by Nnamdi Jude Atupulazi
Mummy was a teacher. She lived far away from us because the government would not grant her a transfer so she could be with Daddy and us. She lived with two of my younger siblings, while my immediate younger brother (Tonto) and I lived with Daddy and grandma –whom we called Mma (a dialectal variant of mama) – in the village.
Mma was a good cook; she prepared soup for us every Orie market day, and the soup would last four days before another one was prepared. And despite the little ingredients Daddy’s money could afford, Mma always made the soup plenty because Lion, our dog, was also fed. Sometimes, I watched Mma stir the soup pot for a long time in search of big meat, the size of my tiny finger, to put for Daddy. Everybody in my house liked swallow: akpu or garri with soup. But our favourite meal was tea; not because it satisfied us more than swallow –far from it, Mma would still shake in hunger a few hours after having tea—but because tea was rarely taken in our house.
We had tea when Daddy received his salary or when he worked overtime and was paid an extra hundred naira. He would buy Goodwill bread which was sold for forty naira, a tin of Three Crowns milk which was sold for thirty-five naira, and tea bags, usually Lipton; we didn’t know any other tea bag. We always had sugar, ground industrial sugar. Sugar cubes were too expensive just for being different in shape.
Whenever daddy returned from work with a loaf of Goodwill, everybody’s mood was lifted no matter the situation. Even Lion from its chained position would smell the bread and bark excitedly.
Tonto and I didn’t like waking up early in the morning, but tea mornings were always exceptions. Tonto would wake up first and then wake me because I was the person assigned with boiling water for tea. Daddy always complained that water boiled by Tonto tasted smoky. I would wash the black kettle dutifully, and then fill it with clean water. I would make fire and wait for the smoke to disappear before I placed the kettle on the fire. That was my secret of hot water that didn’t taste smoky.
Mma would go inside the parlour and sit on her special chair by the left of the entrance door. Daddy’s chair was almost opposite the entrance door, by the left of the door that led to his room. Tonto and I were free to sit anywhere else. We would wash tea cups and spoons, and arrange them on the low table in the parlour. Daddy and Grandma didn’t use tea cups. They used a big plastic mug and a medium-sized tumbler respectively.
When the water had boiled, I would take the kettle across the compound to the parlour where, under the supervision of Daddy, I poured hot water in each cup on the table. I didn’t like to fill my small tea cup because I wanted the milk to taste more than Lipton. Daddy used a big mug because it was from it that he would feed Lion. Tonto would have been the one to pour the water for Daddy, but he already had a reputation for either dropping the kettle or the cup out of excitement. Daddy called him Ochi biri biri, the impatient one. After pouring the hot water, I would keep the kettle by the door outside and go back inside. I was supposed to take the kettle back to the kitchen of course, but I was usually too excited to do that then. There was always time to take it back later. Daddy called me Ori mgbe o di oku, one who ate when it was hot.
Back in the parlour, Daddy would drop a tea bag inside each of the cups and then proceed to place his own cup on parts of his body that itched. He liked to use the heat to scratch his itching body parts. We would watch him while the tea bags dissolved in the hot water. He would stop after a while and then pull each tea bag out, press them with two spoons to squeeze out the last drops of liquid, and then throw them away through the open door. Lion was usually waiting by the door, smelling the tea and wagging its tail as if to remind us of its presence, but too disciplined to come inside the parlour.
Daddy would open the tin of milk with a knife and proceed to pour the milk in measured quantities into our cups. Placing the milk over each cup, he would pour the milk on a spoon and pour it from the spoon to the cup. He would do that six times for each cup. The remaining milk in the tin which wouldn’t come out easily would be sucked gleefully by Tonto or me, depending on whom Daddy was generous enough to give the tin to.
He would cut the loaf of bread into slices. Sliced bread was not common in the village then, and in any case, we preferred the unsliced type. The biggest slice was for Daddy because he would feed Lion from it. Mma’s slice was second biggest, although not much bigger than Tonto’s or mine. While the cutting was going on, Tonto would cough habitually from time to time –he coughed like that whenever Daddy was making tea. Mma would watch in silence, but I could see in her eyes that she was excited and hungry. When Daddy was done, everybody took their share and the fun would begin.
Daddy was usually the first to finish. He would then go and stand at the parlour door where Lion would be waiting impatiently for his own meal. He would dip big crumbs of bread in his tea and throw them to Lion who would jump and catch the crumbs mid air. Mma was usually the next to finish eating, then me, before Tonto who always took his time when eating.
Tonto and I would wash the tea cups, mug and tumbler. We would place the washed tea cups neatly on a tray on an old National fridge in the parlour. There they would be, unused, until the next tea morning!
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PS: Mma died in November 2001, without ever enjoying proper tea made by her son (my father) because Daddy did not have a good job. But today Daddy is a popular editor, Tonto and I are graduates, the third boy, Chukwuma, is a glass designer, while the only girl –the last child – is in HND I at Federal Polytechnic Oko, Anambra State.
This entry was submitted as part of the Nigerian Voices competition organized by YNaija.com.
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