CHINA TORI

I was at the borehole this morning. I had gone back to fetch one more bucket because I suspected someone dipped hand into the last one.

Usually, I like my water uncontaminated, but people of the world will never let a good girl be. They assume you need help with locking the tap; which is not a bad thing. But then, they overdo it. They go on to rinse the top of the bucket for you, reduce the overflowing water by fetching from it with cupped palms, and then lift it and place it by the side. All for you. Who send them?!

Mornings, like today’s, are water mornings, and this meant that I had to deal with a lot of people who are always in a hurry to be somewhere else. I say a lot because filling the big drum in the house took more than five trips to the borehole. I also had to deal with the impatience and the I-come-before-you titles that were constant. I do not loathe these, yeah? But sometimes I forget to prepare to face them.

I’m usually running away from the excited chatter of my roommates that begin immediately their eyes open and after they’ve said their prayers. I usually want some time to reflect and to say my own prayers in reverence and with a complete presence of mind. So, I pick up buckets and walk down to the borehole on days like this.

I got to the borehole for what will be the last time this morning and met a woman whose bowl had taken half of the space. Something in me jerked, and I worried for her. How, in the name of Joe, can she carry a thing that size on her head. I feared that the weight could break something in her body, but it didn’t look like that was a problem for her. See ajebo like me exaggerating things upandan. Who send me?

I responded to her mumbled greeting and looked away. From the corner of my eyes, I noticed that she kept assessing me. She did this up and down thing with her eyes; a quick sweep of me from head to toe, and back, and sighed when a young man arrived the scene. She quickly asked him to help her put the bowl on her head. She even smiled and touched the brother on the shoulder; a very funny attempt at charming him. She did that, and then she eyed me. Ope o! “Who wanted to help you carry that thing before?” I can not imagine me asking my body to bear that kind of weight when it has not even fully woken up. Ha! He helped her and they both went their seperate ways.

I didn’t move. A very weird feeling was beginning to grow inside me. It felt like anger, but it wasn’t. Why are women always like this? Why do they usually find it difficult to relate with fellow women? Why do they consider it weakness to ask another woman for help? Why do they hate being called weak, but are quick to consider a fellow woman incapable? Why are they so quick to judge other women just by their looks? For God’s sake, somebody tell me why women keep bile at the tip of thier tongues; ready to be spat out at a fellow woman at the slightest provocation. “Why are women always like this?”, I asked aloud. The woman standing next to me turned and gave me a stink eye. I blinked. I must have wandered off in my thoughts that I didn’t see her arrive.

I came to and bent down to pick up my bucket. And as if on cue, four girls came and one went straight for my bucket. I slapped her hand, and immediately smiled in apology. “I no send you, aunty”, I told her in my head. I picked up my bucket and walked home wondering how the world will be a better place if women saw past their differences and loved themselves more. I know I would have helped her if she had asked. Forget my “ajeboness”, I would have offered to help, if she made to lift that bowl by herself.