, you no fit collect money for road?” a man on the third row grumbled.

“Na for road I go pay Agbèrò?” The conductor retorted.

“So you knew that one since, you come just dey collect money?" Someone from the back row said, disgusted. At this point, I knew how the drama would go, probably ending in a I-no-get-change argument. I was about to plug in my ear phones to drown out the noise when one madam beside me upped the ante.

“Oníìranù, the time him suppose dey collect money, na that chingum geh him dey chase up and down! “ she said drawing out a long hiss.

“Na ya business?” Oga conductor challenged, stopping in his collection to face off the woman.

“Abeg dey collect your money dey go, this heat too much nah!” another passenger said.

“Abeg make I fire am! Abi you no hear the nonsense him dey talk?” Oga conductor asked.

“Ehn dey collect your money as you dey fire am nah!” the passenger said.

“Woman wrapper!” madam hissed.

“You dey jealous?” Oga conductor fired back.

“God forbid! Na your kind me I dey follow?!”

“Why you no talk nah, I for come toast you join.” Oga conductor said eliciting a few titters from other passengers.

        “You don dey crase! Olòshí! “

He finally finished collecting the money and we left the park, thank God!

The next sign of trouble was when the engine started to cough like a nicotine addict.

“Oga, this your moto go reach so?” someone asked.

“No worry.” Oga driver said. “Him dey kamkpe!”

“Abeg, if he no go reach, make we come down oh!”

“Come down for where? When I don pay for garage already!” Oga conductor retorted, ready for another fight.

“I say him dey alright, he just dey warm up!” Oga driver reassured.

That’s how we left Obàléndé and climbed on top 3rd Mainland Bridge with our kpa-ka kpu-ku bus. The thing would go kpa-ka kpù-kù, kpa-ka kpù-kù, ó-tó-gé  (I swear, the groans of that engine sounded like it was saying just that, true!), then we would go vroom vroom vroom and then kpa-ka kpù-kù over and over again. I reckoned sometime this century, we would sha get to Berger.

We were fine and dandy for a while. In fact, after you settled into the engine’s rhythm, it actually started to lull you like a child's lullaby. That was until it started to rain and we found out that our kpa-ka kpù-kù’s wipers didn't work. And oh, Oga driver was as blind as a mole too.

Unfortunately for me, I was in the first row, behind the driver, so I saw everything in HD.

“Oga, you no get wiper?” the lady in the passenger seat asked alarmed.

Oga driver ignored her.

“Abeg stop oh!” she said.

“Stop for where?!” Oga conductor who'd been spoiling for another fight demanded. “Abi you no see say nah for 3rd Mainland Bridge we dey?”

The fortunate souls in the back seats were still blissfully unaware of the wiper shebang and found something else to fight the conductor over.

“Oga, this your bus dey leak oh!”

“Abeg close your window jàre, rain get enter!”

“Na Sharatin you think say you dey? “ Oga conductor retorted forgetting madam in the front seat for the moment.

“Don’t mind them. They will be collecting money, they won’t use it to fix their vehicle. “ One woman said in disgust and other passengers agreed with her.

Ha, if they only knew! There were way bigger issues than leaky roofs on ground!

Consequently, the other passenger in the front seat became the Navigator and Oga Conductor the right side mirror.

“Small-small.” Navigator said, motioning with his hands.

“Your side.” Oga Conductor said.

“Peeeem-peeeem!” The Corolla to our left said.

With that brilliant plan in place, we made it to Ìyànà Òwòrò in one piece. Barely. Next issue was the line of tankers and trailers joining the Berger bound traffic from there. 

“We no fit stop for here?” madam in front asked hopefully.

“Madam, nothing do you. Your side!!” Oga conductor said.

By this time, the fighters in the back seats had found out about our precarious situation and had sobered up. Well, sort of.

“Oga, you no dey see? You wan jam trailer? “

“Oritse gbàmí!”

