To go

On Saturday the 26th of October (best month in the year FYI) I attended a wedding!
Snugly nestled between my father and mother dearest, I realized 2hrs into the event that had been asleep for about all of the first hour.
Problem was not that I was unhappy, unexcited or sent from ‘the village’ its just that hearing 20 people say "I yam am" and "I doom do" one at a time over and over again gets boring after the 3rd round of ‘consents’.
Coupled with the fact that most of the service was in a language I do not speak or understand it became extremely hard to say “No!" and "Get thee behind me.” to the evil spirit coaxing my eyes shut.
After the service, I went for the reception.

It was there I fell in love.

Not with the groom as someone like me might assume (or the bride either!) but with the family receiving the new bride. From where I sat, I could feel love, understanding and unity as the groom’s siblings and kin scurried around looking all bothered, anxious but happy. Welcoming guest, offering hugs/smiles and making people generally feel at home. I wanted to be a part of that family!

Watching them in action brought strength to the saying that getting married is easy but staying married is the big deal.

The thing with weddings is that no matter what your reason for getting hitched is, after the initial badaboom-badabing it becomes a "do you?” "I do" and swearing to stick to your spouse for better or for worse, seven heads and all affair.
The old difference between the East and Western cultures was that while the Western worlds accepted disagreement and seperation between couples when the reason for doing so was justifiable the Eastern culture frowned upon it.
The rule then was that "unna talk say na for better and for worse, you dey run the together show abi? As yawa don gas now, you wan check out? C'mon fall in!! Wetin you bin think say the ‘for worse’ part resemble?"

Then, divorces were not as common.

You come in freely, you make an agreement, and you sign a contract yeah?

You stick to it.

We have failed unions and then we have FG and ASUU.
The difference between these troubled couples is that for the latter, aside from the 'biological children' suffering from the bitter arguments and hurtful exchanges, there is the petty trader in the shopping complex on campus caught somewhere between the standoff that suffers as well.

Worried, her fear is that soon her eldest daughter would go into full-blown prostitution, as she cannot afford to take care of the younger children due to the strike action. The daughter calls these men that drop her off at unholy hours of the day her ‘friends’. They give her an amount of money that ‘she does not work for’. She knows she should stop her but Junior the baby of the house is on admission in the University Teaching Hospital which comprises striking/absent doctors and she is broke.
You see, their father is dead and his family shunned her.
She sold the rest of what she owned to acquire the shop and get it stocked. It became the source of their livelihood, security and all.

I have stopped obsessing over the knowledge that a huge chunk of taxpayer’s money is being wired across border to develop our neighboring sister countries like Chad, Benin, Cameroon and Niger. These nice people are offering our Nigerian children uninterrupted educational supply for a hefty sum, a sum which they use to upgrade their schools, communities and amenities. Who cares that Nigeria is loosing the money we say we do not have?

Finally, these series of nuptial celebrations have got me fantasizing about my dashing prince charming and our happily ever after.
Public service announcement; I’m getting married!!
Hehehe