FOR THE LOVE OF EARTH

Chapter 2: Ibadan.

Chapter 2: Ibadan.
If you hold a map of Ibadan and stand with your head tilted a little to the left and the map tilted a little to the right, you’ll notice that at it’s very centre is Dugbe market. As such, everything you can find in Ibadan— from delicious fruit to groping cretins— probably came from Dugbe.

Have you been to Ibadan? No?
I’m not asking to make small talk or whatever you people call it. If you had been to Ibadan, then you would know one thing — that it is severely cursed with the Curse of Disappointment.

Why are you laughing? Stop it. Nothing is funny.

Ibadan has been cursed for years maybe centuries. I can’t exactly say how long but I can say that whoever placed that curse was a very thorough and wicked being. In fact, it had become the subconscious habit of every Ibadan person to take the curse into account just as one might take the weather into account while planning a day.

For example, if your priority for Tuesday was to submit a very important document at a place where one submits such documents, you must leave your house on Tuesday knowing that someone important will not be “on seat” and you will in fact be submitting the document on Wednesday. Why not go on Wednesday, you ask? Don’t you know how curses work? All curses are inconvenient, the Curse of Disappointment even more so. Going on Wednesday means you will return on Thursday!

Now that you understand the curse, I will continue the story.

To disappoint the Curse of Disappointment, I did not head straight to the location my mother had given me. Instead, I took a walk through the market. I entered through the main exit, passed the fruit section and approached a plantain vendor.

“Elo ni?”

“Five cowries,” she replied after eyeing  me from head to toe.

“For what?” I hissed.

We spent the next five minutes haggling and insulting each other. It was the Ibadan way. To transact business as if you’d been bitter enemies in a past life.

“Three and a half, last!” She yelled. “And don’t come here again.”

I paid her the sum and as if suddenly unpossessed, asked in a sweet voice:
“Aunty, can I leave this one here? It’s heavy and I have more things to buy.”

The witch was thrilled. She looked incredulously at the bunch of plantains and then at me. Her smile was wide, exposing the gaps in between her gold capped teeth.

“No problem.”

I left knowing I would never see those plantains again. But I had satisfied the Curse, if only for a while.

My destination, as described to me by my mother was the fruit section I had passed earlier. There isn’t much to describe. It is a piece of land full of people selling the same things at the same time. All of them hoping to coax you into their stands with calls of “Fine girl!” and the more effective “ppsssstt”. And if all those failed, pulling you by the arm would definitely not.

Much more remarkable than the market itself is what lies above it, beneath and in its centre — The tree. Aptly named not because there were no other trees in Ibadan but because none could compare.

Its trunk was wider in diameter than three champion wrestlers standing shoulder to shoulder. Its thick  branches extended exactly to the outer walls of the outermost stalls.

The Tree was purposeful. More importantly, it was unifying. Even more so than the sight of a curvy woman in tight clothing.

“Let’s eat under the tree."
People often said this to their friends and sometimes to their worst enemy. (Each Ibadan woman is required to have at least three).