“Nne, hope you’re not forgetting anything?”
“No sir!” 19 year-old me replied my father excitedly.
“When will you people finish? I’ll see if we can come and pick you after work” he added.
“Toh! Shebi the last time when I called, you said you were still at Iriebe” I teased lightly, watching my father’s face light up.
Daddy like most fathers of five his age, had over the years grown accustomed to our light taunts. I loved my father dearly but in that moment, I wanted more than anything he leave me to my devices. A quick wave and an ‘I’ll find my way’ later, I was.
**********
Entrance exams had been tough the second time around but I’d made it. University of Port Harcourt.
It was going to be good. A fresh start somewhere no one knew me or my history. Here, I was going to change so many things. Re-invent myself if you will. No longer was I to be known as ‘that Ebube’. The one who couldn’t read or write. Here I’ll meet a boy, whom like me understood why it is called ‘ the one great love’. I would make friends who loved me as much as I them and together, we’d go on this unimaginably wild adventure. And finally I’d get a degree and then a job that’ll force my mother to give me the same independence my elder sisters had. That was the plan. Or so I thought as I took a deep breath.
***********
Looking up at the pink and grey structure that was the Uniport Arts Theatre, I knew then for certain I stood where I was meant to be all along.
A spacious veranda. Box office to the right, and a carved idol of Ola Rotimi hanging off the double mahogany doors that housed the theatre space. It was early and so I was the only one save for the chirping birds. As a girl whose only knowledge exotic places within the city she’d grown up in, was the PHC Zoo. Standing there surrounded by all that ‘The Crab’ was famed to be. The history and importance of a place like it. It was surreal to me.
I had bent over to wipe an errant blade of grass off of my new sandals when they had walked in.
A company of five. Three girls. Two boys.
The first boy tall and dark skinned, noticed me first. He had a peach towel hanging off his shoulders and a thin necklace made of wiry fabric and colored cowries nestled against his white Tee
“Are you a student?” he asked drawing closer.
Silence.
“They’ve moved the class o. Its at MBA1 now and that’s where we’re going” He continued undeterred by my lack of response.
“Maybe she’s not in this department” the second boy uttered from behind the tall one. I was used to that. People talking about me as though I were not present. Invisible. This place was going to change that. I wanted this. Wanted people. Yet why then did I fell like bolting out the door even though I had no idea what an ‘MBA1’ was.
“I’m in this department”
I heard myself mutter shakily. Their backs had turned towards the door and I’d panicked.
They were an odd bunch. The tall boy’ necklaces was the ugliest I’d ever seen in my life . Yet the same adorned the neck of one of the girls. Something about them had me fixed. In joggers and leg warmers of the weirdest sort, this bunch looked like chaos and disaster came together and had a children. A complete opposite of the prim and proper I was used to. But they were fabulous.
“can’t you talk?” the tall one asked again. He leaned closer and I could smell the heavily laid musk on him. Whatever he had tried to cover needed a much stronger scent. Within I laughed that the ridiculous nature of his question.
Oh I can talk. Its just sometimes when I’m with a group or groups of unfamiliar characters, I get nervous and blubber. My palms begin to sweat and my heart races faster. Running at a thousand speed, I’d feel my mind trying making sure that I said nothing that would turn then off me and then its back to the four lonely walls of my bedroom. In that moment I could see it all. My life for the next four years if they’d simply walked away. Class to house. House to class and the cycle would just repeat itself throughout the semester. What would become of my adventures? The girlfriend experience I’d longed for. My clique?
I thought panic beginning to set in. I could feel it all disappear. I knew I had to say something if campus was going to be different from the primary through senior school spent in silence. I had to be normal.
Take me with you” I yelled at their turned backs.
“I don’t know where it is. MBA1 that is” I replied the curious group whose backs where filing out the door
The tall one paused and spoke again. This time he asked
What’s your name?”
“Ebube” I replied shyly.
“Ebubedike!” He thundered and the group laughed.
**********
At 25 I still don’t get why people find that funny. I tell them my name is Ebube and they’d turn it to another for their own amusement. Followed by the predictable
“Ebube? Is that not a boys name?” a girl asked.
Fun fact, if I meet 10 persons and told them my name is Ebube. 7 out of will ask me this very question. It had seemed all crazy at first. Everyone did it. The visitors that came on Sunday afternoons, new teachers. The students were a different class on their own. In primary school I’d been ‘Egusi’ for a whole term. So therefore that is why I chose to see it as a gender fluid name. And so in a manner characteristic of me, I took a deep breath and launched into the little speech I’d made handy over the years
“Its unisex. Meaning it can be used for both boy and girl. It is no more masculine than it is feminine. With my name there’s no gender, just the me” I finished my rant so sure of the power of a well placed speech.
But for a minute nothing was said. The ladies stared daggers while the boys beamed with amusement. It was ok if I entertained so long as they understood that my name was what it was. therefore there should be no changing, twisting or abbreviation of it without my say so. Primary school was not happening again. Here I would be addressed simply by the name I chose. No more to it.
“Eh, it doesn’t fit such a fine girl like you na!’ Ebube! What kind of name is that. What’s your English name?
Deborah? I muttered under my breath and that’s when he said
“Debbi! We’ll call you Debbi!”
And like that ‘Debbi’ was born.
And I have to say, she’s not so bad.
In the six years we’ve spent chasing a four year degree. She has stayed true to its origins.
What is your nickname and how did you get it?
