I come down from the car as I head over to go open the gate for us.
"Adaora, ngwa, ngwa, ngwa, ngwa, immediately!" Mom calls out.
This Woman eh, you blind so? Can't you see I'm headed to it? I quickly turn back and behold Dad's unsmiling face, fingers calmly tapping on the steering wheel and rush over to the gate. I roll it open and they drive inside. "Billionaire wey no fit hire gatekeeper!" I murmur as they pass. I hiss and roll the gate back shut.
Dad barely parks his car when she screams, "Nwaobi!" Mum steps outta the car like she about to fight another Lady for her Guy. That's code for she came down stupidly, fighting your fellow gender for a Man is the most stupid thing a Woman will ever do even if she's drunk, "Nwaobi!" She calls out again.
"Maaaaa," The idiot answers from inside. He runs out from upstairs with his ụwènnárị (condom boxers) and his dry, bare chest.
"Nwaobi, what were you doing inside when everyone else was at Mass?" Dad asks as he alights the vehicle too and before he closes in on him Mom's aka nti (back hand slap on the cheeks) had already imprinted a solid mark on his face. Every, diddling, time! Ọkwa this fool no dey learn? Don't come near the Ndịbụzọ when they look mad. Don't come near the Parents! You skipped a day of Sunday Mass and you have mind to approach them? Normally Nwaobi no get sense, na Man him be.
"Dumebi, go get my..."
Nwaobi goes on his knees immediately and begins to beg, "Dad, please, ayịyọ ka nnayọ, please, lemme explain..." Mom charges at him and Dad with his eyes and his outstretched hands across the Boy pleads with her to calm down. Nwaobi eyes Mom as she arranges her Ichafụ (head gear) and Dad knocks his head immediately. I couldn't help but laugh as I was still standing by the gate. You don't look down on Women, ever! Especially around Dad.
"Adaora, it seems you're very stupid! Will you leave that gate and come carry these ingredients to the kitchen, ịnọdu nọ ịna achịyeri! Ozu mbu!" She calls out to me. As always, it wipes the smile out of my face and I quickly rush to go do as she says.
She turns to Dad and says, "Enyia, leave the Boy, he's with me in the kitchen today."
"Mummy, I love you!" I exclaim excitedly at the waiting room doorway.
"Ohhhhhh na! Mummy no!" Nwaobi agitates, tears almost coming outta his eyes, "Mummy, it's not fair o, and on Sunday again? I don't like this nonsense you people are doing o! Very diabolical..."
"Ibekachi, inside!" Dad commands. He stands up, stomping his feet on the ground, he looks at Dad in the most disrespectful manner he can conjure up and turns to leave before Dad would attack him and I step aside as he approaches.
"Dumebi, I'll do you back!" He shouts walking past me into the waiting room.
I stick my tongue out at him, "Sheik BTC, go and cook, lazy bones!" He comes back out to confront me but Mom tackles.
"Very stupid Boy, won't you head inside?" She exclaims. Dad makes to pull his sandals and he speeds inside muttering curses. I follow suit leaving the Ndịbụzọ behind...
****
"Chinaza, are you sure you want to say it now?" He asks, I look at him and extend my hand for a handshake. Ebuka receives it and he immediately yelps for help, "Ouch!" I had just pierced his palm with my sharp decorative nail tech.
"Next time, you'll know whether I married you for you to be calling me Chinaza, ịgava agwa m ọnye bụ Chinaza. If you don't know what to call me you shut the fuck up..."
"But I married you..." He replies as he rests his back on the Innoson vehicle. Staying with him has made me fall in love with the Sun. I could stand under her for hours, Guys, Chimebuka my husband whom I married changed me... shocker! I changed him too but maybe not enough.
"Isi gịnị?" I hurl at him.
"I marri..."
"Ịdị sure? Enyia, ịdị sure nọ ngị nulụ m?" He makes to reply again, he realizes and I nod with him in agreement.
"Nnaa don't worry o?" I say patting his shoulders, "All these are still your property, I'm not dragging them with you," I say waving towards the enter compound, "Ebe a niile bụ ngwuru be gị, adịghị m eso gị azo nya."
"Ọnye nwe m," He extends his hands, "Ihe nwe bụ ngị nwe, biko kwa nụ!" I approach him and he grabs me by the waist, we lock lips critically till...
******
"Ewwww!" I call out from above, "Parents are so disgusting! So ewwww!" Mom turns and looks up to me frowning while Dad expressionless, proceeds to lock the car door shut to head inside. He turns and says to Mom, "Ọnye nwe m, I'll be inside."
"Alright ifunanya m, I'm coming," As Dad shuts the front door, Mom calls out to me.
"Adaora, ezigị ezi?" She asks, "Adaora, did they send you?" I burst out laughing and she continues, "Why can't you just be on your phone wasting your Life like your idiot brother so that you can stop disturbing me and my partner? Anyị aga yaa ụmụ maid, ya kwue ụmụ azị?" The last statement hurt deeply for some reason especially as she hisses and heads inside.
That was my Mom Chinaza, she comes from the Omambala province, we're all from various towns and villages in Omambala but we live in Ahabam the capital of the Anioma province of the great land of the rising Sun, Biafra. Owụwa anyanwụ na eti ndụ, the East, the rising Sun that breathes Life.
