My friend, Debra, who is also my colleague heard from a common friend that meat was cheap at Kara, somewhere on the outskirts of Lagos just a stone’s throw from Berger and we had to go check it out. It was not just because of her love for meat or bargains, the young woman loves adventure and I couldn’t resist it whenever something new caught her fancy the way flames overtake a combustible material.
“It’s a lie! How can this even be possible? It does not make sense,” she said upon getting the information and I knew then and there that I would not rest until we ventured there. It was the way with Debra, she was not only restless, she had an accomplice in me.
“Let’s go check it out. We have nothing to lose but plenty to gain, plenty of meat that is,” she added making the decision for us before I put in a word.
“Do I have a choice?” I said, knowing it was a done deal, her love for adventure was after all impossible to separate from her.
“Let’s go this very weekend then, there is no reason to wait,” she said.
“Let’s,” I added.
This was barely three months ago. And truth be told, I don’t know if I can indeed say for a fact that meat is cheap there. Not when you count all the trouble one has to endure to get to the place where the meat is. For instance, the thick mud and cow dung and stench one has to wade through. We went a day after it rained and there was not a single place to place our feet. What I can say without mincing words though is that had I not made the trip, I would most likely not have met Adamu, the love of my life.
Let me explain. My name is Nkem and although I was born and bred in Lagos, I have constantly been told that I hail from elsewhere in Nigeria, Ebonyi State to be exact. I want to refer to myself as a Lagosian in the true sense of the word but you and I know that will not happen yet. Lagos may be calling out to me but is not ready to settle down in a permanent relationship with me. But not only was I born in this huge city of many tongues, I have never really been to the place my parents like to call my hometown. Not only did they meet in Lagos, themselves children of sojourning parents, they only accompanied their own parents home a couple of times until they lost interest in the whole exercise due to many factors including insecurity. I just never went home and could never find my way to the place.
Also, I speak fluent Yoruba and only know a few words of Igbo, which is supposedly my mother tongue and I have not really been able to travel the country to experience its sheer size and diverse cultures. There is a tribe of us growing up this way neither belonging where we are presently nor where we are told we actually come from. But that is a story for another day. For today, I ran into Adamu and his spirit of industry enamored me instantly. I have dated guys in the past who would not know what to do with an opportunity like the one he was profiting from.
“Why are you buying so much meat?” I asked him moments after I saw him.
“I’m into the supply business, I buy and sell to hotels based on the Island,” he replied.
“Oh,” I said realising that I had let go of my manners then introduced myself. It turned out he was working in a telecommunications company on the Lagos Island just two streets from where Debra and I work in a financial services company.
We quickly moved along and continued our business and I eventually bought enough meat to last me at least a month. On our way out of the place we ran into Adamu once more.
“If you are ready to go, I will give you a ride,” he said. Who does not fancy a free ride particularly with someone as considerate as Adamu? There was a lot of space in his pickup van which had a row of seats behind the driver. We sat with him while the boy helping him out with his business sat in the second row and slowly the pieces of the puzzle that would inexorably bring us together started to manifest. I looked at his haul of assorted meat stored neatly in the back of the van and silently told myself that if some of the hotels were to know where the meat came from, they would probably not buy from him. I soon put in the question and he explained that it was the road to the slaughter slabs that was terrible, everything else was in order including the abattoir where the cows, goats and rams were slaughtered. We went on to talk about everything including origin and sojourn. I will not say that the connection was wholesome but after that first meeting, we just kept seeing each other until we realised we could not do without spending time in the company of one another.
“I feel like if I have been waiting for you to come along, like everyone I have met, everything I have done before was preparation to meet you,” he told one month after our meeting when we were having lunch together. That had quickly become a ritual. Sometimes we would eat in his company’s canteen, at other times in mine or just venture to a place to make new discoveries. Like me, Adamu has been alienated from his hometown in Borno State even if unlike me, he knows the way to his origins and would like to travel there often but for the lingering crisis there. We feel each other and although we have had our fair share of fights largely because he is stubborn, when he asked me to marry him two months after we met, I said yes. Adamu is the one for me. I have had occasion to wonder if we are not in too much of a hurry to marry but then I realise that the feeling I feel whenever I’m with him has been alien to me until now. I don’t want it to ever go away. Most of all, Debra, my best friend and all my family supports me in my decision. Everything is ready. One moment you are wondering if your time has passed, whether you will ever get married and the next you are planning a wedding. It is going to be a big wedding and we will make it work.
