What's Myne (Part 1)

Once upon a time, there lived a great man. He was wealthy and powerful and his estate fertile and vast. His lands begun from the banks of a river and continued up stream to form a huge city (his land could be estimated to be almost as big as the present day city of Ibadan).
His was a fair businessman and was good to his tenants. In honor, they called him Baba Igho, meaning father of money.

No other name could best describe him.

Baba Igho had a weakness for praise and beauty this could probably the reason why he continued to get married each time he lost a wife.
He was unfortunate in love.
After he got married, his wife would live only long enough to bare him a child and then fall prey to some mysterious illness, which would take her life.
This happened four times with each woman being more beautiful than the last (Somewhere in Nigeria, persons would conclude that Baba Igho was being “worried from his hometown”).
When the fourth wife died a few weeks after the birth of her child, he decided to retire his ring welding wrist and dedicate the rest of his life to taking care of his children and estate.

The first daughter, he named Kiki her late mother was a princess from a distant land.
Kiki was an egotistical self-serving child.
She never let anyone touch her toys or share in the fruits that her little garden yielded.
The second daughter was Zizi.
Her late mother was rumored to be a marine spirit.
Zizi’s beauty was so enchanting that gazing at her could make a pagan prayerful.
She would spend hours in a day applying beauty products on her skin to make herself more beautiful; she too did not care for anyone but herself.
The third daughter was Mimi.
Her late mother was the child of a warrior.
Mimi was independent and strong to a fault. She fed on power, was unforgiving and was swift to punish anyone who dared to cross her.
The fourth daughter was Baba Igho’s favorite child.
He named her Mine but for peace to reign in the house, he changed her name to Myne.
Myne’s mother was the most unlikely of the four wives. Although she was endowed with grace and beauty, she was the child of a poor healer.
Myne’s modesty and kindness often pushed her to the background and her sisters picked on her.

Years went by and soon Kiki, Zizi, Mimi and Myne became young adults.

Baba Igho decided it was time for his beautiful daughters to get married.

Not one for small measures, he threw a grand party and invited eligible bachelors from around the country. When his guest arrived, he sat on his gold plated throne and proclaimed that his daughters were the fairest in all the country.
He then turned to them and promised that he would give them wonderful husbands based on the love they had for him and asked each of them to come forward one after the other and profess her love.
Kiki spoke first.
Throwing her arms around his neck, she kissed him and said. “Father! I love you to the moon and back! I will give away all my possessions in exchange for your happiness and health!”
This pleased him.
He gave her a quarter of his lands and married her off to a politician who promised to build a wonderful home for her.
It was Zizi’s turn.
Zizi sat on his laps sang a song and afterward she spoke “my dear father, the love I have for you goes farther than the moon! My beauty can not hold a flame to the light of my love for you. I would gladly adorn myself with rags and bear sores on my beautiful skin in exchange for your prosperity and well being.”
This pleased him.
He gave her a quarter of his land alongside cattle and bags of money. He married her off to the most decorated footballer in the country.
When it was Mimi’s turn to speak, she ran to his feet and burst into tears. When she was done crying, she wiped her face and sat at his feet. “Father” she said. “I have traveled around the world and found none like you. You are the strongest, brightest and bravest of all who I have come across. I love you beyond the reaches of the earth, I love you farther than that and I love you even more. For your sake, I would willingly go into captivity and beg in tears each day if this will make you happy.”
This pleased him very much.
He gave her the third quarter of his lands, cattle, more bags of money and married her off to the most talented musician in the country.
When it was Myne’s turn to speak, he sat up straighter and ordered absolute silence because unlike the rest of his daughters, he knew Myne was the one that truly loved him.
He was excited with the anticipation of the praises she would shower on him and wanted everyone to hear.
Myne walked up to the foot of his throne, gave a curtsy and then stood straight and tall.
With a soft but clear voice she looked straight into his eyes and without blinking said.
“ Dear father, I love you as much as my duties require”.
He gaped in shock and stood up outraged.
“What?!”
He screamed.
“You dare to make a fool of me in the presence of my subjects?”
He ordered the guards to throw her out and banished her from the land.
“All these years, she deceived me”.
A bent old woman passing through the land who was a witness to all that had happened, walked up to asked Baba Igho and asked if she could take Myne back home with her to be a nurse to her sickly child.
Handing her a bag of assorted seeds as payment for her troubles, he washed his hands off Myne and went back to his throne to continue the celebrations...





... to be continued

Potty Logic

If you went “What the hell?!” on seeing the picture, you can half imagine my elder brother’s reaction when after calling out my name for a couple of minutes and searching for me in my regular hiding holes, he came to my room and stopped short as I waltzed out of the toilet with said item on the really pretty saucer.
At first I wondered why he was looking at me like I had sprouted chicken feet, was airborne and using thousand Naira notes as chop sticks to eat goat poop.
Then, it clicked.
I laughed so hard that I came close to dropping the saucer along with the bewildering item on my freshly laundered sheets.
When I stopped shaking so hard from laughter, he cautiously came close to me, examined my bounty and left the room with an incredulous sigh.
After controlling the urge to give into another fit of laughter, I dropped the saucer on a stool and went on about my business.

A couple of people at the end of the year decide to take a break and leave the hustle and bustle of city living behind for a few days.
Some travel out of the county and go to either exotic or questionable locations, others go to their holiday houses within the country (a few people in this category have to hold a series of meetings to decide which “holiday home” they would retire to) while the rest return to the states from which they hail from; also referred to as their villages.
It is when you live in a city rich in smog, traffic jams and head splitting street noise from dusk to dawn that you can appreciate the peace and quiet of the last mentioned location.

The fresh unpolluted air, friendly well meaning greetings from neighbors and the magnificent starlit skies at night might shock you initially but after a day or two, it becomes something for the “happy moments”.
With the rate of indiscriminate industrialization going on in the country, unworthy road vehicles and the ability to change a “stop work” sign with a few Naira notes, I often fear that in Nigeria 10 years from now, children would have to refer to story books for pictures of open fields, fruit trees and butterflies.

At the moment, I still have a village.
I count myself lucky.

Among the things I look forward to in my village are the structures that defy time and stand till this day, the do’s and do not’s of the land (…when giving a gift of yams, you either give 3, 5, 7 and above never 2, 4 or 6) and the assorted traditional delicacies which include *Ikpekere, *Oka bi ize weh, *Oli



and the not so traditional roasted groundnuts in their shells
* I am very sure my ancestors have gone 360 degrees in their graves at the bastardization of my mother tongue; I hereby beg their forgiveness.
*Ps:
To the nice reader who asked me what happens when you fart in a swimming pool, I’d like to first start by saying Oseyi is not short for ask.com (notice the absence of the preceding A and dot com in the name?) and then go forward to reassure him that the pool water will not change color around him (to my knowledge, that only happens when you pee in the pool).
For the record, it is very wrong to pee/piss/take a leak/ pass out urine/make water in a swimming pool.
You should never do that.
Seriously!
What happens when you fart however is that the gas, travels around your swimming suit (like a warm caress on a mildly sunny day) and comes up to the surface of the water as air bubbles.
So, unless you have a logical explanation for having loads of air bubbles around you, I do not think it is also a good idea to fart in the pool.
I hope by my kind efforts, I have been able to satisfactorily answer your question.
Have a lovely weekend and do not think of monkeys
- Oseyi