Her earlier annoyance came from the fact that my brother missed the Thanksgiving service at the Catholic Church today, not like they enjoy being in Church o or that they enjoy serving and worshipping the God of the colonizers, aka the God of Israel, no! My Dad Chimebuka is a loud and proud African spiritualist, he is proudly ọnyé igọ ọfọ na ọnye igọ mmuọ and a loud representative of all aspects of the renowned and famed Ọmenala nke ndị Igbo niile, the Culture of all Igbo people.
Omenala in the word is the Igbo word for Culture and it embraces all the rituals, deities, words, foods, alphabets, marriages, customs, traditions, institutions and what not that the Igbo people indulged in before the coming of the colonial invaders and godforsaken missionaries and that which we continue to do today. Our family shrine is in his ancestral home in Ọnicha Ado N'ịdu (The Outskirts of Ile Ife and the Kingdom of Benin or otherwise simply Onitsha), in the Iba (Ancestral home) of the Nweke family, yeah, the home of his Mom Nweke Chibuifem from Umudei village of Onitsha. We're matrifocal and matrilineal in nature, we are the Chisoms.
Mom didn't necessarily always participate in Ọmenala, but always cheers them on. She comes from the family of Adaora Chisom Mazeli in Mgbelekeke village of Onitsha.
Má ó Ọdinala (tradition) o, ma ọ Ọdibendị (Customs) o, ma ọ Ewumewu (cultural institutions) o, she cheered all of them on. She grew up in the Westside, na Anịọha Oduduwa, in Oduduwa Republic, the land of ụmụ Oduduwa (the Yoruba people) in the heart of the old Oyo empire, Ibadan. So she knows an Oduduwa word or two.
Today's service was just to aura farm... As always, it was a Thanksgiving Mass, and she was so mad that the family wasn't complete so that the aura farming would be nasty good! Like she sometimes said, "the bigger the gang, the louder the aura farm" and I couldn't agree more. She is the smartest fucking Woman I ever met. Ladies and the other gender, my Mother, Chinazaekpelem Ofili Chisom daughter of Adaora Chisom Mazeli.
I proceed to my room to get some rest as she heads inside. Mom's punishment for Nwaobi was simple, cooking the meal with her througout today, he absolutely hated that but I'm happy he's learning. Last time he was punished like this, he poured enough salt in the ọfe Egwụsị and ọfe Okwụrụ to make a blind Man cry.
It was a punishment because that day was my turn to join her and cook but Mom handed it to him.
That was the day, the first time Dad punched him like they were mates. Dad locked him in between his legs and began to punch him and slap him like he had stolen his babe. Mom was crying and sobbing, kneeling and begging for him to stop but Dad seemed to have had enough with the Boy. He is sixteen years of age, he was then and he still is so I kinda supported it, pikin wey you no train today go use train jam you tomorrow.
As I got into my room, I pull my top and trousers and flings it across the room with reckless abandon, I will be arranging that later. I open the mini fridge and grabs one of the two containers of crackers I had left there and a rubber of orange juice, I climb onto the bed still holding them, settled I call upon the Ancestors, my Chị and the Mother Universe to come join me, as always. Switching on my data connection I conclude that the boy Nwaobi is innately stupid... Like most Boys and Men in general but hey, he must have learnt his lesson after that delicious beating. He won't be doing such ever again even if the God of the colonizers ever tell him to do so. At least he now knows that the Mother who gave him Life and the Man that helped her with it is bigger than the silly Gods of the foreigners and the colonial invaders which Africa seems to have turned to her own, foolishly.
Terribly sad adventure... That the colonizers invades our lands and they beat, maim, rape and demoralize our progenitors mentality, physically and emotionally especially thanks to superior fire and arms power at the point in time. They steal and take all that is ours even our identities and then proceed to give us their God and his Son, both white Men, Europeans, just like them and they initially force same Ancestors into leaving their own Deities and spiritual systems for their worthless Deities, spiritual colonization, the worst kind of colonization. But alas, our capable Ancestors at least most of them die trying and fast forward more than half a century later, the descendants of same Ancestors, me, you, us, we, everything that classifies us as "Us" we Africans, are actively believing, supporting and defending the ideology that the Deities of the white people are more superior and more pure, genuine and above our own Deities in our Africa and same foolish Africans still expect to be bigger and better than the Europeans whom we're actively worshipping and feeding their Deities... Someone make that make sense.
An African is praying to an European God to be bigger than the Europeans whom also worship the same God, literally laughing my ass off.
Bịa way! Africa will never be great and continue on the path of great potential as we once were before colonization interrupted us until we abandon the useless God of the colonial invaders and his Son so that we can embrace our own African spiritual systems, our Deities, our Mothers... Shey Africans no get sense otua?
"Sha," I take a deep breath, "Blood of my Mother, only they who honor their Ancestors and follow the true and ancient pre colonial African spiritual systems will truly be great and mighty in the long run... The rest of them can continue going to Europe's heaven... When they die! Me and my people will be in Africa's heaven, here on Earth, enjoying..."
"Adaora!" Mom calls out.
"Ohhhhhh, which kinda Woman is this?" I jump outta my bed, "I never even begin chop sef... Maaaaa!"
"Adaora!"
"Ọkwa this Woman dey smoke otua...?"