“Lord have mercy!”

“Kai, I don enter this one oh!”

“I for no enter road today oh!”

As if to add it’s own voice to the melee, the rain started to come down even harder.

“There's a tanker in front! Small-small. “ Navigator said and Oga driver stepped on the brakes.

“Not so hard!” Navigator gasped and we all screamed as we were thrown forwards like rag dolls.

In response, Oga driver stepped on the gas and we were all thrown backwards.  I cannot write the sort of colourful language that followed. Ah, I fear that I wee be corrupting the eyes of Nigerians of they had to read it on here!

In the midst of that drama, something let out a hoot that almost had me peeing my pants and all hell broke lose.

“Ah, trailer dey your right!”

“Your side! Your side!”

“Ah, Jesus I am dead!”

“Oga stop this bus oh I wan come down.”

“He dey your side!”

“Na tanker oh!”

“Blood of Jesus!”

“Yéè mo gbé! “

“Orí ìyámi òh!”

Next thing, we hit a massive puddle and the sounds of the water forcefully hitting the undersides of the bus and the avalanche of water that hit us on all sides were the final nails in the panic coffin. 

The type of mayhem that ensued was enough to cause even the sanest of drivers to lose control, not that ours was anywhere near sane to start with.

“Abeg please stop for Mobil oh, we cannot continue like this!” one passenger implored.

“Ah, we don pass Mobil since.” Someone else said.

“We don pass?! I think say we still dey toll gate oh!”

         “Ah, toll gate ke?!”

For all we knew, we were already in Ìbàdàn sef!

“Na Òtédolá gate be that in front!” someone exclaimed.

I doubted it seriously but the thought of a safe place to get off was too good to pass off.

“Abeg stop make I come down, I no go Berger again!”

“I go waka the rest biko!”

“Why you wan get down inside this rain?” Oga conductor asked.

“You no see the nonsense your driver dey drive?”

“How? The guy dey alright now!”

My head did a 360 and I stared at the conductor in utter disbelief, like really?! That was when it really hit home that we were in the hands of mad men and I joined the crazy clamour for the bus to stop.

In response, Oga driver swerved to the right towards the bus stop without first consulting his Navigator and Oga conductor and he had his right side mirror clipped off by the tanker on his right.

“Yeh, go your side! Go your side!” Oga conductor screamed, not that Oga driver could have heard him above the panicked screams in the bus.

Oga driver swerved left and stepped on the brakes.

“No stop, no stop oh! Another one dey your back!” someone from the last row screamed.

We stumbled on until Oga driver finally brought the bus to a stop beside a dilapidated filling station. As soon as the bus stopped, frantic passengers spilled out into the pouring rain. Mehn, it had never felt so good to have rain slap me in the face, I was so grateful to be alive and in one piece!

Fear Itself

Ah, and Mommie said we should not watch that movie oh!

It was the week of Mum and Dad’s wedding anniversary. It was special because it was the 15th and Daddy had been making plans for a long time. It fell on a Thursday, so they were going to go away on a romantic weekend getaway. Mum had asked her sister, Auntie Kenny to Baby-sit that weekend and me and my sisters were excited about that. We all loved Auntie Kenny because she’s never too fussy about brushing our teeth before bed and she lets us stay up a little bit later than we should. Auntie Kéhìndé is just four years older than Solápé, my oldest sister who is fourteen. Pèlúmi is eleven and I’m the man of the house at nine.

We all waved good-bye to my parents on the evening of Friday at about seven. Mommy had come home a bit early from work and had taken out time to get all dressed up. They were going for dinner at Four Points and then going to spend the rest of weekend at some resort on an island, Inagbe I think it’s called. Mommie had been raving on and on about it and I’d looked at all the glossy pictures in the Brochure.

