“What?” I asked, puzzled.

They looked at each other.

“You’re eating grass!” one of them exclaimed, pointing at the stalk I’d been chewing on.

All I could offer was a nonplussed “Oh.”

I’ve loved to chew on things for as long as I can remember. Insects, the tender bases of grass stalks, mango leaves, chalk, bones, pens and pencils, paper, plastic wrap, wine corks, paper, can pull tabs, bottle tops and the inside of my mouth have been on my”menu” at some point in my life.

Of these only the inside of my mouth, insects and bones are actually edible.Everything else draws that curious look from people that I’ve learned to ignore. You haven’t been living the life if you’ve never chewed on a pen at least once.

Recently, I’ve had a preference for plastic bottle tops. I was doing grocery shopping the other day when I caught myself trying to make a decision on what kind of water to buy based on the chewability of their tops.

I prefer Great Value to the slightly pricier Sam’s Choice because of the softer caps. For the same reason, I like the smaller Sam’s Choice bottles because they’re chewier than their bigger cousins — there’s also the added bonus of having two bottle caps to chew on when I drink the same amount of water. Zephyrhills and Deer Park are also fun. Aquafina isn’t.

Yes, I know I’m weird.

Blemishes — physical or behavioral — reassure me. Perfection, however, is creepy.

It’s something we should strive for, but not something anyone should achieve.

We only had a footpath where Oro-Ekpo Road is today. The rest of the road was overrun by weeds, rubbish dumping was rampant, and it wasn’t uncommon to sight a snake  — or soldier ants.

They moved in what looked like an organized line. If you looked closely, you’d find the line was thicker at the center with what I’ll call ‘explorers’ leaving to investigate the surroundings and re-entering when they were done.

If you stepped on something crunchy, chances were high that you’d encountered some. Even worse was when you didn’t know they were there as happened to me once.

We didn’t have a borehole then as we still had a lot of modifications to make to the house, so my brother and I would make the journey to one of the commercial pumps everyone who had one (a borehole) seemed to have. The pumps were in fact, so popular we used to have lines in front of them.

Sometimes we would show up with 8 containers and fill them all up in one go. One person stayed behind to watch over them while the other pushed the rest home in a barrow, four at a time, bringing back the empty cans to rejoin the line.

It was one of those slow days and after making several trips home, it was my turn to wait in line while my brother ‘Chief’ made the journey home. A family with what looked like 50 jerry cans was in the middle of filling them.

I was next in line but as the family didn’t seem like they would be done  soon, I found a log to sit on. I must have been sitting for close to 20 minutes before the last jerry can was filled up.

Halfway up from the log, I got the first bite. I jumped up with a howl.

In the instant I looked back at the log I knew I was in trouble. A very thick line of soldier ants had formed while I was seated and crawled everywhere behind me while I remained motionless, completely unaware of the danger.

Just as my first movement triggered the first bite, my jumping up set off more than ten bites in response. I must have looked funny slapping all over myself, getting bitten again and again with each slap because some people who stood off to the side were doubled over with laughter.

“Take off your clothes!” shouted one girl.

I gave her a look that said, “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t take yours off even if you had scorpions crawling around inside” — or at least I tried to. Another bite interrupted me mid-pose and I screamed.

I took off for home in a sprint, my position in line completely forgotten. As I ran, I hit wherever I got bitten.

The ants seemed to be playing a game with me. Just when I thought I’d gotten the last bite, another ant would give me one more intense than the last.

By the time I got home, I’d pretty much eliminated them all.

Needless to say, I was a lot more careful for some time after that but it wasn’t the last time I had a painful encounter with soldier ants.

It thus came as a surprise when I came across this comment on my faultless article The Jinn by someone called Mememe, here reproduced verbatim:

So many things wrong with this story i dont know wgere to begin. i must say though it is well written however, you have got your facts wrong.

First: human beings cannot see jinns

second: the names: fair enough he is Tuareg and named abdullahi but Harun is used by the Arabs. Tuaregs use Haruna.

Third: people in this region do not Say “by Allah”

Fourth: A muslim cannot pray right after sex without a shower – even in the desert.

Fifth: “Hajiyah” is only used in nigeria. The global word is Hajja.

Sixth: In th Sahara, only the high class and noble have swords. the peasants and commoners only use daggers.

Understandably, I was miffed. What the hell was this! What the hell was this?! Someone dared to find so many faults in my writing!

Let’s cast the sarcasm aside for a bit .

Every time I write something, I love to share it with others — I wouldn’t be blogging otherwise — and I’ve always encouraged everyone to critique my work as ‘brutally’ as possible. Looking back now, I realize no one had ever done that — until Mememe came along.

