The Story Of Us

#5

Ammi's life revolved around us, her family and work. She spent half of her time at home in the kitchen cooking. Our house was hardly ever quiet, it was always filled with Abii's noisy radio when he played his old school songs or teased Ammi, Ammi's frequent scolding when I was being my silent destroyer self, the the sounds of her pounding and blending and washing and then aroma from the kitchen, and mine and Ramadan's voices, as we played in the evenings.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and so it shouldn't be skipped. And I prefer heavy breakfasts" she will opine, although her lunch was always heavy too. She always woke up very early in the morning everyday and busied herself in the kitchen. The maid, Mama Asabe came every morning to wash the dishes, sweep and clean. Ammi cooked all the meals herself. She would set the table for breakfast then get ready for work even before Abii got me and himself dressed. She would always drop our lunch boxes on the table, though I always went to school with my breakfast and ate noodles or any other light food at home. The only times her breakfast weren't heavy was when she's on one of her procrastination, Ammi will have rulings of judgements to write but she will rather play around "Remind me to write my rulings before I sleep" but she will wait for 3am to wake up and start writing. On such mornings we always had tea and bread, if we're lucky with fried eggs, then snacks in my lunch box. Abbie would have no lunch to take to work, he would grumble but then say nothing.

Our freezer was never empty, always stocked up with different soups Ammi cooked on Saturdays. She will go to the market to get soup ingredients after closing from work on Fridays, then rush home to drop them. "Let me rush back for this MAN meeting and start taking the minutes before those senior magistrates will start seizing me with their scrutinizing eyes." she was a secretary in an association called Magistrates Association Of Nigeria and they held their meetings on Fridays by 4pm.

Abii and I will get chased out of her precious kitchen on Saturdays because she claims we're giving her more work to do than helping. She will cook egusi and ogu, ogbono and okro, vegetable soup, three different types of stews and two more soups then put them all in containers, for the freezer.

"Ahoa sir" Abii's parrot which was hung in it's cage in the car park will greet whenever he was going out. Ahoa was a greeting in soldier language. Ramadan and I always drove to school with Ammi, as our school, Command Children School was meters away from her office. Ramadan's younger siblings attended the annex Command in the barracks. Once, an old teacher who also thought Ammi when she was in that school recognized her when she went to drop us. After greeting each other, he asked if I was her sister "No, she's my daughter" Ammi answered amused and the man looked at me for a very long time as if he was searching for some writings on my forehead to confirm that I'm her sister and not daughter. There's always this feeling I had when Ammi dropped us off and drove to her office and we walked through the school get, you get whipped at the gate by the old pape for late coming whenever it was past 7:30am. During assemblies on Monday, those without their white socks or badges on their uniforms were fished out along with girls who failed to plait the hairstyle of the week and boys whose hair weren't neatly cut. Ramadan and I were always lucky to escape all.

On the Monday after my fifth birthday, results of our match pass parade held at Ribadu Square on the 27th of May which was Children's Day and during which I carried the school flag and led the match pass was announced. Our school had the history of always taking the first position and this year wasn't an exception. We were called out and the whole school cheered and applauded us.

Whenever it was closing time by 1pm, I met up with Ramadan in his class Primarily 1A or he met me in mine, Primarily 1B and together we would run to Ammi's office less than two minutes from the school. All her court staff knew us, we were always hyperactive and the peaceful or sometimes tensed atmosphere of the court with police men and prison wardens seen leading prisoners with hands cuffed, feet bare, eyes shrunken, skins pale and destinies unknown seemed to never bother us as kids, because we never understood that whoever came to court did so with a purpose. Never really understood that thousands of destinies depended on few words declared by the judges of which my mother was one.