As soon as daddy’s Peugeot 607 drove out of the gates, we all let out a whoop. It sure was going to be a night to remember, and not just for Mommie and Daddy! You know when you’re told not to touch something, it’s then that it starts to call out to you in Dija’s voice, Boy you’re all that I want, even if on a normal day, you wouldn’t be remotely interested in it? That Clash of The Titans DVD sure knew how to sing! Mommy had bought the DVD at Shoprite and had been excited about it. She said it was the original 1981 make of the movie and that she’d been dying to see it again after so many years. When we’d asked to watch it with her, she had refused and said it was one of the “touch not”s. She said we were too young to watch it, even Solápé who was a teen-ager already. So that DVD had sat on the shelf for all of two weeks while our curiosity just grew and grew. And of course it was the very first thing we asked Auntie Kenny to let us do that Friday night. So as soon as we had gobbled down our dinner of beans and fried plantain, and washed up the dishes, we all piled into the three-seater sofa with Auntie Kenny in the middle to operate the remote controls. Solápé made some dramatic drumming sounds as Auntie Kenny pressed the play button and the movie started.

The first sign of trouble came when Calibos appeared in his half human-half beast form, but since all the women in the room didn’t seem fazed, I had to chop small tushka and continued to watch. It didn’t help that I was at the edge of the sofa closest to the door into the dark corridor. By the time Perseus went to visit the three witches, the space on the couch had mysteriously increased and the four of us were huddled together in a tight ball in the middle. I was practically sitting in Pèlúmi’s laps but she didn’t seem to notice or mind one bit.

When you’re watching a horror movie late at night, especially one that you’re not meant to be watching, there’s only one thing that can happen at the very height of the horror. Picture this: Medusa makes her grand entry in all her horrific glory, eyes blazing and snaky hair waving in a million directions. Your heart is thudding in your bony little chest and you’re strangely quiet, not because you’re cool, calm and collected or even forming man of the house, but because your scream is frozen in your throat. Then on cue NEPA takes light.

There was a split moment of calm before Pèlúmi let out a scream, which of course led to utter chaos.

       “Something touched my leg!” she sobbed when we’d calmed down a bit.

Instinctively, six feet snapped up and onto the sofa.

       “What was it!” Solápé demanded.

       “I don’t know!” Pèlúmi snapped. “If I did, would I have screamed?”

       “Well, if you did know and it was Medusa’s tail, you would have done more than scream.” I pointed out and was rewarded with an elbow in my side.

       “Owwwwww!”

       “Everybody quiet!” Auntie Kenny snapped. “We have to go figure out why the inverter didn’t come on.” She said.

That got us all quiet. The inverter was located under the stairs, all the way outside the house, plus there was that dark corridor with all the unknowns lurking in the shadows between the sitting room and the front door.

       “So, who is coming with me?” Auntie Kenny asked and we all stayed silent. “Two of us will go to the inverter and two people will stay here.” She declared when no one said anything.

I started to do the maths in my head. I’d heard the neighbors’ Gen come on, which meant if I decided to go to the inverter, I only had to worry about the monsters hiding in the dark stretch of the corridor. The security lights outside would have come on.  Meanwhile, there were so many possibilities with staying in the house. Suddenly, the house started to feel very large indeed.

       “Okay, I’ll go.” I said and I heard Solápé and Pèlúmi heave a joint sigh of relief.

Auntie Kenny turned on her phone’s flashlight and we headed for the door.

       “Wait!” Solápé called out at the last moment.

       “What?” Auntie Kenny snapped. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought her voice had a tremor to it.

       “We won’t have any light in here when you go.” Solápé said.

       “Well, there’s just one phone.” Auntie Kenny said. “You might as well go and get the torchlight from the kitchen.”

       “But it’s dark in the kitchen.” Pèlúmi wailed.

       “You can either go and get the torchlight or sit here and wait.” Auntie Kenny said.

