Mandy.

Guest writer: Betty
Meet Betty. Betty is an amazing writer. Her focus and speed as a writer are incredible. You can find her work on Afrosays where she co-writes. You can also find her on tuesdays on the toolsman’s blog
Read and Enjoy 🙂

Mandy
by Betty

If it was a regular story, I wouldn’t be telling you now, would I?

I wasn’t groomed. I wasn’t discovered out of the bloody blues. No, I put myself out there.

I was an aggressive child. Yes. I was. I was stubborn, naughty.. I gave my father headaches and my mother migraines. No angelic choir-singing story here, move on.

Daddy wasn’t a pastor. Neither was he an evangelist. He travelled from town to town selling cure-all vegetables. I once asked mummy if it was juju and she slapped me. She said they were ‘herbs’.

Herbs. Schmerbs. I know they didn’t work sha, because Antonia still died. The king of herbs couldn’t cure his own.

Five children left… I wasn’t significant, neither the first nor the last.; neither the prettiest nor the smartest. But I had the roundest bottom.

Yes! I worked my goods well. I strutted and sashayed and worked that thing!
After a particular passionate love-making session, I lay sprawled on my lover’s chest. Twirling his chest hair with my fingers, I sang a song.

He stiffened. Then lay there quietly. I had dozed off when he tapped me. I giggled. “Again?” He shook his head. “Amanda. Your voice is phenomenal!” I laughed. “Oyinbo!” I picked the very educated ones.

But it kept on nagging. I followed my mother to church the next day. She wouldn’t stop smiling; her daughter had converted. I left her and sat in front, right next to the choir. As the church rose to sing, I opened my mouth and let it loose.

The pauses and stares and outright gaping of the members were enough assurance. I packed my things the next day. “I’m going to the Town!” My mother eyed me. “You’ll come back!”

I didn’t look back.

My round bottom landed me a job at a mama put’s. I served the customers while wriggling; allowing only the heavy-tippers to touch. When I wasn’t working, I was by the radio.

They played one particular song every hour. “Who’s that man?” I asked mama. “Groovy. Funny tin be say im dey stay near my pikin. Mai pikin dey do cleaner for im neighbor.”

I followed mama’s daughter the next time she came. “Na im house be dat!” She pointed at the massive monstrosity. I left her amidst cries of “where yu dey go?” and “shey dis geh don crase?” I strode right up.

When a group of people exited the gate. I said no words; just opened my mouth and let my ‘phenomenal’ voice do it’s magic. It worked.

6 months and 7 beds later. I was a star. The Town had been waiting for me. Shows, Interviews, Groupies.

The thrill of standing in front of them all was orgasmic to me. That they were all standing there looking up to me- it gave me power. I felt a rush each time I opened my mouth and a hush fell over a crowd.

I was Mandy. I was God.

They were all over me. Kiss-assers. Wanting to know what I did. Wanting to get where I was. She was different. Innocent. Patient. Hesitating in the background. Everything I was not. This disturbed me… So, I drew her in.

I didn’t mean to kill her. It was just a little snorting. I urged her. “For Mandy?” I wasn’t a good guide. I was just too otherwise occupied to notice her overdosing. To please me. But she died. They cleaned her up. Everything settled nicely.

Except my mind.

She came for me in the bathroom. In the kitchen. In the bedroom. All this was fine.

Till she joined me on stage.

‘Randy Mandy Gone Mad??!’
‘Loony Mandy Attacks Thin Air!’
‘Was That Part of Mandy’s Act?’

Then.. They took me away.

‘Where Is Mandy?’
‘Mandy Missing!’

Till they forgot about me.

I’m just 59. I’m sitting in front of the very house my parents died in. My cure-it-all vegetables are gathered around me. The desperate ones brave my lunatic ravings to seek healing.

See, she never left me. But we’re friends now. I’ve accepted her, and she me. She keeps me company now they’ve all gone.

But we don’t know where Mandy is. Or where her round bottom went.

PHENOMENAL WOMAN- MAYA ANGELOU.

I just discovered Maya Angelou. She’s a poet and an author, actor, producer. She has a series of autobiographies and I’m currently reading the first one in the series- I know why the caged bird sings.

Maya Angelou is awesome, her poetry is heavenly. She wrote Phenomenal woman, and I am convinced she got the inspiration for that poem from heavenly bodies. Its what everywoman needs now. And forever. A reminder of our worth, even when we are plenty, we are unique.

She also recited one of her poems- on the pulse of morning- at Bill Clintons inauguration.

