The Story Of Us

#4

The telephone rang the following morning when Ammi was cooking in the kitchen. It was my cousins' visiting day, being the last Saturday of the month. She ran into the parlour wiping her wet hands on her apron. "Hello?" she said picking the receiver. She then laughed, a high pitched one.

"And good morning too, to the best friend who always forgets her best friend's birthday until a day later when she's probably reminded" I knew instantly that it was Aunty Fatima. Ammi's best friend in Kano. They went to university together. They talked for a long while before I heard Ammi say "Okay give him...hello Porero, good morning" I knew he he will throw his head back and laugh. That was Aunty Fatima's husband, Uncle Abdulbari. Just like the wife, he was Ammi's friend also, they were all course mates back in school, they've been dating since then. He went for short service while they did their NYSC and joined the Air Force about five years back. They got married a year after that and had two lovely twin boys, Saifullah and Saifulhaq. I heard Aunty Fatima telling Ammi she was seven months pregnant, and hoping it will be a girl. She ran a restaurant in Kano named Teemah's kitchen. Ammi said she's always dreamt of owning a restaurant since their school days, simply because she loved cooking. Ammi always teased her and her husband of putting their Law degrees under their boxes. "At least Porero might use his in his course of working, but you Fatima, is it when you go to the market to buy meat and pepper that you will apply commercial Law on the butchers and market women?" she will always say.

"We have really come a long way with Fatima, I can't even describe our friendship, she's more of a sister to me" Ammi said often.

Ammi was found of giving people names, that's how she named Uncle Abdulbari Porero. She said because at the time they started dating, Aunty Fatima's favorite meal was potatoes, potatoes of every kind, whether sweet or Irish, boiled or fried. Ammi then asked her over a plate of potatoes, whom she will choose if she was asked to choose between potatoes and her boyfriend, Aunty Fatima had laughed and not wanting to loose the potatoes they were eating if she chose her boyfriend, said he was as sweet as potatoes. Ammi then started calling him sweet potato, from sweet potato it became Porero and so he started calling her Porero also, Hajia Porero.

"She's here... Manal Uncle Abdul wants to wish you a belated birthday" she handed the receiver to me.

"Hello Uncle Powewo" I said happily and he laughed. He was a very jolly man, always laughing and liked playing with kids a lot.

"Manal I thought I said you should stop calling me Porero and call me Uncle Abdul, don't you want me to get a bicycle for you as a birthday gift?"

"I want, I want" I jumped happily

"Then start calling me Uncle Abdul okay. How are you, and school.. Sorry I couldn't call you yesterday..." we talked for a while too before he gave his wife the phone "Aunty Fatimaaa" I squealed

"This child, you won't call me mummy koh, don't you know I'm older than your Ammi" she laughed then sang a birthday song for me while I giggled. "Fatima don't break my telephone with your terrible voice" Ammi shouted enough for her to hear. "Tell your Ammi to keep quiet, Santuraki keep quiet jorr" she shouted back, not that Ammi will hear her. Ammi and her friends behaved like kids, when ever they met, they did keep we the kids aside and run around behaving like kids themselves and they didn't call her Amira, or even Amira Kabir, they just called her Santuraki. Aunty Fatima was Nupe from Niger State, while her husband was Ibo/Nupe also. She told me her boys had started school and were getting more stubborn by the day, how they hid one of her customer's shoes one day and after it was found, the customer laughed it off and even gave them money instead of getting angry "Not that I didn't beat them that day, I gave them the beating they won't forget in a hurry that day, those boys are very stubborn" I only laughed, then she told me to come to Kano when we're on holidays. I told her about school and my friends then later gave Ammi back the receiver. Minutes later, she said kube ti thank you in Nupe and dropped the call then went back to what she was cooking.