On the long run, all four of us huddled around the light from Auntie Kenny’s Nokia 101 and made our way into the corridor with all its dark cavernous doorways leering at us like monsters’ mouths. I tried not to imagine the Kraken jumping out at me from those dark doorways but men, it was hard!

We were almost at the front door when we heard the scraping sounds from the other side of the door. I don’t even know who screamed first. It was probably the lot of us taking up the chorus at the same time. We’d all somehow found our way to Mommie and Daddy’s room before we remembered that they weren’t home and couldn’t save us from the legion of Titans at the front door. Sometime during the commotion, Auntie Kenny’s phone must have fallen or died because the room was plunged in darkness.

       “Lock the door!” Solápé panted.

       “You lock it!” I retorted.

       “But you came in last!” Solápé snapped.

       “No I didn’t!”

       “Auntie Kenny, tell him to lock the door before they get in here.” Solápé demanded.

       “Auntie Kenny?” I called out when she didn’t reply.

       “They got Auntie Kennie!” Pèlúmi wailed and started to cry.

The three of us found our way in the dark to the king size bed and huddled together in the center of it. I looked out into the dark in the general direction of the door, expecting it to burst open at any moment.

       “What have they done to her?” Pèlúmi sobbed against my back, her tears mixing with the sweat that was soaking through my tee shirt like a river.

       “How am I supposed to know!” Solápé snapped, her voice wobbling.

I knew she was fighting hard not to cry and that she didn’t mean to be short with Pèlúmi. The terror was doing crazy things to all of us.

       “Whhhhat is tttthat?” Pèlúmi asked shakilly, pausing her sobbing.

       “What?!” Solápé snapped.

       “Ttthat ssssound?”

We all listened and sure enough, there was some eerie noise coming from the direction of the door that we were reminded was still very unlocked. It sounded like a low hissing interspersed with some nerve racking clacking. It sounded familiar, in fact, I didn’t even have to think too deeply about it before recognizing the sound for what it was. It was the very last thing we’d heard just before NEPA took light and this horrible nightmare started: it was the sound of Medusa’s hiss and her rattling tail. And it was getting louder and closer. Pèlúmi and Solápé seemed to join the dots at the same time as me and for probably the umpteenth time that night, all hell broke loose and we did the mad dash in the dark for Mommie and Daddy’s en-suite bathroom. I slammed my shin into the corner of the bedpost and someone scratched out half of my face but I didn’t even notice a thing. All that mattered in that moment was making it through the five feet or so to the bathroom and safety. We fought our way to the bathroom and locked the door this time. We crowded into the bathtub and pulled the shower curtains for extra protection. Both girls started to wail and the only reason I didn’t join in was because I was probably shutting down from all the terror.

Next thing I knew was that Medusa started to push against the bathroom door. She rattled the doorknob a few times and then thumped on the door. My sisters shrieked and went crazy and used me as a human shield. The last thought that flickered across my mind as the lock gave way on the door and it burst open, flooding the bathroom with light (most definitely from Medusa’s blazing eyes) was I wished Mommie were here…

       “Akínkúnlé…” Medusa shrieked in Mommie’s sweet, sweet voice. I braced myself, wondering what it felt like to turn to stone.

Then someone paused the horror movie and pressed fast-forward to about thirty odd minutes later in the horror movie that our evening had become. Picture all four of us standing with our hands clasped behind our backs and staring intently at our toes while Mommie and Daddy gave us a serious tongue scalding. Yeah, Mommie and Daddy. There had been a storm (the reason for the black out) and their boat couldn’t leave for the island that night, so after dinner, they had returned home. Well, you can piece the rest of the story together. Titans at the door? Yours truly. Medusa starting to sing? Well, Daddy put on the generator on their way in and the movie started to play again (see how the thing just koba’ed us! Ain’t no way we can deny watching the forbidden movie now). Medusa at the bathroom door? Mommie trying to figure out why we were hiding out in the bathroom. Auntie Kenny being eaten by the Titans? Well, when we all freaked out at the front door, she’d heard Mommie’s voice behind the door and had opened the door instead of making a run for it like the rest of us.