Below is a list of a few of her works:

Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Diiie

Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well (1975)

And Still I Rise (1978)

Now Sheba Sings the Song (1987)

I Shall Not Be Moved (1990)

“Why I Moved Back to the South” (1982)

All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986)

“My Grandson, Home at Last” (1986)

I haven’t read them all but I intend to ☺.
Doesn’t she have the most interesting titles for her works?

Phenomenal Woman
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Maya Angelou

Our Royal Wedding.

By ‘Yomi Kazeem.

Disclaimer: the article you are about to read was written by Yomi Kazeem, a mind extraordinare. He debuts the guest writer category where I will be randomly featuring the best writers I know. Enjoy. Cheers

The following took place in the mind of a young Nigerian between 10:00pm and 11:00pm.

It was a colorful affair. Not British colorful, I mean Nigerian colorful. Yes, that colorful. When they coined that phrase ‘Eko for Show’, they were obviously not kidding! According to the organizers of the event, this was Royal Wedding 2.0 and they set out to make it so. Kate got to the venue of the event in grand style, highlighting from a BRT bus, she looked smashing! The sisters under the bridge at Ikeja had done their magic with Kate’s hair, giving her, a very Royal lace Brazilian wig! Arriving, in the more modest Keke Napep.

Prince William wasn’t left out, the boys at Next handled him and when they were done with his head, that bald patch was a thing of the past.

According to custom, royal weddings must take place at an edifice of world renowned popularity and so, we delivered. The wedding was held at our own architectural masterpiece capable of sitting the entire mo gbo mo ya Peoples Association in Lagos- The National Theatre, Iganmu. Ingenious isn’t it?

Standing on the stage, looking around the auditorium was a nostalgic moment, it was an enthralling show of the wonders our iyas from Isale-Eko can do with Aso- Ebi, it almost brought tears to the eyes. The Queen’s ‘side’ wore purple damask, the expensive kind, Prince Charles and his homeboys were looking great in their white Guinea and red fila. The Middletons were decked in lace, the kind that has rocks littered all over it. The rest of the party had to make do with ankara. Not discrimination, just that ‘levels pass levels’.

After a while the National Stadium began to creak under the weight of the people in attendance, these mo gbo mo ya people were trooping out from all corners of town, so the party was transferred to Redeemed Camp, according to the organizers, even if 100 billion people show up, Holy Ghost fire was sufficient for them all.

This was certainly a spectacular wedding, not a dull moment! Not with Salawa Abeni rocking the stage. She wasn’t alone, she had the likes of Ebenezer Obey, King Sunny Ade, KWAM 1, Banky W and co in attendance, a nice mix of old and young, we certainly showed them that it wasn’t only Britain that had talent. The only notable absentee was Kokomaster D’banj, organizers feared the ladies of the royal family would be smitten by Mr. Endowed thus giving the world a headache of how to deal with unroyal babies, 9 months from now.

The presiding minister Pastor Okotie (not to worry, organizers provided guests with dictionaries) handled the solemnization of vows, he emphasized that “the sacrosanctity of the unification of the two anatomies in an imperially majestic manner, ought not be defiled by things considered unholy, as the institution of marriage had a distinct unique albeit deep seated, thinly veiled repugnance and abhorrence towards infidelity”. He pronounced them man and wife and conferred on them the royal title of Baale and Yeye of Iyana-Abule. Just as they were about to kiss, the predictable happened, NEPA took light!

The royal family, fearing a terrorist attack, was quickly surrounded by the MI-5 and security operatives of Interpol. Nigerians on the other hand, familiar with NEPA and their incapability, simply held on to their prized possession until electricity was installed, Thank God for Tiger generators!

The Master of Ceremony was a person of power, the organizers in a bid to ensure the success of this wedding engaged the one and only, the indomitable, the inimitable Dame Patience. Not one to be shy, irrespective of any oral impediments, took to the stage like a seasoned performer, she handled the event which so much grace and poise entertaining the royal family, her fellow widows, with her repertoire of grammatical jokes.

She told stories of how she encouraged people to press their hands on the umblerra, she also told them to enjoy themselves and not be afraid due to stories of the spate bomb blasts across the nation; she said the Federal Government had approved 200 billion dollars for the say-cu-rity of the event. She went further to tell Her Majesty to pray for the people killing shildren turning them to widows, she reiterated that she was convinced that these bad eggs would turn a new leaf, after all, were they not born of a women?

