A Promise to Aabidah (#1 Natives series) #ProjectNigeria

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

            IT WAS PAST ASR TIME when the laborers who had been working around the compound bid the three friends farewell, their work done.

Looking at the weedless clearing, AbdulAzeez smiled slightly. Whoever it was that was moving in must be strict with deadlines, he thought as he took in the now weeded area. Every weed and shrub that had lived were now dead, and places that needed plastering and refilling had been seen to as well.

The house was beginning to come alive. It no longer felt cold the way it had weeks ago. There was a warmth that came with the cluster of warm bodies in a place.

Even though the people who had walked through the hallways of the house weren't permanent residents, the house still preserved their presence and essence. From little things like the crumbled up newspapers that had served as plates for the men's breakfast of kosai and soyayyen doya. From the muddy shoe prints just at the entrance of the main door.

The air in the house smelled of freshly turned soil, of paints, fertilizer, and heated metals.

Resting after hours of painting, the three friends settled under the shade of the veranda. When Nasarawa sun decided to come out, it was always brutal. They had gone to the mosque a bit late and nearly missed the congregational prayers, after that, all three of them had rushed back to continue with their work.

Just after jumah prayers, Banafsha had sent food enough to feed every working hand. Today had been Noor's turn. Which had been a first. It had been quiet the shock for AbdulAzeez and his friends to see her paying off the mai going in front of the house.

AbdulAzeez had exhaled in relief when he had seen her. Noor was younger than him with years, not that he had a problem being with younger ladies, but seeing as both their mother's were very close friends, he considered her the younger sister he didn't have.

In Nasarawa everyone almost knew who you were. Women bonded during their weekly and yearly meetings. Men knew themselves through their wives or through the sort of business they were involved in. And you as the child became friends with kids whose parents had been friends with yours. Or you were related to them in a way.

Either way, there was a chain to these things. Nooriya and AbdulWahid were cousins, an example of being related in a way.

She had dressed up in a plain black gown with a pale green hijab. Dull colours that made someone think depression and difficulties. She dragged heavily onto something as she made her way through the gate, then stopped for a while to greet every working man in the compound before walking over to where the boys were, chugging down chilled coke and bread. She didn't smile instead she focused more on AbdulAzeez whom she had brought a message for.

She had gone to visit his mother with hers and because her mother had asked her to, she had ended up bringing him his food. Something that AbdulAzeez could tell-from the frown on her face and unease in her body language that-she didn't much like, but had no other option but to do.

She'd dropped a huge food warmer he had never seen before in front of him, gave an excuse about having to go somewhere and then, she hurried off.

Now the blue warmer which his mother had filled up with wrapped tuwo masara sat emptied of its content, the smaller one that had carried the miyan kuka soup she had been cooking early this morning was also empty.

"See, your cousin strange o, shey you know ba?" Isah asked AbdulWahid out of the blue, disrupting the quiet.

The ever reserved and quiet one of them turned calm and querying eyes onto the shorter man.