Now you can bet your last penny that if anyone says “don’t touch that thing”, I’m running a million miles away from it!

My Lover and I

This last weekend, I made it to my fifth month of being back here after being away for a while. It’s been an interesting time (for a lack of a better description) and I can’t believe the amount of re-adjusting I’ve had to do, I mean, it’s been  less than five years!

Someone asked me the other day how Lagos has been treating me and my reply was this: Lagos is still like the lover who plays games with my heart, she’s sweet one moment, ruthless the next! And really, that’s how it’s been, Lagos sure isn’t the easiest damsel to court! I’ve had some, well, interesting experiences and I realized that if I couldn’t learn to laugh at them, then I would simply find myself picking up my two legs in my hands and running like a mad woman was at my heels!

My first week at work (about three months after I got back), I remember bussing home from work for the very first time on my third day or so. Luckily for me, there was a colleague who lived close to me and we made the journey together. Everything was going fine, like, piece of cake really, even the transit through good old Obelende didn’t seem so bad. That was until we got off the bus at Berger and my colleague said we were crossing the road! I looked at him like he was crazy, like cross this road?! It was either that or he was pulling my legs and catching his trips at my expense. This was Berger, with all them massive lorries zooming on like they ‘just don’t care’, and this guy was telling me that we were going to run across the road, right in front of those lorries and the crazy danfo drivers, with our tiny chicken legs! Add to that the fact that that morning I’d dressed in a nice little dress and these dainty heels, hoping to impress on the new job and all. There was NO chance of an ice cube in hell that I was crossing that road, no Sir! Poor dude, he being the sweet gentleman that he is and me being the crazy, spoilt brat that I was, I made him make the loooong walk down the over-pass and then under the pass and all the way to the bus stop at the other side. A journey that would have taken us two minutes (yeah, the crazy run across the road) took almost thirty minutes. Dear Tomi, I know you still hate my guts for making you take that walk, but I’m soooo sorry! :”(

Me (spoilt brat or not) and Tomi, have had our fair share of adventures together. There was the time we were sat in traffic at Toll Gate and saw someone get robbed, in broad daylight! That was a chilling experience for me. There was also the time two cab men fought over us and I almost had my shoulder wrenched out of its socket! I remember the day we were so excited about being the ones to get the coveted front seat in the bus at Obelende.  You need to understand how big that was for us, we had graduated from being squashed and hunched up in the uncomfortable back seats (if you’ve never been on those buses, you can’t possibly imagine how awful they are, especially for Tomi who is rather tall, and well, a spoilt Brat like me) for the journey that sometimes took as long as three hours (we’ve had a record breaking five hours once) to sitting like royalty in the front seats. So, here we were, cruising along on third mainland bridge (by some miracle, there wasn’t traffic on this fateful night) feeling fly, when some crazy dude just cuts in front of our bus. I don’t know about Tomi oh, but me, I matched my imaginary brakes sharply! He’s always as cool as a cucumber anyways, so I’m sure he didn’t even move a muscle, which is okay. What wasn’t okay however was the fact that the driver of our bus, whom we were rather quickly going to find out was high on cheap booze, also didn’t match brake! Next thing I know is that we’re slamming smack into this other crazy driver’s backside. You know what they say, that your life flashes before your eyes? Big fat lie. The only thing flashing before me was this very bad movie in which I was about to go flying out the windshield from the force of the impact! Everyone in the bus chorused their shouts of Jesus! Blood of God! Jésù! Yéèpà! Etcetera, etcetera. There were even a few shits and craps thrown into the mix. What was the first thing our crazy driver did when he finally woke up from his zombie-don’t match-ya-brake daze? He gets down from the bus and goes after the other driver to get in a fistfight with him. Fine, I understand that the other driver was at fault, and that he must have been high on adrenaline on discovering that he’d escaped the accident unscathed, but this was third mainland bridge at ungodly-o’clock at night, we were sat smack in the middle of the bridge with other vehicles zooming past us on both sides. We were sitting ducks for any other crazy driver whose leg wasn’t connected to the adrenaline-triggered part of his brain that would make him step on the brakes by reflex. Plus this guy was trying to cave the other guy’s face in, right in the middle of said road. Ah, see my life outside for inside this very bad home video! How we got off the bridge? By some stroke of luck (scratch that, it was simply God), our bashed-in bus still worked fine and our high-on-cheap-booze driver managed to drive us all to Berger in one piece.

