Stumbled on this hilarious post on Facebook and decided to share. It was written by a newly wed Lagos bride who happens to be a very good friend of mine – Ayo Folabade-Babalola :).
Enjoy!
“Meanwhile, A Lagos Wife”
Dear friends, You all are aware now how I find writing a
soothing balm and an elixir. Well, I have decided that in order to put
this to judicious use, I’ll start a new series with the above title.
It
is going to be real and fictitious, and you can choose what to believe
and what to discard. I abhor plagiarism, and in my two decades plus of
voracious reading, I have never stolen another person’s piece of work. I
won’t copyright this (just yet), but I expect everyone to behave and
just read through for fun.
I can take criticisms, and I can respond to
them too, just in case someone here feels too verbose and
knowitallish. Enough on the intro already; let’s roll.Yours Poshly, Lagos
Wife.………………..
Before I even met my husband, I had always worried about
where we would begin our new home.
Of course I knew there was a
likelihood I would be living in Lagos, but I didn’t want anywhere near
Northern Nigeria (for obvious reasons). I fasted and prayed on all
thirty-seven prayer points I had been given by my firebrand youth
pastor. God apparently answered is why I am a Lagos wife today.
The
reasons why I continually bothered my head about this were numerous;
first, I wanted a town as civilized as possible, but not over-urbanized.
I didn’t want my kids growing up to think yams were plucked and eggs
were harvested from stalks.
Again, I didn’t want a place where we would
be so retro that we would come to a civilized place one day and everyone
we encounter would peer at us like we just arrived from 1904. I had
spent all my childhood, teenage and early adult years in the north and
was ready to explore so I intensified my prayers.
I should have prayed
for other things, but at that time all I wanted was a God-fearing, good
looking and neat man who would be willing to live in a civilized
town.Believe me; you don’t want to be in my shoes sometimes. The
experience is what has made me decide I would put down a few (!) lines
for anyone like me who is currently praying amiss. You may like to get
your pen and jotter and copy this down, or since this is 2014, year of
our Lord and tablets, you may copy and paste.
Pray Thus:
1.
Lord God (or insert the name of the Supreme Being you worship/believe
in), whatever happens, as you bring my husband, please let him live in a
good environment. Father!! Kindly remove all his neighbors who play
loud music and litter the compound with trash.
Reason:
If you don’t pray like this, or you pray it mildly, the bridge you want
to cross when you get there will show up eventually. You will suffer
from migraines because speakers will blare, generator sets will smoke,
and your surrounding will be an eyesore.
2. Please
let him have plans to move out as soon as we can afford it. God
pleeeaassse. Let him know that we cannot live in a house with illiterate
women who puff up like frogs every time they see us.
Reason:
You know you were created to be fruitful and multiply. Do you want to
give birth to all your kids, and have them do the 6-3-3-4 in the same
area? Or do you want some woman with thick accent singing off key every
time she sees you and your husband looking good? Better pray now.
3.
Dear God, it’s not just about the house, or my neighbors. I reject
every landlady that will oppress me. And if you decide to make
everything work together for my good, let the lady or lord of the land
on which our house is built not live in the compound. Let them be so
rich that they will have a house built in the very heart of a
comfortable place where they would detest coming to buzz their nose in
our affairs.
Reason: you don’t want to
know what it feels like to have a Lagos landlady who lives with you, and
then is mean. You may have to leave before your rent expires. She will
tell you what car to drive, church to attend, soup to cook, number of
kids to have and volume at which you can yell when you’re having those
heavenly feelings. Do you want to pray now or not?