Entry 27

WHEN FISH JUMP

I hate the rain- I hate the rain- I hate the rain- I hate the rain (I hate the season), I hate the rain! Buh, I hate the freaking rain!!

In movies, the guy and the lady might walk under the rain, sing love songs while looking into each others eyes and tra-la-la; it would seem oh so romantic but, really, try that in 9ja na?
Not only would you catch a bloody cold, your 10,000 Naira and above ‘Brazilian’ hair would be gone in the wind! This is not including the time and energy that would be spent on doing the extra laundry or the ruined leather shoes that weren’t water repellent!
I wasn’t such an anti-rain person until the storm settled above my roof and brought along with it horrible evil clouds. It looked through the list of all the citizens of earth and decided to send thunder and lightning to the household of my friend Ivy.
My beloved friend Ivy!!
She is in pain, she is hurting.
I am at loss for what to do.
I have thought of almost every and anything to do to cheer her up but, none is working. Each attempt only leaves me feeling powerless, useless… weak.
How do you cheer up a soul that has lost its will to live?

A while back, I was saying how much fun weddings were, how it brought me Stanley and all; the joy and the hopes, the dreams, magic and miracle of two people finding themselves and making that solemn promise: “till death do us part”.
How was I to know that Ivy would never attend another wedding without tears in her eyes? Petunia, Ivy’s elder sister that had crazily put off having a ‘white’ wedding until after she had a first baby, the same petunia that threatened to sue the doctor for confirming her pregnant then going ahead to tell her the sex of the child [she said he ruined her surprise] .
The very same person!
She was planning a wedding for late august, three months after the baby was due.


I keep asking; why wasn’t the wedding done last year after the native law just like normal people would do? I can’t explain how or if that would change anything. What I know is that Ivy is inconsolable, Petunia’s husband is devastated and her parents…

Funny, daring, ‘evil’, crazy, amazing Petunia! Petunia who gave herself various traditional names from Dumebi, Omozele, Omawumi, Ekene to Aisha and even Chi-chi! [She did it to spite her parents for naming her after a flower]
Petunia.
She was the life of the party, eager to please more so to help. Just like that, sweet kind petunia is dead.
Here today, gone tomorrow.
She had malaria, everybody has malaria right? I mean, I have malaria at least twice a year or more. Yet no one can bear witness me writing tabs from the ‘great beyond’.
Why her? Why malaria? Why Petunia?

I can’t cry, I badly want to do that, but I can’t; I have to be strong. Ivy needs a friend to lean on, Ivy needs me.
Bad enough that the morning of the same ill fated day, results for the session were released and it so happened that I had done badly in not 1, 2 but 3 core courses.
Weighing 4 credits each, I had an ‘E’ in two of them and the 3rd was a missing result. I was biting my nails and brooding when Ivy burst into my room howling like a baby.
It’s raining again, buh, I so hate the rain!
So far, I have learned that malaria kills between 1-3 million people each year and it is spread by the female anopheles mosquitoes. Although it is a sickness associated with poverty it very well may be the cause of poverty! Imagine our future leaders and brains dying at the age of 10 who where lies the nations hope?
Aside from cerebral malaria killing younger children within 8- 48 hours, if left untreated it can cause anemia coma and ultimately… death.

Petunia is dead.

The intensity of rain has increased, at this moment I need to be with Ivy; I tried convincing her to go home but she refused. She insists on staying in school to read her books.
I am afraid for her.
When she feels I am not watching she stares into space while tears run freely down her cheeks.
Imagine losing a sister and an unborn niece at the same time.
Petunia had a brief illness, don’t we all?
She was complaining about the regular malaria symptoms (fever, shivering, joint pain etc) but after a couple of days she felt better and decided to make a dash to her mother in-laws place to discuss about the wedding caters (besides she was missing the old lady and was itching to see her).
Early that morning, she began her journey to the woman's place of residence.
All through the 4 hour trip, she felt well and fit (Her husband had instructed his driver to turn the car around and bring her home if his wife should let out even a little sneeze).
It was later that night after calling him and her parents to say that she had arrived safely that she began convulsing and throwing up.
Each time she came up for air, she screamed; “help my baby!”
She was rushed to the hospital and placed on I. V.

She died that night.


The stupid rain wouldn’t stop falling! I am sure all the mosquitoes are busy doing 'the bunny hop' and breeding waiting for their next victim to attack.
I want do hit somebody, I want to hit something, badly!!
Who am I to blame?

- Tabby