"Im say, this uprising will bring out the beast in us!"
Fela Anikulakpo Kuti
It was a brisk harmattan evening in Ibadan as I awaited my
father's return from Sabo. The air was dry, and Vaseline did nothing
to balm my lips. In the distance I could hear the evening prayers
from the church at Agbowo. I could understand their wanting to
pray, but who informed them that everyone within a 12-million mile
radius particularly cared for the shrill, shrieking voice of the
pastor?
My father, as I mentioned, had gone to Sabo to purchase a
turkey, or as we called it, "Tolo-tolo" for our annual Christmas meal.
Every Christmas we'd have a large assembly at our house. Patrick, his brothers and his father would come over from Ojo barracks, as well as Noruwa and whomever agreed to partake in the celebration. This Christmas tradition almost always culminated in a trip to the University of Ibadan Zoo.
I don't know why Nigerians seem to think that a holiday is not complete without a trip to the zoo. And at the zoo it was always the same thing, people gasping, "ooh"ing and "ah"ing at Haruna the big gorilla. They had named it after the popular singer, Haruna Ishola, having claimed that it was the only singing gorilla in Africa. I never heard it sing, though. Actually,
Haruna was pretty mellow.
He never threw human waste at people and seemed to be less than amused at the whole spectacle of people making ape faces and dancing in front of him. To think of it, the people who did their act, trying to seduce Haruna into action, looked more like gorillas than Haruna. And, of course, there was always the fool who wanted to bait the crocodiles into motion, and ended up almost being Christmas meat for them.
Then why on earth did they, for years on end, have a cage for the leopard, when it was always empty? Yet people would peer inside at the leaves and rocks, hoping to catch a glimpse of the invisible creature. One would yell "I see am!" and others would gasp and pretend as though they saw it as well, being special folk, see? If we were lucky, we'd get to see the snakes being fed. Those snakes, now those were some lazy bastards. All they did was lie down digesting food.
You could actually see the food going down their tubes.. or whatever you call it, and by the time they'd finished digesting, it was time for their next meal a week later. So, as you might imagine, I was looking forward to Christmas again. I heard a loud yell and looked up to see Eman running after the dust from my father's tires as my father pulled up.
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