Next on the list was the day that Tomi left me behind and crossed to the other side at Berger! (yeah, yeah, even this spoilt madam had to start crossing the road at some point. Trust me, I developed a technique where I would hide behind Tomi and not have to look at any of the lorries zooming towards me. The really bad part of the crossing is the lane barrier at the middle. That thing is high and fat and due to the fact that you have about a three second window within which to scale it before the next truck gets to you, there ain’t no time to ‘do it like a lady’. In essence, you have to learn to scale it hurdle-style! Believe me, I learned real fast!). So, on this fateful night, I carried Lasthma for two seconds and the next thing I know, Tomi is on the other side and I’m stood there with my mouth hanging open in horror. Honestly, I was ready to start bawling out my eyes! This was the stuff of nightmares for me! You don’t want to know how much crossing that road terrifies me, and that’s with hiding behind someone oh! The thought of doing it on my own sends me into a panic. Luckily for me, some man walks out into the middle of the road and actually stopped all the traffic! I have no idea who he was, probably a soldier, or why he needed to stop the traffic, I was just so, so grateful for that little miracle that saved this girl from making an utter fool of herself. Honestly, if the guy hadn’t done that, I would have jejely taken the thirty-minute walk, shikena.

There was also the time the keke Napep I took decided to take on a flat bed in a battle for territory (in good ol’ Berger. Me and that Berger ehn?!). I was so sure the thing was going to ram into us and I have no idea how we managed to get out in one piece. And the time I took a bike (against my better judgment, but in my defense, I was running late) and just as he took off, the wind blew his ògógóró breath in my face! And of course, no Lagos story is ever complete without an Agèbrò! I was in Obelende one day, trying to figure out where to get my next bus from. The Agèbrò took a look at my bewildered face and was like “Fine geh, ibo lò ńlo?” he then went on to take my hand to help me cross the road (those crossings, eh) and he personally put me on a bus! I can just imagine the picture we painted, the Agèbrò holding the girl by the hand like an eccentric uncle and his jolly-just-come niece!

And the time I totally freaked out and ran (almost screaming) from Égúngún in Sábó (really, those guys terrify me)! Then there has been my dearest NEPA (I’ll never forget that weekend I was home alone and the GEN packed up on me), the gropers’ committee at Computer village (as in seriously, am I supposed to be used to having some sleazy stranger cope a feel?), the bus conductors (it’s like those guys can smell me a mile away and always try to swerve me), the plenty, plenty times I have missed my way and the even more plenty times I've waka'ed!

There have been lots of good times too. I remember the lovely evening I spent at Terra Kulture with my uncle, my aunt and my cousins. There was also the wedding that involved a convertible rising out of the stage (!!!). And the time I got my first Lagos wax?! Ah, that’s another story for another day! But I just have to say that Your Spa and Fitness at the Four Seasons by Sheraton was absolutely divine!!!

These five months have been a crazy roller-coaster ride and there have been many times (okay, maybe that’s more like many raised to the power of infinity) that I have wanted to cry and tear my hair out (and maybe start my own trek across the Sahara). But I survived. I came out at the other end in one piece and I think this ruthless lover of mine is beginning to grow on me.  Hmmnn, five months under my belt, let’s see what the next five will bring! ;D