While She Was Away — Chapter 2

Lessons I learned while doubling as a mum in my wife’s absence.

True Story

Now back home, I told Helen to eat. After her meal, left for her house. Living on the same street as ours, she puts up in one the tin houses popularly called “batcha” by the locals. Batchas are ramshacke, hurriedly constructed makeshift structures used by mostly newcomers from the villages rural areas.

They often cite these structures on undeveloped plots of land or near the residences of the more affluent people. Her own, shared with other locals is located at the end of our street. Many of her co-tenants have large families. Like a thin box parked with sardines several families were cramped into the tight dinghy like space.

My wife and I do not mind her and her son staying with us. Even though our was a big family, still, we considered it out-of-place for a young widow to be staying in our already full house where there are several young-men. Though we trust our boys, we were trying to avoid being the subject of neighbours’ gossips and wagging tongues. Time has now proved that was the best decision.

When Helen returned from her house, I insisted she rest in the guest room.

Come evening time, we set off for 24/7 Medical Center. I switched the car air conditioner on. Turning to Helen, I asked, “Are you okay with the AC or do you want it off?”

“It’s all right like this. Thank you, sir.”

Turning to Mercy, I edged her on. “Now, this is another chance to improve on your driving.” I reminded her of the first things that she must always do on entering the vehicle to drive out. Things like checking the tyres, adjusting the rear-view mirrors, adjusting the driver’s seat to a comfortable and fitting position and putting on the seat belt. “Yes, you make it click. And finally, you keep your hands on the steering wheel. Remember the 10 to 2 position and your eyes focused on the road. You set off on your drive. “

The pharmacy (medical Centre) is five minutes’ drive from our house. It could, however, take thirty minutes on days when there are traffic gridlocks on the road.

On arriving at the hospital, the receptionist immediately ushered us into the doctor’s consulting room. The amiable and lively young doctor was all smiles. Turning to Mercy he said, “I’m sure I have seen your face here before.”

“So this is your daughter. She is taller than you or almost so.” To this, I proudly replied, “Yes. She is almost my height now. Her younger brother is already taller than her.”

“Who among you is seeing me?”

In reply, I pointed towards her. “She is the one. Her name is Helen.”

“Has she done medical tests before or are you just going to buy drugs for her?”

“We were here in the morning for the tests. You were not around then. We were told to come for the test results by 4.30pm after which we can receive prescriptions from you. “

“All right. Get the results of her medical test from the lab then.”

I asked Mercy to go with Helen for the lab report.

Looking at the lady standing at the back of the front-counter, I asked the doctor, “Is that your wife?”

“No, she is not my wife. My wife is at home with our two kids,” he replied his face beaming with an almost permanent smile.

Helen and Mercy returned from the lab with the results in their hands. The doctor looked at the results wrote his prescription shortly afterwards. Before he could go far, I stood up from the bench. I’ve been confined on the seat all these while.

“Doctor, please I don’t intend to waste your time, can you give me a layperson explanation of what all these write-ups in the test sheet mean?”

“Yes, she is having a mild bout of malaria fever. Unfortunately, the test result show that she also has typhoid fever. I will prescribe some drugs for her now.”

“How much are all these going to cost?”

“N15,000 or do you want me to prescribe a more affordable one? You know, the malaria parasite is always changing. Malaria patients must take various drugs in other to stop the potency of the parasites; otherwise, the fever will only persist and eventually get worse. And we don’t want that, do we?”

“It’s all right; I will opt for the drugs that you have already prescribed.”

“As part of the treatment, she will come for three rounds of intravenous injections once every day for three days starting this evening. Has she has any meal today?”

On hearing the doctor’s inquiries, Helen replied. She has eaten little since the beginning of the day. In fact, she had no appetite for food even though she managed with a can of malt drink before she left her house. The doctor insisted that she must drink a medium size bottle of Lucozade Sport boost drink before she can receive the IV injection.

“Please, where can I get the Lucozade Boost Sport? Or do you sell them here in your shop?”

“No. Just step outside and turn to your left, you will see a shop, you will get it there.”

I went to the shop and returned in a short while with the drink. She opened the bottle and gulped it down.

Helen stayed in the clinic to begin her treatment. Mercy and I immediately hit the road for the market to get the frozen chicken and other ingredients for the cooking.

The road, like many others in Nigerian was trademarked as it were with tholes. On either side of the single lane driveway were tippers, fuel tankers, trailers and broken down vehicles. On normal days, especially during the morning rush hours and work closing times, there would be gridlock. On both sides of the one-lane road, tricycles weave their way in and out of the gridlock. The “go-slow” is frustrating, wearisome and nerve raking.

