The children of Adeyipo were so energetic and bold that they kept the company of WILD DOGS! WILD DOGS!!
Yaremi stated that the dogs would rush at them in a playful attack…what exactly is a playful attack??
Life happens to everyone, doesn’t it?
Yaremi never thought that she’d end up a widow. The book stated that she had “no inkling that she was going to join the league of village widows sooner than expected”. There were widows in Kufi village. She always saw them from a distance and pitied them, wondering what it felt like to be in their shoes. She never thought it could be her. The “can’t be me” ideology was very much ingrained in her. Little did she know, that it could be her. It was her.
Yaremi never really conversed with a widow to ask them how they felt, what it was like in their world, what their reality felt like. She never even for a minute asked Dedewe, Fayoyin, or Radeke what pains they went through, what anguish they felt. What grief?
I’m sure if somebody told her she’d be a widow, she’d have cursed the person on the spot. But, there she was, sitting alone at the back of her house pressing a threaded needle into an old quilt. She stitched so meticulously. It brought a smile to her lips. Yaremi was a heavy believer in the adages “what is worth doing at all is worth doing well” and “a stitch in time saves nine”. She valued time so much. Whatever she needed to do, she did well and very quickly. We should all take a page out of Yaremi’s book of principles.
The author stated that life is like a bell, a ringing bell, a whistle, or a ticking clock, waiting for nobody. There was a time for everything. A time to work seriously, a time to relax, a time of bitterness, a time of relief, a time to arrive and a time to depart. All things simply had an appropriate time.
After stitching, she dug a shallow hole in the ground to bury the expendable husks of palm kernel she cracked the day before. She loved working. The joy of what she was doing radiated on her face. She could do 5 different works together without stress – a little bit of this and that and voila! everything is completed. Work had become an antidote – a weapon to fight boredom with a comfortable cushion for all the pressures of daily life.
This didn’t mean that Yaremi did not have time to have a little fun or relax, she did! All work and no play would make Yaremi lose her mind. Yaremi relaxed by communicating with neighbours, observing her environment, and asking harmless questions from nearby people. Ultimately, she engaged Woye in stories about her childhood.
There is immense beauty in storytelling. Yaremi showed this by amusing her grandson with stories. He loved her anecdotes; he would throw his two little hands into the air in ecstasy. By entertaining him, she entertained and excited herself, this helped her fight lonely days.
She told Woye about her childhood at Adeyipo. Children from Adeyipo were pampered, crafty, mischievous, daring and inquisitive. She emphasised how they had adventures; leaping off branches, spinning in circles, dribbling weightlessly in the wind and thereafter crashing in the mud with a THUD!
The children of Adeyipo were so energetic and bold that they kept the company of WILD DOGS! WILD DOGS!! Yaremi stated that the dogs would rush at them in a playful attack…what exactly is a playful attack??. We all know how we are with regular dogs, to talk of wild dogs!! This is to show how bodacious these kids were.
The children of Adeyipo were also really naughty. They’d hide in bushes and throw stones at the water pots of maiden women returning from the river. It always caused them to trip, landing on their behinds. They would also climb the nine hills which separated Adeyipo from the neighbouring villages.
The children of Adeyipo were not like the children of today, who are so polished and social media-oriented. They loved nature. They loved gazing at the sky and getting trapped in it. They played outdoor games like hide and seek, booko-booko (do you know it? I’m sure you don’t….I don’t know it either ), dele-n-dele. Dele-n-dele was a game that took them from house to house, searching for nothing, and leading them to make their way home like blind beggars. They also imitated the steps of dwarfs and tiptoed raising their heads to find who the giant of the village was.
They played a series of games. Games that in this time would be considered weird; games that would possibly never make sense to this generation. Outrageous games! Wild games! Dangerous games!
…games that I low-key want to play.
Click here to read Chapter 3 Summary of Lonely Days.
