BULLY AUNT

By -





So one day, my Aunt’ visited. You know those kind of ‘bad belle’ aunties that look forward to seeing ‘FAIL’ in your report card so that they can leave a heavy knock on your head and call you ‘OLODO’, and tell your parents that they’re wasting their money on you. (Although I never got a bad comment on my result).

So, this my auntie came to our house, with some other relatives. I grew up dreading this woman. Thus when I learned of her visit, I ran out of the house to go play somewhere with friends.

I thought I had escaped her nagging and bullying but she sent for me; she ordered them to call me very fast, “That pikin too like play”, she queried. Mom was outside packing our dried clothes from the sun. I was already edgy from fear of what her questions would be, and my mom knew of course how much I dreaded this woman. So I waited for mom to finish packing just so we could go in together.

As she was going inside the house I hid behind her,  (trying to hide from my aunt) mom had to pass through the sitting room, and unfortunately this ‘wicked auntie’ managed to notice my tiny toes as I sneaked behind my mom, I don’t know how on earth her eyes went there. She saw me trying to hide, and she called out to my mom:

“Yawo, (meaning ‘wife’) na which pikin dey hide for your back so”?

Before she could finish her statement, I dashed off into my parents bedroom. We lived in a two room apartment, so she sat with the other visitors in the sitting room discussing.

Mom laughed and said:

“Progress, come and greet your auntie na”;

I came out nonchalantly, stood before her clinging tightly to my mom’s wrapper so that she doesn’t leave me alone. I greeted her:

“Migwor ma”...

Auntie started o! Without even answering my greeting.

“See im eye, play play girl!" "So watin der teach you for school today”? I was mute.  Fear would not allow me even speak cos she was ready to falter any answer I gave, I was just staring at the ground. She then ordered me to go and check the time. Our wall clock hung inside my parents room, so I quickly dashed in, and my mom followed, as if to go drop the clothes she was holding.

I was only 7yrs, I couldn’t tell the time. I was trembling...

Kudos to my sharp mom, as soon as she entered into the room, she quickly whispered the time to me:

“Go and tell her it’s 15 minutes past 8pm”. I crammed it. And walked out of the room. Getting to the parlor, it was as if the whole world was on a STAND STILL! I was looking at this woman; then she yelled:

“Watin be the time wey I say make you go check”?

“15 minutes past 8pm”. I responded. Which was correct!

This woman wasn’t satisfied, she must have figured my mom told me. Looked at me from head to toe and ordered me back to go recheck the time again. This time she invited my mom to the sitting room, leaving me in the room alone. I am ‘DED’!

After calculating the time I spent to walk back to the room, I presumed the time must have gone farther than what my mom had earlier told me, it couldn’t have still remained 15mins past 8pm anymore; but my problem was that I couldn’t differentiate between hours and minutes. I was yet to acquaint myself with time telling.

So after struggling with the calculations in my head, I concluded it must have increased from 15mins past 8pm to 15mins past 9pm. (A whole one hour extra in just few minutes) lol...

 I ran out of the room and told her my new formulated time: “15mins past 9pm”.

Auntie screamed and began yelling “OLODO RABATA! “I talk am! E nor know book”.

Mom was listening inside the room, and am sure she must have been disappointed immediately she heard me say “past 9pm”; cos that wasn’t what she had told me earlier.

I ran into the room tearing terribly as I buried my face in Mom’s wrapper. Mom hugged me and calmed me down. I remained in the room and never went out again till the cruel visitor left.
I spited her. Cos her goal was to always make me feel bad. She never wanted to see me happy. I grew up with these terrible and hurting memories of her; hoping to outgrow them, but guess what, she hasn’t changed one bit! She’s never happy when you’re smiling.

She’s the first and worst bully I ever knew. But hey! “This okro don grow pas e master”. NO MORE BULLYING!!!

Did you have such experience too? Share yours!

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.


Replace bullying with LOVE!
Thanks for reading!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ONE BIG FAMILY...THE PARTY!

By -
Image
We organized a Christmas party to celebrate their recovery and liberation as well as thank God for his blessings. The party was organised by the hospital team and also supported by the 'Help Wihtout Boundaries' Foundation. The event took place on the 22nd December 2018, at the Federal Neuro Psychiatric hospital in Calabar, graced by the head of clinical operations Dr Ekpe, the consultant psychiatrist in charge of their case Dr Oluntoki, Oberiko Progress other doctors, nurses, social workers, guests and other patients in the hospital. You can imagine the feeling of extreme joy Ben and his family had as they celebrated Christmas. To every normal child Christmas is special, it is a season where they look forward to new clothes, an outing and unlimited fun but to these kids Joy, Ebenezer and Joshua who had no idea what Christmas means, nor looked forward to any new clothes, it was an extraordinary occasion and an amazing feeling as they had the opportunity to wear new clo...
Read more