I thought I was impervious to any faults being pointed out — then again, the only faults readers ever found (or dared to point out) were punctuation errors, misspelled words, incorrect phrasing (or clausing) and the like — but this one hurt like crazy, especially because it showed I hadn’t done any research. I can be very proud — stubborn as well — and I did the writing equivalent of sulking for quite a while.

The date the comment was made was sometime in September 2007. If you’re observant (hint: look at the months listed on my sidebar), you’ll notice I didn’t make any posts after that until January 2008, but before that, I posted every month.

While in Nigeria and going through my work from years and years ago, I wondered where my enthusiasm for writing had gone. Back then, I was either reading or writing — if you look through my secondary school notebooks, you’ll find most of them have been converted into novellas and short story collections. Time was when I couldn’t be far — for survival reasons — from the traditional pen and paper.

I had a lot of time to compare the me from before and my present self. I realized I wasn’t who I used to be, and yes, I wanted to return to the good old days.

I’ve started to write more, and would probably have blogged more (if I’d had better Internet access in Nigeria). Thanks to everyone for reading…

…And thank you, Mememe.

P.S.: Does anyone know where Idemili is?

That was my view of the opposite sex when I was little.

Delicate friends.

They were friends who generally didn’t like to play football — and when they did, they cried every time we ‘played rough.’ The tomboys were the exception — those scary girls you never tried to get into fights with because they would throw the first punch.

I think I interacted a lot more with girls than with guys in the early days. I played a variation of ten-ten:

You may go-ooooo
You may go anywhere you like…
Can’t you see someone like you…
…One — Wolombo
Two — Together…

I jumped rope better than they did — I still can jump through a loop, make the rope go by twice while I’m still in the air, and jump backwards!

With the transition from primary to secondary school, like others, I became more aware of the changes taking place on both sides. It became something of an accomplishment to borrow a pencil from a girl. Your mate carrying on a normal (abnormal to us) conversation with a girl was deemed to be running PG (Private Gist). Should a girl say a simple ‘hello’ to you, your day was made .

During that period, they were in a sense, sacred beings.

This continued for a while — that is, until I noticed other guys were getting along better with them than I was. A fraction of these guys got along much, much better — they were paired with members of the opposite sex.

I had been left behind…

In senior secondary school, I had no idea what came over me. Whatever it was, I’ll call it temporary madness.

The first thing I did was declare myself to be a misogynist. I think that was the first time a lot of my classmates heard that word. Even then, my vocabulary was huge — I got away with callipygian as an example of a five-syllable word in an English class once — but in this case, I didn’t really understand the full meaning of the word.

I avoided anything female like the plague. Very few of them dared to talk to me, and those who did got some biting remark in reply. The rest of the time, I behaved as if they weren’t even there. I think a lot of it came from some conclusion I made after watching my elder brother that if I dwelt too much on girls, I wouldn’t do well in school. Unsurprisingly, I was at the bottom of the class during that period and I only went back to the top after getting friendly with them.

Again, I have no idea how I got cured. I made up somehow, said my his and blended in. As a prefect, rumor had it that I hated girls, but it had more to do with the fact that I found it — and still find it — difficult to treat both sexes unequally. Punishment meted out to erring males was equal to that given to females, and given the physical difference, it was more like giving men’s work to ladies. I digress.

I’m in the university now, and my attitude towards girls as romantic interests is rather apathetic. I’ve had my share of crushes, but if I were to compare with most guys my age, its quite minimal.

I just might be heading towards my childhood where I can only see them as friends, or maybe I’ve been working and studying so hard, there hasn’t really been time to get to know them better.

* I clarified some parts of my post. Insertions are in underline.

I had just witnessed three senior students having an argument about the existence of ‘destiny.’ I wasn’t supposed to be listening, and such philosophical topics usually wouldn’t interest me, but for some reason it got me thinking.

What was the meaning of my existence?

Was every action I’d ever made or were the ones I was going to make in future predetermined?

If everything in my life was already mapped out, then did that mean every choice I’d ever made was part of my script? Was I… in some sort of play?

I think that was when I began to question deeply the existence of many things — God, the Devil, ‘chance’ and many other subjects, some more esoteric, others less.

What is destiny?

I’m still not sure today, and I no longer believe in the classic definition of destiny. About 90% of me has come to believe that that which we call destiny is created with our hands. The other 10% holds on to the more fatalistic view of predetermination.

There’s nothing to do, except hope that if the latter is correct, Whoever-it-was gave me a good role in the script.

As always when I’m at a loss on what to blog about, I go back to the time of my life I feel I can talk about things without putting on too much whitewash — childhood.

It was one of those days in December. Our school was situated at the top of a little hill, making the harmattan colder than it already was. We made less noise and generally huddled together whispering among ourselves — even those of us who could take a caning without crying knew a cane felt different during this season.

