I returned home one evening to find my neighbour’s son kneeling outside their house bawling, tears and mucus running down his face, his lungs working overtime.
Me: Why is Ike crying? Who beat him like this?
My aunty: Don’t mind him, he said he will rape Angela (one of his play mates) until she gets pregnant.
Now this kid is seven; where did he hear the word rape and why did he decide to say something like that to his friend? The girl, same age recognised the word as bad and proceeded to report to Ike’s mum. Good mother, she did not do all that ‘he is still a small boy’ nonsense. She flogged him thoroughly, made him kneel outside and pray to God and say he will never do such a thing in his life. So that’s how I met my guy Ike kneeling, crying and praying to God.
The crazy thing was that the guys standing around were laughing sha, that it is just a joke. What is a joke about rape?
Reminded me of a nonsense day I once had. My cousin was travelling to Delta State; she needed to leave early so I followed her to the park. Early morning, we left after 6am, got to Ojota and were walking towards the park when two guys saw us.
Boy 1: Chai, see as dem fine.
Boy 2: Be like make we just burst them, make we just rape them.
Both idiots: Hee haw haw haw haw (you know the stupid way stupid people laugh).
The laughter rang in my ears for days. I felt so small and weak. After a while I tweeted about it, and someone replied with: it is a joke, you don’t get the joke.
Same day, on my way home in the evening, there was mad traffic from the bus stop to my house. I couldn’t think of spending another hour on the road, so I took a bike with another girl (we agreed to split the fare). We were both wearing skirts which rode high when we climbed on the bike. After moving for a while we got stuck in the traffic. There was a red jeep in the oncoming lane, just by us. Next thing the driver of the jeep wound down his glass; an elderly man, probably older than my dad, sprinkling of black hair on his white beard. He smiled, showing brown teeth and said, ‘hello darlings’. Me, darling? I just kept my eyes forward, ignoring him. The other girl too looked straight ahead. Traffic on his side started clearing and our bike man too started firing his bike. Do you guys know what this old man did? Brought out his smelly hand and ran it over our thighs. The bike moved almost immediately. I couldn’t even look back, I was so shocked. Got home and scrubbed that spot on my thigh almost sore. Know what the bike man said? “Hahahahahhaa, make una no mind am, e dey follow una play.”
Play ke? When did all these become joke abeg? How did I miss the joke? Somebody biko explain for me. Thank you.