The event was winding down gradually, royal and unroyal people alike were rocking the tunes of high life- Osondi Owendi, it had all gone according to plan, the food was of the most delicious kind, Prince Harry particularly took to Semo and Ogbono, his agbada was full of stains of long lines of ogbono, but trust our people, they promptly soaked it in ‘bleach’, within minutes it was like brand new again.

The organizers kept saying they had a surprise, everyone wondered what it was, but they refused to divulge their secret, we had forgotten about the surprise until we heard a royal shriek; we all looked in the direction of the scream, and what we saw was beyond our wildest imaginations…Princess Diana had arrived.

Be a cool kid in a,b,c.

1.Buy a Blackberry.

Even my toothless 89 year old greatgrandmother eagerly pings away on her rocking chair. Shame on you that a woman that old, is way trendier than you are. The good news is that, its never too late, let’s keep RIM in business.

2.Get on Twitter

What easier way than twitter to meet the coolest kids on the block? With just 140 characters, you can make a ton of ‘fabazing’ friends that you call your own, maybe even a few celebrity friends if your are witty and patient enough. And if like me you are female and impatient, a decent pair of titties as your avatar will shoot you there faster, notice how I said decent?

3. Purchase a cool gadget

Go ahead and buy yourself a cool new toy, an ipad maybe or the beat earphones but verily verily, I tell you, you can never go wrong with a professional camera. What’s cooler than strutting around with your Nikon 9600 capturing moments and people. After a few weeks of doing this you can append your initials with ‘photographer’ and start a photo blog called ‘we own the night’ with pictures of semi-drunk younglings having a good time. And the best part? You start to get actual jobs, events that you can cover through the eye of your lense.

So buying a cool toy such as a pretty expensive camera kills 3 unfortunate birds with 1 stone:

I. It cements your reputation as a cool kid

ii. Your bank account gets fat and shapeless, from the jobs you get.

iii. You actually enjoy doing it.

Iv. You get to have pretty awesome personal pictures.

My bad, four not three birds.

4. Never be caught dead or alive on an okada.

Cool kids never take okadas. Its as uncool as wearing Timberland boots now.

Asides from the obvious fact that you can die from it or anything else for that matter, it just doesn’t represent.
You can be misinterpreted as saying you cannot afford a red cab of 700naira from zone a to zone b when an okada can get you there for 600naira less. Of course you can, so hop off that bike now, because there’s no faster way to murder your reputation.

If by any remote 1-in-a-100 chance you get caught on a bike, quick! Blame the Lagos traffic and keep your £140pounds gucci shades plastered to your face or risk dying an uncool kid.

5. Blog. Blog. Blog
Blogs are in style, they are the coolest internet accessories in town; Since we are looking to jump on the cool bandwagon here, open a blog and jump on it already.

You can be anything you want to be…on the internet. A savvy fashion expert, A prolific writer, A professional photographer, an anonymous people-basher, Wole Soyinka’s first grandchild, Compredre? Oui?

Case-in-point: ‘Be a cool kid in a,b,c’ is the article you are currently reading, written by none other than yours truly. The first rule book that teaches you to be as cool as a chilled coca cola. In this post I am an expert who teaches you in 5steps how to be cool. Who knows what I will be tomorrow.

With persistence and consistence and some juicy gossip or good pictures, people will pay attention and you will rub shoulders in cyberspace with Terrence Sambo with his onenigerianboy.blogspot.com and Noble Igwe with his 360nobs.com.

So Blogger anyone?

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Where is your samaritaness?

8.00 am
You will be driving to work from home on a random Tuesday, a day that feels like it will be a long day when a lady with a black parked EOD will wave you down for help. Of course not, you will not stop, its an obvious ambush. Or not. Still, you will drive along and splash some muddy water on the helpless light-skinned lady as you speed by. The helpless light-skinned lady will stand there hopelessly waving down cars and their drivers. She will take cover in her car when the rain droplets hit her and sob hot heavy tears. She will try her mechanics number one last time, this time he will pick up and arrive to help her in another hour.

11.37am
There you will be stealing. Stealing office hours commenting on your Twitter crush’s facebook pictures when Chris the cafeteria staff will come into your office and ask to have a word with you about a pressing issue. You will think, ‘pressing for you, not for me’. Chris will ask to borrow some money because his rent will be due soon and even though he had enough money for a year, the landlord insists on being paid for two years. Chris approaches you because you both attend ‘christian light’ fellowship and he sees you where you sit every Tuesday and sunday, right by the left exit so you can quietly slip out before the grace. You will say, ‘Ah, eeyah!’. You will tell Chris you just spent your last spare cash on servicing your car even though you have 70k in your savings, 50k in your current and $500 in your dom account. You will wear a sad expression and apologize to Chris who will leave with his head hung low. You will go right back to commenting on your twitter crush’s facebook album.