“Azuka, what’s that you’re reading?”

“Azuka!”

I looked up. It was my friend Chiedozie.

“Oh, this?” I held the book up. “It’s a novel.”

“I know it’s a novel. Everyone’s revising and you’re here reading a novel — don’t you think you’ll fail?”

Exams were starting that day. The ones whispering among themselves were asking each other questions to gauge their level. Others’ lips moved silently as they memorized definitions and lists.

“Me fail? That’s impossible,” I said haughtily. “I’ve always been first in every subject and in the entire class since I transferred to this school and I will continue to be. I don’t need to read — I’m the best.”

I don’t think I spoke any louder than was necessary for a conversation but apparently, everyone heard because a deathly hush fell on the class. They were all staring at me — cold, angry, accusing eyes that spoke to me of things I didn’t understand.

I looked towards the door. The French teacher stood halfway through, the same look in her eyes. I went cold all over. She only looked that way when she was disappointed at something wrong I’d done. Mom.

Without a word she turned and left. There was this sinking feeling in my stomach — the kind that comes just before you wish the ground would open up and swallow you.

The stubborn side of me refused to let up. Wasn’t I the best? Didn’t everyone say I was? Didn’t I know that myself? What was this grievous sin I had committed that made everyone look at me that way? Well, I would show them. Nothing would change.

We took the exam and the results came back just before school closed. The person with the highest score wasn’t me — I made a 90, and the highest scorer made a 95. I’d been in the same class with my elder brother from Primary 1 and this was the first time he’d ever surpassed me. There couldn’t have been a better way, or a better person, to use to teach me my lesson.

Over dinner that night my father talked with us about the evils of pride.

I learned two things that day — to remember how others feel when I win, and that overconfidence is the biggest symptom of pride. I’ll admit I’ve been proud a few times since then, but the memories of those stares still serve to guide me.

I never want another person to look at me that way again.

PS: I’m not in love! I’ve been very busy, and I might not be able to blog in a long time…

I guess I could put up a lot of excuses, but the long and short of it all is, I want out — for the time being.

I was at school. My aunt hadn’t been getting any work for some months and when she did, it was from clients who kept owing. When a parent from our Port Harcourt group came to visit, I wrote a letter to everyone at home. It was fairly long, and most of what it said has been forgotten, but I still remember the message I sent to Aunty A:

You’re going to get a lot of work. You will work all the time. The offers will only stop when you get tired of the work.

Miraculously, the job offers started to pour in. People came from all places to get work done. She had a pile at home, and another in the office. She worked and worked, and the money couldn’t even be spent because she had no time to do so — until, as I said, she got tired of the excessive work. I don’t know what prompted me to make that statement and I don’t know why it worked but from then on my aunt looked at me with new eyes.

She’s unmarried and unhappy about it. A while ago, she approached me.

“Do you remember the time you said I was going to get plenty of work?” she asked.

“Yes. I was told you worked from morning till night everyday,” I said.

“Can you…” she hesitated. “Can you do the same thing again? Can you make me have a husband by the end of this year?”

I turned to her. I was tempted to say nonchalantly, “I’ll see what I can do about it” but inside, I knew I had no powers. I merely stared at her without saying a word until she walked away. She never asked again…

We were preparing for the inter-house games at Fedacad. Every night the seniors gathered us on the Kantoma courtyard to teach us the ‘malewa’ songs we would chant on the field to the beat of tins to cheer our players on. Those who could play soccer, basketball, badminton or table tennis practiced every evening. Competition was in the air.

I didn’t want to sit there with my rusty Milo tin joining the others in creating a cacophony of sounds. I snuck off with some friends to class — and got caught. While trudging back resignedly to the soccer field, someone asked,”Who do you think will win the match?”

“Purple House,” someone in Red House said.

“Gree-Yell,” someone else in Green House said.

I don’t play soccer — don’t even like to watch it or hear others talk about it — but I piped up suddenly, “None of them is winning the match. It’s going to be a draw.”

The others scoffed. “See Azuka talking. What do you know about soccer?”

“I know what I’m saying,” I insisted. “It’s going to be a draw — 2-2.”

I forgot about everything I’d said and managed to sneak off before the match even started. I was so out of touch with sports that I didn’t find out the outcome until a few days later when Blue House played against Green. I–, one of the guys who asked me the score the last time came looking for Azuka the ‘predictionist’ — if I remember his words correctly.

“What’s the score going to be this time?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

“Just make a guess,” he insisted.

“Well, since you want to know,” I said. “Since you want to know, it’ll be 3-1 in favor of Green house.”

As luck would have it, that’s exactly what happened. I’ve been wary about making predictions since then.

Got any interesting stories to share?