The 'Osomaalo' in Me

I was doing some kitchen chores when I heard some noise from the street. This was quite unusual but I chose to ignore the urge to peep from  the balcony - a convenient spot to do my 'tatafo' without being noticed. As the voices got louder, I listened carefully to make some meaning out of the words I could filter. Easier than expected, I could hear my neighbour trying to drown her creditor's voice in hers as both of them screamed on top of their voices

'Mama N, abeg leave tori and pay me my money right NOW' the creditor demanded. It was easy to make out her Igbo accent.

I could hear Mama N's voice too but couldn't make out her part of the argument.

I started to laugh.

You know that wicked grin/chuckle type of laughter ( I am still laughing as I type right now). I stepped out to the balcony, not to see what was happening but to laugh to the fullest. It was thesame kind of laughter hubby laughed when I told him that I had lent Mama N some money and she promised to pay me back the next day.

Mama N is a petty trader and her shop is located very close to one of the gates of our compound. I often buy goods from her, so when she came rushing to me one Sunday evening that she urgently needed some money to balance her suppliers, I innocently borrowed her (even though I was almost broke at the time)

Hubby told to me to forget my money. He narrated how when he moved in a few years back, he met an 'aboki' causing a scene while trying to get some money that Mama N owed him. He described the scene as very dramatic such that when a few days later, he met thesame aboki still on thesame matter, he had concluded that the woman must be a tough nut to crack. Once again, he told me not to ask her for the money to avoid unnecesary embarrassment.

I struggled very hard to let go but I wanted to follow peace and also honour hubby. On the other hand, I didn't want  to give the impression that we had money growing in trees or have any bias towards her. I decided to be God's girl and the good wife and let go....

..Until Mama N started avoiding me. This was the same person I always greeted each time I returned from work. Someone I kept buying things from out of solidarity even when I knew her goods are almost always overpriced. The days when she unavoidably ran into me, it was always a story of how she almost got killed by malaria or she just returned from a burial in the village or how the children didn't go to school. Yet she opened her shop everyday and restocked regularly.

I never asked her for the money and I didn't stop buying things from her but she kept avoiding me to the point that she always disappeared whenever I got back from work or stopped by to buy things from her.

So I got angry!

As if it was not enough losing my money, losing a relationship because I am trying to be good? No no!

Now, I sincerely dont believe in stereotypes. I always advocate that we should look beyond tribes, religion and other dividing factors and relate with people based on personal interactions with others.

This time though, the character that came out of me was that of a proper Ijesha man - Osomaalo* ( see PS).

I gave it time, made her very comfortable by never asking for my money, asking after the children's welfare and buying from her regularly and we all forgot about the money or so she thought until that beautiful day. I walked to her shop and picked out items almost up to the tune of what she owed me, checked my intentionally emptied wallet and told her 'later'. The rest is history..

No hitches, no noise, no embarrassment. Now we are good friends, she doesn't avoid me and I got my money back! Though I now know that next time she asks for a loan, (if she ever does) I am giving to charity.

Back to present day, to think that a whole aboki and her fellow Ibo woman couldnt get their money back even with all the noise and drama, yet this pincholo got hers without any noise made me laugh so hard.

So I am 'Osomaalo' indeed.

PS: Ancient Ijesha people were known to be hardworking business  men and women who never joked with their debtors. People of other tribes sarcastically named them 'Osomaalo' because of the funny way they would say to their debtors in Ijesha dialect "Oso maa lo ti ma e gbowo mi lowo re" ( I will squat here until I get my money from you) Well that's the version of the Osomaalo that was told to me.