The Story of us

Chapter 2

Ammi shooed me to the room to go change as she changed too and waited for Maa to come back so the could cook the birthday jolof rice and get everything set for my birthday party holding at 4pm.

They cooked on big pot full of jolof rice, then another pot of white rice and chicken stew. They put the food in food flakes and kept it on the dining table which was pushed the wall and the cushions rearranged to give space for the party. I wore my other birthday dress, a white Cinderella ball gown and hat this time around I followed Ammi as she kept the birthday cake on the center table then arranged five coke and fanta bottles around it and told me and Ramadan to patiently wait for our friends to arrive.

The kids came in batches, both the ones who were invited and those who weren't. The first batch to arrive were Fa'iza holding her 3year old brother Fadil and her friend Zarah. I frowned when I saw Fadil, the boy was so annoying, he made trouble in every birthday party he attended. He always cried when he didn't win chair dance and when we went to his birthday two months back, he cried when his mum was sharing his cake, and ate it all alone without sharing it with even his sister. His mum apologised.

"Wamadan, Fadil is here. Wemember what he alwayt doet at birthday partiet." I complained to Ramadan.

"Don't worry I will take care of him" he walked up to the boy and whispered something into his ear. The boy looked disturbed. He looked at Ramadan's retreating back, at me, then the cake. He found somewhere and sat down quietly.

Next were Khaleed, a tall lanky Fulani boy following his chubby beautiful crush Aisha and her friend Siyamah. Aisha and Siyamah looked so much alike at first I thought they were twins. Khaleed followed Aisha everywhere even though she paid no attention to him, he even called her Berry. Yasmeen, Khaleed's elder sister was briskly walking behind him, scolding him to stop following girls. And Halima her friend came running after her, yelling "Wait for me you monkey".

Yasmeen was the eldest among us and she never misses the opportunity to remind us of that, though we were all taller than her. We secretly called her Yasmeen big head. Halima was the biggest among us, and a bully.

Cute bubbly Asmaah came next with her tiny light skinned friend Meena. Then Fareedah came sulking, ignoring her friend Walidah who was talking to her, because she asked her crush Aliyu who was a member of the school singing group to come along but he refused. More kids came and soon we were eating rice, dancing, doing chair dance competition and cutting my birthday cake. Some of the kids presented their gifts to me and Ammi shared the souvenirs she bought.

She gave the girls earrings, plastic dolls, balloons, ribbons and hair beads. The boys got plastic balls, toy cars and sunglasses. Khaleed got a sunglass and shyly gave Aisha who ignored him but Siyamah collected on her behalf. Everyone went home with cabin biscuits, sweets and cake.

Surprisingly, Fadil didn't create a scene, he didn't even participate in the chair dance. Ramadan later told me that he threatened the boy that he won't get to eat the birthday cake if he disturbed anybody.

Later that night, I thanked Ammi and Abii as they tucked me into bed.

***

The telephone rang the following morning when Ammi was cooking in the kitchen. It was my cousins' visiting day, being the last Saturday of the month. She ran into the parlour wiping her wet hands on her apron. "Hello?" she said picking the receiver. She then laughed, a high pitched one.

"And good morning too, to the best friend who always forgets her best friend's birthday until a day later when she's probably reminded" I knew instantly that it was Aunty Fatima. Ammi's best friend in Kano. They went to university together. They talked for a long while before I heard Ammi say "Okay give him...hello Porero, good morning" I knew he he will throw his head back and laugh. That was Aunty Fatima's husband, Uncle Abdulbari. Just like the wife, he was Ammi's friend also, they were all course mates back in school, they've been dating since then. He went for short service while they did their NYSC and joined the Air Force about five years back. They got married a year after that and had two lovely twin boys, Saifullah and Saifulhaq. I heard Aunty Fatima telling Ammi she was seven months pregnant, and hoping it will be a girl. She ran a restaurant in Kano named Teemah's kitchen. Ammi said she's always dreamt of owning a restaurant since their school days, simply because she loved cooking. Ammi always teased her and her husband of putting their Law degrees under their boxes. "At least Porero might use his in his course of working, but you Fatima, is it when you go to the market to buy meat and pepper that you will apply commercial Law on the butchers and market women?" she will always say.

"We have really come a long way with Fatima, I can't even describe our friendship, she's more of a sister to me" Ammi said often.