UNDER PRESSURE

By -
Image
  Organizations should help us stop lying about this.  As for me, I can’t work so well  under pressure. First of all, why do you want to even put me under pressure? Don’t you know it’ll affect my mental well-being? Come to think of it, a well-organized organization will plan ahead of time, inform their employees, and take the necessary precautions ahead of time. Why are you making it look like an employee is inefficient or incapable if they’re unable to work under pressure? What's the idea behind being able to work under pressure sef? Pressure puts people under tension and anxiety, especially me!  😂   You need to see me when I’m running late for mass, about to miss a train, or late for an appointment; I speak to objects as though they had ears, everything on my way must give way, otherwise, ' wahala ' for them. I’d be speaking to myself, vex anyhow, rush, and just go Gaga!  😂   I remember when I was about to miss a deadline for submitting a project, ...
Read more

MY COMPANION - Tekno K7

By -
I'll be bias if I fail to appreciate you. You have been my only faithful companion in times of boredom, through thick and thin you have stayed by me. You get me busy typing when I'm inspired in my thoughts. I never knew you'd stand the test of time. No laptop, but you permit me to carry out the task of writing lengthy articles; even my keyboard knows my handwriting. You have proven to be that PC that never pisses me. No iPhone but your multitasking ability is amazing. Battery life don dey depreciate, yet you stand the test of time; even with 5percent I'm still jumping from instagram to facebook. Your memory space don hear ' Ween ' because I have stuffed you up with details, upon details, of everything I treasure. Pictures are flowing like streams of living water, my notepad is overwhelmed with stories yet untold. My gossip partner. I could be writing about someone next to me without him knowing. If to say you be human being, by now u for don ...
Read more

THE CHRONICLES OF DAWA-DAWA

By -
Image
(Smells like Sh*t) Dawa-Dawa(Locust beans), as it is locally called, was an indispensable seasoning in all the delicacies I prepared. At first I swore to never have anything to do with it because of the horrible smell that came along with it. "It is a fly lover. Chai the smell na blast!" But this same lady, my customer, convinced me, and also schooled me on the health benefits of Dawa-dawa: in her words, “google it na, Kopa. It is very very good”.  I tried it once, and the taste of the soup was unusually sumptuous. And that marked the Genesis of Dawa-dawa in my life! I even discovered that it has a way of controlling the salty quantity in food. Wow! I found my magic wand; it had no disadvantages, none I have been affected by. I never prepared a meal without a touch of Dawa-Dawa; and like melanin, all the meals I prepared always came out popping. Nobody knew the secret. My love for it increased in geometric progression, to the extent that I not only add...
Read more

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

By -
Image
All my life, I never really celebrated/acknowledged anything such as “Black history month”. Didn’t know about it until recently. And please don’t blame me, it’s not because I have been ignorant it’s just because I was never Black until I arrived in the UK.  🤷🏾‍♀️ This is the same reason a fellow Nigerian who just arrived in the Uk for studies has refused to identify with the term “Black”.  During our conversation, I noticed he deliberately tried to avoid using the word Black to describe himself while sharing his experience. And when I called him Black he bluntly retorted “ Please don’t call me Black, I’m not Black”.  He continued: “ You know back in Nigeria I can’t be described as Black, I’m light-skinned ” .  😅 And I remember laughing out loud and saying to him: “you don’t really have a choice here, you know; whether you like it or not you’ll be addressed as Black”.  I said to him: “ The moment you landed in the UK your identity changed, and with or without ...
Read more

VOLUNTEERING

By -
Image
I want to stress the need for volunteering. Volunteering means offering your skills, time, and resource to the benefit of other organizations or to someone else, without having an interest in being paid. I know that the term volunteering may sound synonymous with “ OSHOFREE ” for some people, especially Nigerians. It’s not your fault. For an economy where people struggle for survival, people will definitely eschew anything that doesn’t put money on their table. But regardless, the importance of volunteering cannot be overemphasized.  Volunteering gives you the opportunity to render service, and at the same time develop your skills. Sometimes our problem is that we focus too much on our stomachs and on immediate satisfaction that we lose out on many other opportunities for growth.   Yes, “man must survive” but there are so many other factors that can contribute to man’s survival, and some of them include: recommendations, improving your cv, building relationships, having goodw...
Read more

This Gender! (Part 1)

By -
Image
I want to tell you stories about my gender. One happened when I visited Scotland; I’ll tell the others in my subsequent posts. I visited a friend who had two daughters. In her kitchen my friend has this small corner dedicated to her daughter. In that corner there was a “kids kitchen” made of toy pots, gas cookers, utensils etc. She said she wanted her daughter to learn how to cook. So I asked her a question: “If your daughter was a boy will you still buy this toy kitchen for him and teach him how to cook”? She paused and stared at me. With a face like: “what kind of question is that”? She responded and said: “No, I won’t!” “Why should I buy a toy kitchen for my male child”? She asked. And turned to continue cooking. You see, many a time, we as parents and women, including those clamoring “equal rights for women” and those who claim to be “feminist”, we have a huge role to play in this race of “Gender equity and fairness”. It starts from your homes! From the toys you buy your kids, ...
Read more