February 3, 2024 NewsOrient
Books & Arts
By Dapo Thomas

Immediately Iya Ibadan delivered her homily on: “The GOD WHO sees but cannot be seen”, I was never myself again. The message was too strong for my fragile conscience.

Her messages, usually coded and garnished with fables, were like a javelin in the heart of the lion. It was strange that despite my rascality and annoying tantrums for years, Iya Ibadan never slapped or beat me at all. Others targeted my body, she targeted my conscience.

The fact that she still gave me food when we broke the fast that day was a spiritual torture for me as I honestly asked myself: “Dapo, which fast are you breaking after being caught eating sweet potatoes at 3pm.”

Let me also make a confession here. I was the only one who knew that for all the years I claimed to be fasting, I never did for a single day.

Whether it was in school or at home, I was always sorting out myself with some edibles. I was doing this for two reasons: First, at my age, what sin have I committed that I had to stay away from food for almost 14 hours. Who did I offend? So, I was ‘tying’ my fast regularly with sumptuous snacks. Nobody should come and kill me with regulated starvation. Salvation of the soul is for the adults not a 10 year-old “innocent” boy.

Second reason was that GOD is too busy looking for the wicked than to be monitoring a small boy eating sweet potatoes after eating “Sari”.

I therefore enjoyed every meal that came my way here and there at any time for as long as Iya Ibadan didn’t see me. The Ramadan period was for me, a season of enjoyment.

The following day after her homily, my great-grandmother woke me up again to come and eat “Sari” not minding the previous day “sweet potato” episode. Not sure whether I would repent or not, I still went ahead to eat the meal with untroubled satisfaction.

It was a good meal. At that time, every meal was good to me. As I was eating the food, I saw that Iya Ibadan was smiling. At some point, she asked me if I wanted more. I said yes. I can’t recollect rejecting any food offer in my childhood days.

My tummy was like a storage facility for wide range of food items. I had no food restrictions or any dietary condition. Every food was food for me. My only taboo was the sacrifice for the gods of junctions and crossroads.

I had some friends at that time who were fond of scavenging eggs soaked in oil and placed inside calabash early in the morning at the crossroads of Onitana Street and Iyun Road.

I didn’t take my own rascality to the level of sharing food with “Orisa”. I didn’t want any “Orisa” to be disturbing my sleep with “Ba mi gbe ounje mi” (Where is my food?) in the middle of the night.

Having loaded my tummy with lafun and ẹfọ gbure around 5am, all in the name of “Sari”, I contemplated completing the fast for that day without any culinary padding in school or at home since Iya Ibadan said that GOD would see me if I ate anything.

All I needed to do was to plan my strategy on how to overcome all the temptations on the way to school. The first thing I did was to avoid going to the toilet before leaving home. I discovered that using the toilet in the morning would have taken half of the food I ate during “Sari”.

Therefore, my plan was to ignore any “restroom pressure” till I got to school. It worked. I didn’t visit the toilet till I left for school. I conquered the first temptation. The second temptation was “Baba Mori ” (short version of Moriamo). He was my favourite food vendor. He was the one selling “Ọdunkun” (sweet potatoes.)

Interestingly, I didn’t even know the English name until after my primary school. Myself and Baba Mori had an arrangement. I would come early in the morning around 7. I would go to his house in Idẹra Street to bring the two trays of “ọdunkun” that he would sell for the day. Mori was a small girl of about 3 years. The wife was always with Mori. She sold groceries in front of their house. I would drop my bag and go to his house two times to bring the “ọdunkun”. My reward was in kind. Sometimes 3 or 4 tubers of sweet potato. He was the second temptation on my way to school.

His own was easy to overcome. The strategy was to delay my going to school which was what I did. When I passed his stall, he saw me but he couldn’t call me to go and carry any tray at 9am. I reluctantly greeted him and moved on.

The third temperation was the most difficult one – Iya eleja dindin. I had never missed it for one day since I enrolled in Salvation Army Primary school, Iyun Road.

The fish crumbs had become my companion for four to five years at a stretch. If the Mama was not sure of any other customer, she was sure of Dapo Thomas stopping in front of her house to buy fish crumbs.

But on this particular day, she saw me approaching the gate and not her house. She now shouted: “Pele, omo mi. Kilode to pe loni?” She wanted to know why I was late not knowing that she was one of the temptations I was trying to avoid because of my fasting.

Anyway, I greeted her and entered the school premises with euphoric conquest. I was excited that I didn’t eat anything after the “Sari” nor did I have any food to eat or drink in my bag or inside my pocket.

Mr Isiaka Olaoye was worried that he had not seen me in school as at 9:30am. He was the one who didn’t allow my class teacher to beat me for coming late. He lied that he sent me on an errand.

