Chizoba was it? Maybe Chibuzo. My first experience with love, like most humans, would be with receiving love and care from my parents, the elders in my family then my siblings. But that is expected, it is the way humans are. My first experience with love in a way that was visceral would be when I was 6. The northern architecture is beautiful, so much so that you must experience it to understand. Homes are built in ways you instinctively know that the builders did so with love. We lived in one of such homes in Kaduna. And there were a lot of children in the gated community where we lived called G.R.A somewhere in Narayi, Barnawa. It was, I think, an upscale area. The individual homes were divided with barbed wires, and children of different parents played with each other.
The home near mine had adults – older kids actually, some in University, some in secondary school. At 6 years though older kids in secondary school were adults. As a child I had funny ideas. Anyone I was taller than, was younger than me, and everyone who spoke Igbo was Christian and anyone who did not speak Igbo was Muslim: it did not matter to the child me if you spoke Efik, Ibibio or Yoruba, if you did not have Igbo as your language you were Muslim. I was 6 when I had this worldview. Being an eldest child, my siblings were shorter than me and my igbo speaking family was christian, hence the assumptions.
This is about Chibuzo. Chibuzo meant the world to me. For the life of me, I do not recall what Chibuzo looks like at all, but I remember she was the first adult who treated me respectfully and so I loved her a great deal. Chibuzo’s parents lived in a house across from my compound. When my parents went to work, we stayed with their family, playing with the kids around our age in the locale and we always had homework from school.
Chibuzo helped with my after school work. All I remember is her kindness and never raised voice. And then one time I lied. I was supposed to go to her home for after school lessons but I was more interested in climbing trees and playing with my siblings. So when my parents asked why I did not go to the lesson, I said she caught a cold and I did not want to get it from her. It was a harmless lie.She didn’t catch a cold and she heard of the lie, she was disappointed, and that made me very sad. I realize now as an adult that I loved this person fiercely. I do not care to impress people, so people’s opinion rarely matter to me, except when I am emotionally invested in someone. And her disappointment saddened me. So I barely tell lies. It doesn’t matter why. Some half truths though.
I lived in the North, and the timely call to prayer from the mosque over the hill at Narayi was our wake up call at home. It was also the call for me to start and finish my chores in a hurry before my parents got back. But every evening we spent at Chibuzo home, we were allowed a free pass, no chores. The child me loved that.
Chibuzo would sit with me in the dinning of her parents home and go through my class work and homework. Perhaps she exposed me to books. I read a voracious lot as a child. I was reading everything. But she allowed me to play. Her brother had a game set, sega I think, and I played super mario every afternoon with him after doing my studies and eating lunch.
Perhaps what I call love is kindness. We moved to Narayi when I was 7. I do not remember what Chibuzo looks like at all. I do not remember meeting her after we moved. It is a shame I do not remember her name exactly. It could have been Chizoba.
