Aristide

Babatunde Farfrae

Description

When he was there for the first time, he learnt that he had to turn his trousers over so as to prevent it from getting dirty and learnt that each time he killed a bed bug, he had to put the stained fingers to his nose smelling them and then wipe the blood of the insect on the wall on which he had scratched his name and date of admittance…The strong force of Christendom with many wearing and bearing crosses did their very best in the wicked art of blood spilling with the conviction that they were inspired by the Almighty…Getting to Oshodi for the first time caught Aristide's admiration so he wasted time in looking at the population and traffic…On the faces of the population, he saw seriousness, conviction, and endless aspiration. On those of the drivers, he saw stress, anger and desperation…The idle people in Lagos are busy. The lazy are handy. ARISTIDE - A decisive story of a bildungsroman

Sujets

• Biography
• Handy
• Autobio
• Autobiography
• Aristide

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 04 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669843917
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Aristide
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Babatunde Farfrae
 
Copyright © 2022 by Babatunde Farfrae.
 
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6698-4392-4

eBook
978-1-6698-4391-7
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 08/18/2022
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
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DEDICATE D TO
Gonlee Wamie Gaye
 
Life was booming in Lunsar, northern Sierra Leone where ore was being mined so Nathaniel, a multi talented young man decided to join the rest of his friends there. This fellow was a genius in the world of wood work, driving, machines, engines, and just everything he laid his hands on - Jack of all trade and probably a master of all. He was a very shy and timid person and did not have much to talk or laugh about if not with women because he was very fond of them. There are people who develop likeness for the opposite sex just because of their career and would go all out to marry them. Nathaniel was one of those. He had developed likeness for nurses so he told a friend of his who was also a nurse to hook him up with one. No one expected of him to get a woman through someone because he was already a father of two boys but, since he was likewise loved by women, he was helped.
The deal worked out for Nathaniel but it was not with one of the nurses who lived in Lunsar but in far away Freetown. She turned out to be the daughter whose mother had lost a child and not too long, a dream was had in which a girl child came comforting the family because of the death of the man-child. In that dream, the girl told her audience that her name was Sylvia and soon though, the same woman who lost the man-child did have a baby girl and named her Silvia according to the dream.
She was now a lady in her mid twenties, daughter of a paramedic who was living in the heart of the city. This strict colonial related Edmund whose ancestors were stolen from somewhere in Nigeria to England to be enslaved though some of them were fortunate or unfortunate to find their way to Freetown after the 13 th amendment which abolished slavery in 1865, made sure that all of his children got the best of education and passed them through the hard times of life as he himself did under his post-colonial parents. Looking for Sylvia in a crowd, one had to look in front and below shoulders. She was in the habit of pushing her short self forward even though it was dangerous for her to do so. She was a brown-skinned single mother who had enjoyed the early part of her life doing all of the deeds that girls did regardless of her father’s strict discipline. When she was introduced to Nathaniel, she did choose to fall and in a short time, she was pregnant.
“What?! Pregnant again?” asked old Edmund whose bark was even worse than his bite. Considering his religious and social status, the old Master Mason thought it was just another sin, even a sacrilege in his godly house and a stain on the great name he had made for himself in the neighbourhood and Freetown as a whole.
“The first pregnancy with George was said to be a mistake so I took the child and but this is no gad dame mistake,” he shouted at her. “Look! This boy (referring to Nathaniel), he has to marry you or you get out of my house,” he threatened.
When the pregnancy was in its eighth month, Nathaniel wedded Sylvia four days after the popular St. Valentine’s Day and in the following month, she gave birth to a baby girl and these made her father very proud of her. Nathaniel had got what he wanted - a nurse so with their daughter Veronique, they sojourned in Lunsar where Sylvia first worked as a teacher and finally got a job at the Hospital. When romantic, Sylvia simply called her husband “Nat” and on a bad day, called him “Nathaniel.” The quiet man on his part though, had always called his wife the name she had predestined for herself –Sylvia and not long after these, Edmund fell sick and died.