3.51pm
You will receive a call from your aunty in Ibadan that you haven’t spoken to in a month and a half. She will tell you that your cousin, Ola, needs a place to stay for her JAMB exams. Not the tall Ola you like but the black one whose body odour can kill a dead cat. You will tell your aunty that your friend, Ada, who lives in America is around occupying the spare room, you will explain to her how much your family means to you and apologize and apologize. You will call Ada who’s in America right after you drop your aunty’s call, its been a minute.

5.00pm
You will sneak out to the parking lot because you don’t want to give your colleague, who you so kindly, agreed to give a lift this morning a lift. Why? Because he talks tres much.

7.08pm
Still in traffic, you will use your wiper to hit the hand of the boy who wants to help clean your windscreen. You will wear that expression like something nasty smells around you. no dude, move onto the next one

8.16pm
Green light! Finally! As you start to move, your car will cough, cough, cough, sputter and stop. You will get down to look for help, you will wave down a few cars, who will just swerve to avoid your car and meet the green light. You will hope someone you know will spot you. No one you know will do. No one you don’t know will stop to help.

9.00am
You will pay a few of the boys hanging around to help push your car off the road, the boy you sent away earlier included. You will pedal lock your pedals, wave down a cab and go home to your empty, empty house.

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my inner samaritan died years back from a traumatic experience.

Pro-life or Pro-choice?

Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Girl likes boy. Boy and Girl kpox.

B A M!

Girl gets pregnant. Its a fucking baby 😮
Like every pregnant teenager, the odds are against her. She’s young, She’s still in school, a junior(300 level) at Covenant university. Her father is a pastor, her mother married as a virgin; her two older sisters have gone ahead to be great examples, one a medical doctor the other runs an anti-abortion, pro-life NGO.

Girl is devastated and turns to her friends, girl 1 and girl 2 for advise.

Girl 1 is pro-choice all the way. Girl 1 first attacked the basic questions and went straight for the big picture: ‘if you decide to have this child, then you know school is off for the next 1year. Can you afford the luxury of wasting one year? Shifting all the plans you made for your life one year forward.

Can you afford to care for a child?

Who will take care of your baby when you are back in school?

This thing you are carrying is not yet a child, It is however a mass of cells that can’t make a decision for itself, a foetus that’s a tenant in your body. The landlord has the right to throw a tenant out.

The best time to have an abortion is now! In the first 20weeks of pregnancy.

‘Pastors nineteen year old daughter pregnant’- church bulletin, you would love to make headlines in church, won’t you?

Imagine the shame this foetus will bring to your virtuous but fragile mother. Her blood pressure will shoot up exposing her to a stroke. Do you want to risk all of that?

You want boy to be referred to as the father of your child. Irresponsible-beerguzzling-weedsmoking-womanizing-nofutureambitions- boy?

This baby is going to be extra baggage for your future husband that is If you find a man that will accept to marry you with child.

Girl 1 has her say and makes plenty of sense leaving girl 2 to attack from a religious, moral and safety-conscious point of view.

Girl 2 goes:
Abortion is murder, Do no commit murder, you have sinned enough already.

Yes your life will be put on hold, but only for the period of a year at the most. That’s not forever, Is it?

There can be complications medically, haven’t you learned from Nollywood? You could lose your life or your ability to have more babies trying to get rid of this baby.

Who knows what your baby will become? The next Obama perhaps? You will never find out If you kill it.

What if this is the only child you will ever have?

Let’s not forget your anti-abortion sister if she finds out you are even contemplating an abortion.

And girl 2 ended her pro-life argument with a hilarious line:
What If Mary aborted Jesus?

It was a heated argument with no one emerging victorious still leaving girl with a decision to make.

I have a choice.

Its MY baby, Its MY abortion.

Yay! omelets!

abortion

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Haiku

So My friend BlessingMcQueen (a fabulous writer and a fun person) challenged me to a Haiku competition between just the both of us, where each person would be given a word to form a Haiku around.

Haiku is a 17syllable poem, written in 5/7/5 syllabled sentences.