We had two lessons before our short break at 10:30. By this time, the tempo of the “restroom pressure” had increased intolerably. I was still forcing myself away from the toilet in order not to empty my bowels when I still had a long way to go. It was just around 11am. But in order to avoid a more serious embarrassment of “conflagrating” the classroom with polluted emissions, I bowed to “decongestion theory” by visiting the restroom with dignifying urgency.

So, while others were coming from eating snacks, I was returning from “Restroom Lodge” to dislodge my “sari” intake from the “warehouse”.

Between the short break and the long break, we had two more lessons. Finally, it was time for the last lesson of the day. I was so happy that, at last, I had survived all school temptations. We were 15 minutes into the lesson when Abayomi Jìnádù’s Mummy came into the class with some bags full of biscuits and sweets. It was Abayomi’s birthday. The class came to an abrupt end because the sharing of the snacks had to be done before closing to prevent external invaders.

As they started sharing, I was just thanking my star that I had not told anyone that I was fasting. I couldn’t really say what would have happened if Abayomi’s Mummy had not entered the class with the snacks.

Before she came, precisely 40 minutes after coming back from the restroom, my eyes had started turning.

Between 9:30 am and 1:45pm, a time space of 4 hours, 15 minutes, I have gone downstairs more than seven times to check the clock in the staff room pretending as if I had come to greet Mr Adeoye.

I was just wondering how many times I would do that before 7pm when the fasting would come to an end.

Since I joined the class by 9:30, I couldn’t even concentrate on what I was being taught because I was just thinking about the long hours before 7pm. Ordinarily, on normal days, I didn’t use to concentrate in class. How could I now concentrate when I was made to fast?

At a stage, I thought we had started doing French whereas it was Civics. Human beings had started appearing as trees before my eyes. It was that bad.

They shared the biscuits and the assorted sweets. Abayomi’s daddy was a pioneer staff of Cadbury. Little surprise that most of the biscuits and sweets used for the birthday were Cadbury products like
Fingers, Family Assorted biscuits, Cadbury cookies, Milk Wafer, Chocolate biscuits, Dipped flake, Treets, Roasted Almond, Aztec, Fruit and nut, Milk Tray, Bar six, Rumba etc. I am still looking for the child that would resist these snacks because of fasting.

This did not in anyway suggest that every birthday was like this. People like us whose parents worked for government used to celebrate our birthdays with Cabin biscuits, goody goody, Balewa or “oyin ata”, “Ekanna Gowon”, Bonus, Baba dudu, fox, cabin chewing gum, Trebor, etc.

When I collected my own birthday package, I had to stay back in the class to decide what to do to all the stuff I was given because of the GOD that Iya Ibadan said was looking at me.

One thing was clear, however, I had made up my mind to discontinue with the fasting. I cannot come and die jare. I couldn’t imagine myself going around everyday asking people “E jo kini ago wí” (please what’s the time?) for almost 20 times in a day simply because I was fasting. I couldn’t imagine myself engaging in restroom pressure management so that the “Sari” I ate could be retained till 7pm.

How could I cope for one month without eating “Ọdunkun?” How could I live without eating fish crumbs for one month? How could I concentrate in class when more than half of my attention had been diverted to fasting and its toll on me.

Why should I indulge in deceptive existence with an old woman who sacrificed her sleeping hours for my sake by waking up as early as 3am to cook for her great-grandson who would still end up breaking his fast before 12 noon.

I appreciate the cultural responsibility of the Moslem parents to stimulate in the child a kind of spirituality that would expose him to the tenets of Islam early in life. But this shouldn’t come via regimented adherence. It was evident all through that the fasting which should be executed with self-will and self-discipline was being forced and propelled by fear and sheer impressionism.

Though I admit, that Iya Ibadan did what a parent should do when she caught me eating sweet potatoes when I should still be observing the fast, the evocation of the name of GOD made the act look like a sin rather than individual weakness.

For a child, the delineation between physical weakness and spiritual disobedience should be made clear. Unfortunately, in this instance, the perception of sin was too strong for a child who was yet to comprehend the spiritual significance of fasting.

In a nutshell, I felt that I needed to eat at this point not out of greed but as a matter of necessity if I had to survive. My body had lost its contents of warfare. There was hunger. There was dehydration. There was exhaustion.

The manner with which I devoured the biscuits and the sweets was the only testimony I had for my survival desperation.

Now, I had to find a way to present my case to GOD, knowing that HE had seen me going by Iya Ibadan’s philosophy. It was a very simple presentation that came in form of a very common Yoruba song that has no English version. We used to sing it during our morning assembly:

“JESU fẹràn awọn ọmọde
O gbe wón s’èsè ri
O gbe wọn mọra
O wipe e e
E jẹ kí wọn w’ọdọ mi.”

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Dr Dapo Thomas’ From Primary To Tertiary, Here Is My Diary’ Is Serialized Here Weekly, Every Saturday

~ NewsOrient