One might have wondered why as a nurse, Sylvia did not pay attention to spacing her children because the next child Francis, was conceived and born just when Veronique was to enjoy her good months of breast feeding. Saturday mid-December was the day in which all Christmas related celebrations kicked off in the country and just at about 1:30am, the third child was born into the family.
She was just a woman who could conceive in and out of season and during her pregnancies, she did not wish or pray to have a particular gender so when this child was born, it was not unusual of her not to be eager or desperate in asking the nurses the way other women ask about it. The first thing she wanted at this time was a good rest which she did have and after the first session of it, she contemplated on whether to have another child because she had seen some bad days of miscarriages and abortions. She thought this new baby was pretty lucky to see life and light because before this, she had been warned by her gynaecologist not to have another. Her belief in re-incarnation was strong enough to convince her that her late father Edmund had made the come-back through her newly born son who was named Aristide the same who, after he was born, left her bleeding for days and if not that he was to live to tell his own stories, he would have sensed that this world was not his habitat and so leave as Edmund did because, while doctors battled on saving his mother’s life, he was left almost abandoned.
There were some characteristics about this lad which were very different from the others. He didn’t suck his mother’s breasts. Though he did not suffer from sickle-cell anaemia, he was sickly and at some occasions, was so sick that doctors gave up on him. His days of sickness were enough to get Sylvia run off her skin because it was not easy for her to convince the demanding neighbours that her son was sick as he did not lose weight or his appetite and for these reasons, doctors discharged him. He started growing fat as though he was obsessed for, he made the best use of his appetite even at the climax of his sickness. When he started speaking, it was discovered that he had a speech deformity and was growing with the quietness and love of music like his father.
Whenever Aristide ate at a neighbour’s house he would go home to throw up and Sylvia who had warned him to say “no” when a neighbour’s food was given would beat the hell out of him regardless of his age. She tried to bring her children up in such a way that they did not just respect her but feared her. She would go to their school telling the class of what they had done at home knowing fully well that this was disgracing. All of the teachers knew her because she presented them with the sticks with which they were to flog her children and, because she wanted to impress them that she was the best of all mothers, she insisted that her children be given homework on a daily basis. She appreciated elderly people flogging her children when they misbehaved away from home and woe betide that child who did not come home to report that they had been flogged by this or that person and for what reason. The children did not like making such a report because another round of flogging followed thereafter.
Sylvia had taught her children that they were to eat their food in perfect quietness before which, a prayer was to be said. The drinking of water and eating at the same time was outlawed and once one had started eating from a particular spot, they were to continue eating to the end and not to dip the spoon in the centre, right and left corners and everywhere of the plate or bowl. Children were hardly given meat to eat but a small piece of fish because she thought that those children who were exposed to the eating of meat would soon turn themselves into thieves. It was compulsory for each child to say ‘thank you’ after each meal if not, they were reminded with a slap. No child was to leave their food to get bad and whoever did so would have the same food for the next meal. She did not say how many strokes of the cane she would give; she would flog till satisfied and it was not a matter of must for her to use the cane because whatever her hand got hold of was a good weapon and if none was nearby, her bare hands were good enough. She did not give herself in to petting her children so whenever she was around, the house would come to order and they were to always play with their books and not with toys. As Aristide was growing up, his mother was not smart enough to observe that he came with his unique styles - wanting to be around strangers at all times, did not like being put under pressure and preferred learning in quietness.
Aristide did not like going to church and the law in the house had it that, whoever missed church skipped a meal so he went to church simply because he wanted to retain his meal. The wearing of new clothes made him very uncomfortable unlike other boys who loved being in them. It was observed that boys loved their mothers most but he started admiring his father with reasons he discovered at an early age. Nathaniel did not talk much neither did he develop the habit of flogging his children. Though he sometimes did, he was always specific in giving his strokes of the cane.