A first time visitor will be forgiven for thinking that this section of the Garden City was just experiencing a lull in the crippling civil war that ended almost 50 years ago. On average, every twenty to thirty feet of the road is patched up with depressions and bumps and several deep potholes. Traversing the whole length of the road, pedestrians drivers and their vehicles are forced to contend with bomb-craters sized splotches on the motorway. You are left wondering, either this place just survived the attack of an invading army or else was recently hit by an asteroid. The road, as dilapidated as it is now, has been left untended this whole long dry season. The citizens of Elelenwo town and other road users, men and machines are in for another round of frustration in the coming rain season.

Ironically, both sides of the road were lined with several colourful placards, posters and billboards of the politicians. From community wards to the state and on to national levels, most or all of them were aspiring to conquer and plunder in the forthcoming elections. This is the perception the majority of Nigerians hold about politicians and our nation’s brand of politics. Here, people go into politics not to serve or to make life better for the populace. Most of them aspire into the position of power not to relieve the oppressed or leave things better than they met them. Their aim is to get into government, grab all that they can grab for themselves and their immediate families. The crumbs and the left-overs are for their immediate communities to fight over Nobody thinks much about the country. No wonder our the nation is the way it is.

Significant sections of the road at various stages of dilapidation. Drivers and motor cyclists had to maintain zig-zag courses as they try to avoid the worst of these ever in sight potholes. As a driver, you must be on full alert all the time. Your car is ever at risks of getting scratched, or having its bumper dented by careless keke (tricycle) drivers. The most common site to greet your eyes on the road is a hoard of these yellow kekes trooping up and down along all the routes in lemming like orders.

Keke drivers with their motorized wheel barrows are notorious for harassing other road users. They do not spare cars and even jeeps of their maleficent antics. Being more compact and more nimble, it is easier for them to weave in and out of tight corners and grid-locked traffic conditions at brief notice. It is not uncommon to see them suddenly veering in and out of their lanes without giving timely signals to alert other drivers — risky moves that are unnecessary.

It is not out of place to state that make most of these dangerous moves out of “bad-blood”, meant to frazzle out their more fortunate road users who are riding in jeeps and cars. They also seem to glory in showing off their keke driving skills. Experienced drivers have learned not to give them chances. Most of the ones you encounter are crude. If you are a diver on this road, you will do well to stay alert and ever focused on the road and your driving. As soon as these keke drivers notice that you have seen them from a distance, they will push their front line wheel in your direction. Even though their tricycles are not as sturdy or as fast as any car, the terrible road conditions often put them at an advantage. It now becomes a game of “who dares wins.”

Most of the frozen food stores were still closed. Full business activities will begin as from the coming Monday the 6th day of the New Year. With the less frenetic traffic conditions, we could make it to the market earlier than usual. Most of the shops were still under locks and keys. They were yet to open for New Year business.

As rightly predicted by Mercy, vegetables and other food items have risen in their prices. The few available perishable food items were far from fresh as well. We finally arrived at the market. At less than 30 meters from the railway line, the market is not as congested today as at other times before the holiday season.

I stopped the car on the side of the road near the centre of the market. Mercy stepped out and cross the road to the nearby groceries shop. Mummy used to purchase most of the frozen chicken for or soups and stews from this shop. With Mercy out, I drove a short distance further and then made a U-turn. The car was now facing home direction.

The grocery shop was filled with several customers who were making last-minute purchases for the first weekend of the new year. With most stalls and other shops still on holidays, business was booming for the lone still-opened shop. As the car was directly opposite the grocery shop, I sat glued to the driver’s seat while waiting for Mercy to finish her purchases and rejoin me.

I did not have to wait long before she popped her head inside the vehicle, “Daddy, please can I have 200 naira? I need it to complete the payments.” I handled her the currency note.

“Daddy, most of the carrots, cabbages, and green-peppers on sale are not fresh enough. What are we going to do?”

“Just buy the ones that still look fresh. We don’t have a choice other than to make do with whatever you can prepare for us until Mummy returns from Lagos.”

“They are also very expensive!”

“What do you expect at this time of the year? Now that we have bought the chicken, what next?”

“I am not sure we will get cabbage. The peppers and carrots look old and famished. Now I know what the harvest of wheat and other vegetables looked like during the Egyptian famine as recorded in the Holy Bible.”

“Well, don’t worry, just manage whatever you’ve got as best as you can. The abokis have travelled to their various homes in the North. That is why everything is expensive now. The situation is further compounded by the devastation and waste orchestrated by the militant terrorists in the North Eastern part of the country.”

Now out of the shop, we resumed our drive back home. But first we have to stop over to pick up Helen from the clinic. Conversing we both reflected on her experience at the market. Now was the time for a short Civic Education lecture. Witmy hands and focus on the road ahead, I broached the topic as we were heading home.

