Broadcasters
Before I, Uche, left for ‘ugwu Hausa’, my mum quietly packed two hijabs inside my luggage. When I got to Kebbi, it was not easy at first. The weather was harsh. The dry air, the coughing from natives, especially in public vehicles almost would make me throw up, like everything felt strange. But I knew I would be there for a year, so I decided to blend. I stopped feeling irritated, stopped complaining, got me some nose-masks to help with journeys.
Sometimes I would walk out of Chikingari to sit at Mohammed’s shop at Kalgo bus stop, where he sold minerals, ‘kankara’ and ‘suya’. We would gist, but he smiled most of the time, for lack of understanding my ‘Turanci’, and I would carry on speaking in the nonsense trying out the small Hausa words I was learning. I began using my short hijabs. I realized that in the North, some Christians like Muslims wore hijabs, not about religion.
Even at my PPA, they observed my character and how I didn’t discriminate. Before long, the same Hausa people helped arrange paid accommodation for me away from the corpers’ lodge at Gidan Kofa, a place mainly for those teaching in the government ‘makaranta’.
During fasting periods like this, I would even remind them when it was time for prayers. They would wonder what kind of human being I am, after laughing out loud. They knew I am a Christian, yet when they shared ‘kosai’ and maybe ‘dankali’ after breaking fast, they always sent my own to the office.
Some teenage girls came to the station giggling and calling me “Anti”, because that was about all they knew in Turanci. And jointly gifted me a full hijab, one that covered me from head to toe I wore it! You think I wouldn’t? Tah I was loved there. The love of God exuded from me, to light up every life that came my way. At some point, a ruler’s wife sent for me in Birnin Kebbi. She is ‘hajia’ so I was led to her inner room where I saw her face. She told me she had heard good things about me and made me promise that whenever I return to Kebbi, I must come and see her. That door of relationship is open for life.
So when I now see people reacting with tribal sentiment over a relationship heartbreak from five years ago and asking why I would even consider a Yoruba man, it really disappointed me. May tribe and religion never be the end of us in this country.
I rest my pen
