A Walk In The Hood

FORBIDDEN FRUIT

Because there is someone waiting with slap to “Naked You” meaning to strip you off everything on your body. You don’t press your phone and walk on the street in Ajegunle. Becauise there is someone waiting to collect that phone from you with a hot slap. Ones your phone is collected, it only takes you knowing someone at uptown who can easily place a call on your behalf in your presence to retrieve your phone, in as much as you can give details on how it happened.

To survive in the ghetto, you have to understand the basic ghetto slangs, you hear something like “ hello, howfar guy they jiust collect my guy ofor”. OFOR means phone, in the ghetto they call something “ote” which means a dull person and for you not to be termed an ote, you have to understand even if you cannot totally speak for the understanding of the meaning of every slangs is very important.

“ oh boy, how he be?” meaning “ whatsup” you can respond with something like “I dey jare” they can respond with something like “Para choke” meaning “eye dey red” and then you respond with “Apara pass apapa” which means you are trying to tell the person that your own even small where my own dey”.

There is an operation they call shoprite which last only for fifteen minutes and everywhere is clear, trying to ask about the operation “ Omo them run shoprite yesterday?”

Let me tell you about this operation. it only last for fifteen minutes as I said earlier and when the time starts ticking, they run into the street and enter shops with either marchete or gun which have a specific slangs…”cotty” or “panpa” atimes they call it “soft touch” or “stainless”.

They injure you with either a strike on your arm or any other part of your body with the cutlass before collecting things they can easily make away with. The normal party people refer to is known as “Ebo” meaning “Sacrifice” in the hood, They call hanging out “ Location”.

Sitting with some of them a times, they still want to know if you’re a full breed or an “Ote”.

You hear something like, “this one wey sit down here na ote, kala hin mamu” meaning strip him off everything on his body. If you are an ote, you’ll watch while they strip you naked but if you’re not, you voice out letting them know that you understand what they are saying in there choice of dictions which makes them hail you themselves and let you be.

There was a time my friend and I were coming back, walking on a wooden bridge because of all this canals and mud, we had to pay to cross the bridge twenty naira to walk from one end of the bridge to another end of the bridge, my friend and I were on the bridge already, he was walking behind me and two other guys were coming behind me aswel rolling there blunt, it is almost legal in Aj city. One of them said to the other guy

Whispering that he should collect the pam slippers and beverage drink I was holding, as the guy was trying to come close to me, the tone of voice he heard got him move past me like he wasn’t coming for me “ if you near me ehn” the other guy was like “your head dey there”.

December 31st, if you are going to church make sure you are not going alone for your own safety.

Because when they see people in group, they don’t attack thinking that it is likely they retaliate if they try anything creepy. There was a particular year like that when we were coming back from church and a lady was walking in front of us, we told her to join us, she didn’t listen to us thinking we were like them. Not long after we heard a slap Pahhh!!!!! On her face, I’m sure she saw those tiny little stars. They collected her phone and money another guy who was walking behind the girl was hit with a bottle of coke on his head, do you know how thick a coke bottle is?

“ give me your phone and money, they collected all valuables on them, they had to come back to us crying that they collected everything valuable on them.

“ mtcheew”, aunty please go and sit down somewhere sheybi, you no dey hear word”. We kept on moving and we got to a place where some boys threw bottles at us, we definitely served them hot with tons of stones returned in retaliation, we chased them, they ran and we also ran away when we got to our destinations.

Excuse me a moment need to ease myself.

When a thirteen year old girl with big breast and boobs is already eating the forbidden fruit meant for adults, what do you expect even though this kids throw themselves at men from a tender age, they tend to believe they’ve grown to the point of been celebrated by there parent when an unwanted pregnancy comes to the picture. They marry them off to there baby fathers or older men old enough to be there grandpa or fathers.

What amazes me more about the hood is the happiness and joy they derive from walking on dirts, dining and grinding in dirts. If you go to “ ijora badia” you can’t walk 5 minutes without throwing up, ‘cause there is always a child pooping here, a woman cooking there very close to the child pooping and a boy fetching water to drink from what I see as a canal or whatever definition is best in place for the description of what I’m seeing. You look at there facial expression and what do you see them doing “SMILING”.