“With your experience of how expensive basic food items are in the market today, have you now seen the absurdity of the claims of some of our fellow Southerners who suppose that the Northerners cannot survive if the worse turn to the worst and they eventually break out of Nigeria. (Crude oil, the mainstay of our nation’s wealth is sourced from the South.) If you are a hungry man and all you have to sell are barrels of crude oil which you cannot immediately get buyers for, can you survive by drinking from your barrels of crude oil? Won’t you rather sell it at any rock bottom price so you can get the cash to buy food for your empty stomach?”

“But daddy, why don’t we grow more food here in our area? We have better lands here. How do they produce so many kinds of foodstuffs? And those Northern people, they are not that bad o. It is just the religious fanaticism of some of them. As you see them in their market stalls, they are always assisting their tribesmen and watching the backs of their brothers when the latter are not around.”

I explained to her that even though the North experience more aridity, their dry season does not last throughout the twelve months of the year. Supported by government policies and commercial farmers using irrigation to augment water supplies, the Northern parts of the country have a landmass that is more amenable to large-scale agriculture. This is one reason they can grow so many foodstuffs. The issue with the populace in the South is partly because people get swayed with “easy” money from being directly or indirectly involved in the petroleum industry and related businesses. They are therefore less inclined to take up farming where the fruits and the profits don’t come as fast as what is obtainable for oil industry workers.”

“I agree with you that those people are not bad at all. They are just like us except for the wasteful virus of Boko Haram ideology that is rampaging a huge chunk of our country. Hmm, I want to tell you something, our country is in a state of a serious war, even though Rivers State seems to be far from the battlefront.

The crisis posed by these terrorists is more deadly than what the nation face from HIV, AIDS or Ebola virus from which our country recently escaped. They will live peacefully and happily with you. But once they catch the virus of religious fanaticism, they kill, destroy and maim the life of harmless people in the name of their religion even with no provocation.

Here, we are up against a ferocious army that operates with impunity, without scruples or any moral inhibitions against those who do not understand or agree with them. They even claim to be doing all these for God. How can God support such heartlessness and inhumanity? Can you see what the wrong concepts of who God is and wrong ideas about His moral demands can do to a people?

We cannot stay here cosily deluding ourselves that the war can never reach us o. We really need to pray for God’s divine intervention in our country because even the federal government are evidently incompetent or unwilling to square up with these terrorists and defend innocent citizens. They started by handling the matter with kids gloves when they could have decidedly nipped those nefarious group in the bud. Now, they have metastasised into a hydra-headed monster wreaking storms after storms of mayhem and needless destruction on the lives and psyches of the general populace and the nation.

The entrance to the clinic was packed with arriving and departing kekes that make that spot their terminus. The erratic public power supply was again off. A small petrol electric generator by the entrance into the clinic provided the much-needed electricity to the clinic. The signpost in front of his office boldly proclaims the clinic and its mission. Business is booming for the doctor.The two metal poles bearing the signpost has a Mercedes Benz jeep parked between them. The jeep belongs to the doctor. With barely enough space left to spare, I manoeuvre the old Nissan jeep to the entrance of the shop. However, parking in front of the clinic was out of the question. Doing so would have blocked the entrance into the pharmacy. I had to back out and find another parking spot.

I did not reckon with an unrelenting keke man. Though he saw the reverse light and noticed the motion of my car backwards, he insisted on dovetailing his tricycle with my car as if to scratch it. I stepped out of the car and confronted him. “So you are telling me you didn’t see my car in reverse motion?”

“ Oga (boss), sorry I did not see you.”

“You must be blind then?”

“No. I am not. Oga I did not see your car.”

“Liar!. All you wanted to do was to pull out my fender after which you will come and start apologizing with crocodile-tears. You people amuse yourself by denting and damaging other people’s cars. Don’t you ever dream of driving your own car in the future? Do you go home satisfied after you have damaged someone else’s car on purpose?”

The altercation over and having ensured that he did no damage to the jeep, I drove off to park by the corner at the end of the shop. The entrance to the clinic was now free for easy access.

Entering from the front, we were both ushered into the presence of the doctor.

“Helen, have you taken your treatment?”

“Yes, I have.”

“How long is the treatment routine going to last?”

The doctor was immediately forthcoming with his answer. “The daily regimen is for three days. She will come for injection every evening and the treatment will end on Sunday in the evening.”

Turning to him, I said, “Thank you, doctor, we will take our leave now.”

“Thank you for coming over here. Just make sure she eats well, take more fruits and rest more.”

“We sure will. Bye.”

Mercy prepared a delicious meal of jollof-rice for the family’s dinner. We can’t wait enough for Mummy to come back from Lagos. Still, there were five more full days to go.

This is the second of my four part first writing experiment. I already published all the 4 parts on my blog. I will conclude the series with the lessons I learned in those first six days of 2015. Thanks for reading. Click here to connect and share your insights with me.