Leave my body

As in the song by Florence and The Machine. I don’t know why I chose this title.

Late last year with the impending doom of a possible second lockdown looming, my mother dragged me kicking and screaming to mile 12. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it on this here newsletter but I am vehemently averse to stress and let me tell you, it was a very stressful day. 

We left home by 8 instead of a purported 7 because thankfully, my mother wanted to sleep in. Next thing, we’re on the road with me still half asleep, body adjusting after an adventure the day before. We were in traffic for maybe three hours, reaching the market when the sun was fully out. I knew I was in trouble. The first red flag was the parking lot. It was packed full, trailers literally everywhere, struggling for space as we were. Next thing, my mum calls one of the men arranging the whole thing (and cursing at everyone who didn’t move their car fast enough or to their liking in rapid fire Yoruba) and hands the man the car keys to park. I nearly lost my mind. And of course, I made sure to tell her how wild I thought the whole thing was. It reminded me of that one scene in “Ferris Bueller’s day off” where the valet takes his friend’s father’s car for a joyride. My mother asked me why I thought it was *our* car in particular they’d steal out of the abundance of cars in the lot. An excellent point. 

My mother knew exactly what she was doing and where she was going and I just trailed along behind her, hand in hers occasionally. Some of the people selling even knew her and she knew them too. It was fascinating. We moved about the market seamlessly at first. We bought beans and garri and spices and semo and we kept it at the stall of the person selling beans (without paying for said beans yet). We got to a part of the market where they only sold onions. Huge bags of onions made from raffia were stacked for as far as the eyes could see. I asked my mum what they did at the end of the day or worse still, when it rained. She said they’d cover it with tarp. Another excellent point. The problem was, I kept imagining some elaborate heist where people came and stole all the onions (millions of naira worth and we all know onions aren’t cheap). My mum said some of them slept at the market and well, like the makeshift valet with our car, no one expected anyone to steal anything. The people who slept at the market watched over everything. Neighbourhood principle and what not. 

The next stop was the highlight of my market venture (not like it was a pleasant experience, this was just the highest of lows). We got to a section where they sold only pepper. Now here’s the kicker; the women selling had big bags of pepper that they gave monetary value to. For example, a bag could be worth 10,000 naira, a big bag of course, (you get a lot of value for your money with atarodo) and then the woman selling it would call out the amount and someone would come and say oh okay I’ll buy 3k worth and another person could come and say oh I want 6k worth and so and so until the whole bag was shared. A pepper auction. The person selling would then share the pepper using a scale in her eyes that increased in accuracy with experience but also, not really. There was no discernible difference between our 8k pepper and the 7k pepper of one woman who’d spilt our 20k bag. The pepper market was vibrant and hot and well of course, as inspired by the pepper, people were sneezing sporadically (with no masks in sight and except for the ones on the faces of my people).  There was so much red, the prettiest shade. And the pepper smelled delicious. 

As we went deeper into the market I saw a couple of kittens just vibing on a plank and my heart stopped. My mum called my attention to them before I even saw them and said “see your friends” and that in itself made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Being the expressive woman that I am I waved enthusiastically at the kittens and the shopkeepers laughed *with* me and not *at* me. I liked it. None of the characteristic Nigerian cat hatred (as a result of media propaganda if you ask me). I hope those cats are still alive and well. 

The tomato market was by far the most disgusting. There was water everywhere and there was barely enough space to walk between the baskets on baskets of tomatoes and sellers haggling with customers while trying to reel others in. My mother said it was worse during the rainy season and that the water got to calf length then. I can’t even imagine it. 

There can be no large Nigerian gathering without our intrinsic anger and impatience. Everyone was in a hurry. The people pushing barrows would sooner knock you down than say excuse me. Mile 12 is no place for a klutz. My mother held my hand through most of it and for that I am grateful.  

While we walked I’d constantly see things and want to immediately write about them and immortalise them. Unfortunately, my phone was with my mother as it IS a market after all and the neighbourhood principle does not extend to outsiders. So, I had to keep it all in my head and once I got to the car I put down what bits and pieces I could remember in the words I could remember them in. I filled the notes with my “key points” intending to do something with it for that week’s newsletter. I didn’t. Now, at 10:04pm on this Friday night with my newsletter long overdue, I’ve come back to these bits and pieces having received some divine inspiration to write (as I should have long ago for today’s newsletter) but recently I’ve been focusing on living “in the now” while I can. It won’t last long so I’m enjoying this state of uselessness I’m perpetually in these days. I digress. When we got back to our car the valets were extra nice and so, my mother gave them money and they became even nicer. They arranged our things in the car and delayed other cars to let us leave (I refuse to get into how I feel about this, I will stray too far off topic, but I do not like it). 

Aside from the heat and hunger and thirst that nearly killed me, there was the time my mother left me at the beans stall to look for the man carrying our tomatoes; yes , he disappeared, a small snafu, we found him soon after. When she came back for me we still hadn’t paid for the beans and the man seemed unbothered. I still can’t wrap my head around the level of trust and the unspoken agreements that inspired it. We could simply have run away (we’d already carried everything we kept there plus the beans) but he trusted us not to. Maybe I just have too little faith in our people. 

Be ye not deceived. It was not a nice experience but it was a notable one. I was constantly alternating between fascination exhaustion and confusion and isn’t that living? I think it is. You should try it sometime.