Merriam Webster English Dictionary defines ‘Daughter’ as; a female offspring born of human parents. But at what point do we become more than just our mother’s daughters.
I knew early enough that the world I lived in, is one where everything had to have a label. A tag for easy identification and classification. You had to belong somewhere or else you do not exist. At 12 I knew my labels to be daughter, sister, friend and classmate. However as 13 rolled around this surety of mine became murky. Now I was slowly turning in more ways than one, female. But puberty came and changed it all.
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“ Stop this thing you’re doing! You know its not fair. You can’t tease a man this way and say bye-bye just like that! See I’m coming to pick you this evening. We’ll go somewhere that has all the little things I know you like, hmm! What’d you say?”
“Ok? But what of my mother?” I asked hesitantly. Genuinely curious as to how he intended on solving the one problem, I with all my wisdom could not. The silence that ensued was the only answer I needed. This was to be the first time my mother would come between me and plans with a paramour. And till date not the last.
“Stay away from boys!” My mother would often advise between pounding and slicing.
However as the saying goes; this ear in, the other out. For I had not just gone to the boys, I’d run towards them as much as my feelings would allow. Thoughts, passion and all. The more I was told to stay away from this other “gender”, the more I wanted to understand what was so dangerous. About they whom on some days felt like comrades and on others, the very bane of my existence. 14 said it was no longer deemed proper of me to laugh heartily from the gut, because I’d found what he said truly humorous. Now I have to keep all focus on my self, speech and most of all my skirts. The advent of my periods had caused an explicable change in the rules of social engagements. I was now a daughter labelled by how long her hands lingered on his sleeves. Whilst with my brothers, cousins and other male relatives, there existed no such barriers. I could talk about anything and everything and be seen as no more than ‘Ebu’. I was to be myself at home and another in public. However now grown, I’ve come to realize that my curiosities about boys were more a fascination than it was love.
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It was a Thursday noon like any other. I’d just come back from school when my mother left for the market. Leaving me in charge of the little-big pharmacy she owned. Situated with a view to the street, the shop was never a fancy one. There was no green and white ‘Rx’ signage like the ones that adorned other name pharmacies. Smaller on the inside, the little shop over time evolved from Paracetamols and Epson Salt, to Rice, Soft Drinks and Pampers. Save for perishables and alcohol, the woman sold everything. Opened at 7 am and closed at 10 pm. Monday through to Saturday. Sundays were the Lords’, so it was opened right after church. It had been small but, I remember it being there all my childhood. The timeworn white structure adjacent to the gate which had been my undoing that day.
Bang!!
Came the giant iron gates that served as both security and bell. Starting from the backyard where I’d been washing my uniforms, I flung an impertinent “I’m coming o!” to the persistent customer.
In those days, we all knew to stay prepared for a customer at all times. So this intrusion was familiar.
“Who dey here eh! I wan buy something” The customer called as I rinsed the soap off of my hands. If you asked my mother she’d tell you customer service is a concept that goes thus; however ugly your day gets, when you step in front a customer the first thing one should say is
“Good afternoon Oga. Wetin you wan buy!”
“Eh heh! Nurse nko! Wey your mama? She no dey?” The harried customer enquired of me. Looking beyond my shoulders for signs of my mother. That’s how you know that a customers order is sensitive and personal. Labelled ‘grown up people matter’. Whatever it was, seemed like something the man standing across from me would’ve preferred talking about with my mother. Instead of her 14-year-old daughter.
With curt response I told him about my mother’s whereabouts and with bated breath I waited for his reply.
Which came after a minute of silence and indecision. With a whisper he asked
“Una get Gold Circle? Shey you sabi am?!”
Of course I knew what it was. It was the 50 naira product that hung off of my mother’s ‘Do-Not-Touch’ shelve. And came wrapped in the most alluring maroon box which had the words ‘4 latex condoms’ circled boldly in gold. On both sides. That was all I was allowed to know.
I sold the condoms and gave the appropriate change. The man left and so had I when the thought came. A phrase so clear yet uttered, only in the recesses of my mind — Open one.
At first I was confused. In theory I knew what condoms were and what they were used for. I’d culled a good guess from books, and the pitiful sex education my male health ed. teacher had tried to give. Yet until that moment I’d not seen or held the tensed rubber in my hands. I’d heard that they were shaped like balloons and prevented babies yet, the more I looked at the condoms I thought about how different they’d looked and felt. Sporting a capped tip that had only reminded me of my baby cousin’s teether, it’d been slippery and covered in what I now know is not Vaseline.
Curiosity satisfied, my condoms and I now had a disposal problem. So certain that my mother being a traditional one would sense my crime, I hid the evidence. But a few days later she found the wrappings tucked under my collectibles carton, and all hell broke loose. Having to convince my mother that the unwrapped condoms had been used for educational purposes only, was a battle I saw solely as the cost of knowledge. That night I got my first real lesson on sex, boys and everything else. Naturally, my mother had focused on don’t do it or else part, but at the end I got the gist. Nasty business. Baby maker. Stay away. And that was to be the end of it. Until one day during our many fights, my sister would tell my mother I’d muttered the named “Junior” in my sleep.
What is your sex education story?
