As a neighbour who identifies as feminist, I am torn between behaving like a well-bred woman and maintaining a distant civility in this rather unglamorous estate. The houses are not too close to be regarded as communal yet not too far apart you can’t miss episode fourteen of your neighbour’s nightly gossip about their bow-legged boss. I have memorized the weight of footsteps of the loner in flat 5, decoded the silence of the couple of flat 7 to mean a dirty fight will explode well into the night. Whenever I stumble into my good-natured neighbour – an old lady forever draped in elegant Ankara – my brain shuts down. Should I nod? Or curtsey? Or kuku walk, neck straight, right past her flowing bubu? Last time, I muttered one nonsense and moved. All these things should not be disturbing an adult with bills to pay, I know, but when you come from a place where something as petty as forgetting to add “ma” invites a panel of stiff-faced, heavily gele-d senior aunties on your matter, your brain never recovers. See, I’ve learnt to swallow “nos” for sweet sounding ”yeses,” bend my aching knees at the sight of grey and scratch off a well-deserved middle finger as a result of “home training.” So even at the big age of thirty with two master’s degrees and one hundred and thirty-two followers on Facebook, I still carry a low-grade anxiety around older women that never quite dissolved. The thing is, they can be wonderful, those women. There’s Aunty Nana – the first woman I ever saw with two nose piercings – who never gave a flying coconut about family meetings and Christmas messages yet somehow knew all her nieces by name and sent money without fail. A legend. But Nigerian aunties are experts at turning your head. Get too close and suddenly you’re being matchmade with some freckled nephew with a good heart and a good job: just meet him, no pressure. Too far away and you miss out on all the estate tea, the warmth and unexpected “oya take this one” scrunched into your palm. Tomorrow, I might bump into the old lady and I’ll buckle my knees. Not to kneel. But to hold the weight of myself when I open my mouth to greet – with words this time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Eze Joseph on Unsplash