more musings!

…….So I was at the market on Saturday and I saw the most shocking thing! It wasn’t that unusual though but this was just kinda…………..

Was standing in front of my customer’s stall, waiting to buy snails when I saw two children (a boy and a girl, definitely not older than 5 both of them) locked in a very very warm adult embrace! Now she was standing in front of him with both her hands curled tightly around his neck and he had his hands around her waist and they were just there…locked in an embrace that wasn’t about to end! They were standing so close to each other, that I couldn’t drive a pin right through them without pricking one of them.

Trust market women………about 5 of the women who had stalls in the same area started poking fun at them and calling the attention of the girl’s mother, a fellow trader “mama……. Come see your pikin o!” “e don marry finish for inside market!” That was the point I broke my stare and started laughing.

Now hear this……. One of the women separated them and hit the girl tauntingly and asked her to go and sit down but she screamed and went right back to hug him! Of course they all burst out laughing and making their comments “see them o”, “dem don start o”. They of course got separated again and this time the boy held on firmly to her hand and refused to let go.

At this point, I was done buying my snails and had to leave before I become the topic for not minding my business…….. I really do not know how that ended. Wondering where on earth those kids picked that up from! Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s not unusual for kids of different genders to pair up, play, hug etc heck it’s even cute sometimes and you even get those awwwwwww moments, but this was too intense…………….even after it stopped being funny and they stopped them, they refused to let go, worse still she kept coming back…………. Frankly she looked like a desperate little girl!

A colleague sent me a video of some Nigerian kids at a party. Someone recorded it on phone and passed it around because they thought it was hilarious. Now get a load of this………….. I think the song playing was P-Squares “Do me”. This boy was dancing with a girl and yet again they couldn’t have been older than 5 or 6 maybe. She turns her back to him and bends wriggling her non existent waist and he holds her by the waist, closes in on her and keeps dancing! Now that was atrocious and repugnant at the same time! How did she learn to dance like that, and how did he know to hold her by the waist. He could have just left his hands up in the air where everyone could see them.

I remember saying to myself that day, after seeing the clip that if I ever saw my child like that, I wouldn’t just laugh it off. I remember as a kid, I could never have tried either scenario. My mother “God rest her soul” would have dealt with me soo bad. The no nonsense Edo woman that she was. Some times I thought she over did it, but if there was one thing I could say to her right now, it would be “Thanks mum, for molding me into the woman I am today”.

Was talking to a friend the other day and was telling her that all my mother had to give me was “the eye” and I immediately got the message. The weirdest part was the eye meant different things and I understood them all.

There was the eye for:

• Don’t you dare eat that food you are being offered, while her lips were parted in a soft smile saying to me “ah ah, you don’t want to eat”. The long and short was if I touched the food, I would be in soup, literarily.

• You had better stop that now, before I smack you.


• Just wait till we get home, I will so smack you for embarrassing me out here, as if you do not have more than enough toys to play with at home.

• The worst was ofcourse the “I will not wait till we get home, I will smack you right here and right now and there is nothing you can do about it, besides your father is not here to save you. If you think you can disgrace me out here, I would return the favour!


After being smacked around a few times, I got my act together faster than anything. Personally I believe nothing can replace a certain amount of discipline in every aspect of life and it starts from childhood.

…………So I’m thinking if I was that little girl in the market on Saturday, all my mother had to do was look at me and I would just stop…………..no buts or maybe’s.