This Is Me (On Hold)

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My name is Ayomide Adeniyi. I'm usually called Mide or Ayo for short.

As you might have guessed, I'm Yoruba.. the most famous tribe in Nigeria. My dad was Yoruba while my mum was Edo, also a popular tribe in Nigeria.
I was born in Lagos, our country's busiest state but I only lived there for a few years.

I came from a family of five,I was the first born and I had a sister and a brother  after me. I was 12,  clocking 13 on the 4th of this year's February. It was just January so I had a little more time to prepare for it, my sis was 10 and my bro was just 5.

My dad was a bank manager and my  mum was an officer in the Nigerian Navy so we rarely saw her cause she was always traveling and busy, either it's a course she must do to get promoted or it will be a training for her military skills. Despite her busy schedule she still made out time for us and I respect and love that part of her.
I still don't know how my dad coped with all our moving, I'm sure he didn't like it but he had to bear it besides he was a bank manager he definitely knew how to manipulate so he could work in the branch of the place we are moving to.
So we were living quite comfortably.

Because of the nature of my Mum's job we moved a lot, as I earlier said I was born in Lagos then we moved to Abuja,the country's Federal Capital Territory. I was pretty young when we moved there. Then we moved to Calabar, one of the states in the Southern part of the country, and presently we are in Bayelsa also in the Southern area...well not for long.

"Code 9 everybody, code 9"

My little bro echoed from the living room that meant Dad was back. I ran to the living room grabbing whatever I found that wasn't in the right place and shoved them behind the curtain in the passage way which my sis inturn throws into our room.
My dad hates dirtiness so if he sees this mess we will all be in big trouble.
While my bro ran outside to distract my dad so he won't come in and find us trying to tidy the room in a matter of seconds. Typical Nigerian family right?

In case your asking what is "code 9" its a little something I and my siblings formed a long time ago to indicate when our parents where back from work. My mum's own was "code 5". I still wonder why we chose those numbers but anywho we probably just guessed.

"Good evening sir, how was your day"

I greeted my dad while bending my knees. Though we were a modern Nigerian family my parents still thought it wise to teach us some cultural values. They taught me and my sis to kneel or at least bend our knees when greeting someone older than us and taught my brother to prostrate on the floor at least make sure his hand touches the floor when greeting.
That went on well till it got to the part of learning our tribal language otherwise known as "mother's tongue". It was a problem because of my parents cultural diversity. My mum wanted to teach us Edo language and my dad wanted to teach us Yoruba but they couldn't both teach us two different things.
Besides we didn't want to learn it, we felt it would twist our accent and spoil our perfect diction.
Though my mum still spoke some of it to us maybe when she wants us to get her water or she wants us to finish our food on time.

"My day was fine my dear and how was school and have your younger ones eaten? "  Dad asked
"School was fine sir and yes we have all eaten"  I replied.

Dad always lays emphasis on us having our daily meals when we get home and to support this he came to our school and paid the lunch lady for a full term to ensure we get our food and eat it at lunch time. But we were the picky type so it was quite hard for us to eat the different foods the lunch lady cooks.