Ammi was found of giving people names, that's how she named Uncle Abdulbari Porero. She said because at the time they started dating, Aunty Fatima's favorite meal was potatoes, potatoes of every kind, whether sweet or Irish, boiled or fried. Ammi then asked her over a plate of potatoes, whom she will choose if she was asked to choose between potatoes and her boyfriend, Aunty Fatima had laughed and not wanting to loose the potatoes they were eating if she chose her boyfriend, said he was as sweet as potatoes. Ammi then started calling him sweet potato, from sweet potato it became Porero and so he started calling her Porero also, Hajia Porero.

"She's here... Manal Uncle Abdul wants to wish you a belated birthday" she handed the receiver to me.

"Hello Uncle Powewo" I said happily and he laughed. He was a very jolly man, always laughing and liked playing with kids a lot.

"Manal I thought I said you should stop calling me Porero and call me Uncle Abdul, don't you want me to get a bicycle for you as a birthday gift?"

"I want, I want" I jumped happily

"Then start calling me Uncle Abdul okay. How are you, and school.. Sorry I couldn't call you yesterday..." we talked for a while too before he gave his wife the phone "Aunty Fatimaaa" I squealed

"This child, you won't call me mummy koh, don't you know I'm older than your Ammi" she laughed then sang a birthday song for me while I giggled. "Fatima don't break my telephone with your terrible voice" Ammi shouted enough for her to hear. "Tell your Ammi to keep quiet, Santuraki keep quiet jorr" she shouted back, not that Ammi will hear her. Ammi and her friends behaved like kids, when ever they met, they did keep we the kids aside and run around behaving like kids themselves and they didn't call her Amira, or even Amira Kabir, they just called her Santuraki. Aunty Fatima was Nupe from Niger State, while her husband was Ibo/Nupe also. She told me her boys had started school and were getting more stubborn by the day, how they hid one of her customer's shoes one day and after it was found, the customer laughed it off and even gave them money instead of getting angry "Not that I didn't beat them that day, I gave them the beating they won't forget in a hurry that day, those boys are very stubborn" I only laughed, then she told me to come to Kano when we're on holidays. I told her about school and my friends then later gave Ammi back the receiver. Minutes later, she said kube ti thank you in Nupe and dropped the call then went back to what she was cooking.

Later when she finished cooking and was putting the food inside food flasks, the telephone rang again. This time around, it was Aunty Hairat. "My i***t friend" Ammi shrilled when she heard her voice "Did you like plan with Fatima to all call me today? She just called also... I won't answer your Happy Birthday, today is not my birthday, neither is it Manal's..... Woo Haira dãakun fimile please leave me, I'm not pregnant oo" she laughed and handed it to me. I spoke with her also and asked after her daughters, Yumnah and Husbah. Aunty Hairat was Yoruba from Kwara State, a friend Ammi met in university also. A lawyer married to a doctor Hausa man from Kano State and based in Abuja though he worked in Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Shika,Zaria. Ammi often said Aunty Hairat was a friend she will never forget in a life time "Do you know she typed my assignments for me back then, she will sometimes read for me while I listened. Everything that was Hairat's was mine, I can go to her room, take whatever I want and scatter her corner, while she always arranges mine when she meets it scattered. She was the first friend I met in school, some people even thought we were sisters at first. When we reached final year and were given project supervisors, our supervisor was the same, and knowing she had a lazy friend like me, she finished up hers early and we did mine together, in fact she almost did everything. That was why I mentioned her in all the five paragraphs of my acknowledgement" at that time, I knew not what a project was, talk more of acknowledgement. When I asked her why they called each other My i***t friend, she said she couldn't remember, but she knew that she invented the name. Aunty Hairat was a practicing lawyer, but I didn't understand when I was told, and so Ammi said "A lawyer who goes to court to argue and defend his client"

"Oh you mean those that say objection my lord?"

"Yes. So if your Aunty Hairat is to appear before me tomorrow, she will bow and say objection my lord"

"Me, appear before you, God forbid bad thing. I will rather drop the case" Aunty Hairat chipped in and Ammi laughed "It will shock you when a case that will fetch you millions brings you to Adamawa and I happen to be the judge involved. You i***t"

Ammi hurriedly got me dressed in an abaya she bought for me last year when she went for hajj again. Mine was peach while my cousin's was maroon, together with a little white cute hijab, with lace finishes. We were about going out when the door bell rang and she went out to get it. It was a courier guy sent to deliver a parcel, a parcel from mummy Nafisa. It was another surprise I was eager to see!