We did three rounds each and it kindof just faded out. We both know we are winners and It was all about the fun anyway 🙂
Pasted below are the poems I submitted.
As much as I would have loved to share Blessings’ Haikus, she wasn’t in support. Enjoy reading mine 🙂

Skin
Hot Latina males /tight skin of the samba drum/waists swung in delight

Tears
Fourteen fruitless years/empty cots, unused diapers /beauty queens cry too

Commitment
The preachers gay son/ for homophobic church-goers/ marries a woman.

The message.

The message version of the Bible in one word is: Fresh! Its contemporary, understandable and easy to read. Hence I have decided to share the popular ‘cliched’ Psalm 23 in the message version. Unique is what it is. Enjoy!

God my shepherd!
I don’t need a thing.
You have bedded me in lush meadows,
You find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
You let me catch my breath
And send me in the right direction.

Even when the way goes through death valley, I’m not afraid when you walk at my side. Your trusty shepherd’s crook makes me feel secure.

You serve me a six course dinner right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
My cup brims with blessing.

Your beauty and love chase after me
Everyday of my life.
I’m back home in the house of God
For the rest of my life.

D is for delusional.

He lay on top of her and breathed into her mouth. No movement. He kissed her face, her lips, her heart, her ribs. No response. He willed her to live, that failed so he pleaded. He begged. He kissed her feet.

He read her her favourite book and played her her best movie. He replayed her favourite scene, the one where Edward and Bella kissed or was it Damon and Elena, he couldn’t remember the characters’ names. Her eyes still shut tightly in defiance.

He begged and kicked and screamed, he made a fuss; she always responded when he did that but no not this time, today she was busy sleeping. And so he sat against her unmoving frame sobbing, he would in a few minutes weep.

The room was deathly quiet; death’s grip was firm. It was eerie, a dead woman, a delusional man. He looked about the room and bellowed out laughing, it was funny, wasn’t it? He, power in human form, begging an 18 year old not to leave him. He, who broke the spines of kings with just a look, weeping. Who wouldn’t laugh at such a scenario?

He made her some cereal and forced it between her lips then he carried her to bath her in the rusty aluminium tub. Thoroughly her hair was shampooed and her pube was given special attention, her legs were shaved and her back was scrubbed as she lay as still as the morning. He dressed her carefully in the custom Chanel dress he had made for her but had never given to her and laid her carefully on the bed. He then settled on a nearby chair and dozed off with a smile, ‘she would respond he thought’, she was all he had left and he would never let her leave him. He would repeat everything he did today tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after the day after, and the day af…

An essay

Dad had promised to take us to the stone hill cinema in Otta several months back at the start of the long vacation. My siblings and I were elated but then by some ill stroke of luck he got transferred to Abuja and he was there for four weeks. Dejected was our personal adjective; gloom was our halo. The stone hill cinema was advertised on telly everyday and as you would know that helped in no way whatsoever.

Dad, being the good man that he is carried out his duties in timely manner and returned home two weeks earlier.

We set out for stone hill the very next day in his rickety Mercedes Benz. Dad pushed the car along. Slowly but surely we were going to arrive at that cinema.
I was decked in my Christmas outfit for the year before: Timberland boots, baggy jeans and an Ed Hardy tee-shirt. My four younger brothers wore their Sunday suits and shoes, they hadn’t being able to convince grandma to allow them wear their boots and jeans. Bose, the house-help, who lets me fondle her breasts every night, sat in front; and we, the five boys squeezed into the back seat.

With dad’s car what should have been a 45 minute drive will become a 2 hour drive.

We pushed along, cursing every red traffic light that had us stop along the way. Our sweat glands were overworking or maybe the sun was just smiling a little too hard today. We had asked grandma before why we didn’t have an AC and she had said, ‘only fools liked trapped air when God’s natural air was there as a gift’. Maybe Grandma thought if she spoke in parables like that, she would be modern Jesus.

Suddenly, the Mercedes jerked and coughed louder than a dying man would and stopped, right there! In the middle of the road! At that moment, I swore never to buy a Mercedes Benz when I become a rich man. Lastma officials helped push the car to the side of the road and mechanics popped out of nowhere. ‘oga, make we help you check the carburetor’, they chimed. It was chaos.

There we were, standing under the stinging ball of fire in the sky and crossing our fingers as the mechanics fanned the feelings of the car. What a priceless moment. They got it fixed and with sheer resolve we dragged it to Otta, watched the Nolly-wood movie: ‘Satan works overtime’, shared three bowls of popcorn amongst ourselves and drove home in dread where grandma was waiting with hot pounded yam.

Was it worth the while? Lets just say I will do it again 🙂

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