Continued
from last week…
“What about the feelings?” a girl in a sleeveless cotton white dress asked.
The hall went dead with silence. Breathing ceased. Some girls’ dilated eyes batted swiftly with shock. All eyes were trained on the catechist’s wife who came to give a talk on holy living in the ACCF (Anglican Communion Campus Fellowship).
When the enquirer of the immobilising question waited for the audience’ reactions to be over, she continued. “I don’t know about others, but my friends and I found out that we have the feelings now. How do we deal with the feelings, start praying for a mate now?” She was courageous, her eyes unblinking.
The catechist’s wife hesitated, then she began to speak, picking her words like one parrying with a wild animal that must be contained.
“I …I would rather you don’t pray for a mate now. You …can…channel that energy into sublime activities like sports, singing, sewing, dancing and studying; learning a new language, art, etc., or in serving the Lord, evangelism, ushering, and so forth…” Her voice which had begun a gentle rise rose to a crescendo as she continued without hesitation:
Every girl must be alert
Every girl must have…
An in-built decoder
Decoding a guy’s intentions
Every girl must be prayerful
Every girl must say No to a
Non-commitment relationship
With the opposite sex
When you fellowship with God,
You acquire a spiritual antenna
To decode guys’ intentions…
There was great ovation, especially from the sisters. The brothers always shifted and moved with discomfort on their seats whenever the catechist’s wife came around for her holy living talk. It always killed off budding relationships in the group. Sisters would become too wary which was just crap as one brother put it to another.
Some of the guys would have stopped attending fellowship if not that they were all instructed from home to attend because the Pentecostals were set to run orthodox churches out of business. They go about pulling young people out of their churches with stories of living for Jesus and everyone ensuring they were going to heaven from earth.
So, order had come from above in the Anglican Communion that parents should drum it into the ears of their offspring and wards that they attend ACCF meetings in Nigerian campuses.
After the catechist’s wife, came on Bro. Francis. He was the lifetime president of ACCF in the University of Lagos, a one time Students’ Union president who had refused to leave the school, studying and working. Not many students know what exactly Francis was studying at the moment.
He seemed to be a lifetime PG student! So, Bro. Francis came on with the smile he thought was a winning one. And he thought right. Many of the students found him approachable. He had no holy airs about him and was always bubbling with life, always ready to give both sisters and brothers a raise when they needed one. This endeared him to them because students often grappled with cash scarcity.
“Praise God!” he bellowed into the mike which he took from the catechist’s wife.
“Thank you very much, ma. God bless for always coming to help us. Honestly, ma, na God go help us.” He switched to pidgin. He was always jovial and into everyone’s business in a way that was never offensive, always admitting that he was struggling with keeping his eyes straight minding his studies because the girls in school were too tantalising mehn!
“Body no be firewood o (this drew laughter, especially from the guys). But honestly my guys,” he switched over to English, “Every guy hanging around a babe must have a mission statement (sudden guffaw engulfed the hall) which must come from his vision statement (someone began to clap, two or three persons joined but stopped abruptly for not many people joined) every guy showing interest in a babe has intentions.
Intentions are either honourable or dishonourable. Every guy going to a babe must be saying something, exposing his intentions. My guys, God created these sumptuous sisters (loud ovation, Bro. Francis stopped and licked his upper lip to show he’s tempted in a way and then continued, now in pidgin) in a way that any touch from your masculine hands, they go carry belle.
Ah, omo, na fatherhood be that if they carry belle. And guess what, they go make sure say you leave school go work to support baby. (He switched over to English), I’m not sure that’s what any of us wants here – unprepared family. Abeg, make all of us read, get good grades, get good jobs, siddon and carefully consider who to spend our life with, go for her and settle down. Me, I think that’s better than all these accidents young people they get.”
“They get pills now, uncle (in Yoruba intonation),” a boy’s voice rang out from the crowd. Others laughed, the catechist’s wife joining them and Bro Francis clapping by hitting the mike on his free hand, and saying, “Good one, good one. We need our people to express themselves. No parents here, na only us dey here. Pills no good. (He cupped his left hand and partly covered his mouth and said in a loud whisper) Me hear say pills no good. E dey corrode womb. Anyway, maama wetin you wan add?”
The catechist’s wife took the mike again and began, “For holiness sake… God requires it of us…”
Ulari walked away without waiting for her friends after the closing prayer. She suspected the meeting was secretly organised for her. Her mind was in turmoil. She was at a point where she could not meet her own eyes in the mirror. Jamin wants sex. I’ve seen it in his eyes, she soliloquised.
It kept ringing in Ulari’s head, the words of the catechist’s wife. “Godly girls must not have boyfriends. They shouldn’t zero in on a particular boy to hang out with when the time has not come for marriage.” She had no idea what time it was in her life. Bisi’s voice jarred her out of her ruminations.
“What’s the hurry, Ula?” Ulari stopped with a ready smile. Bukky was chatting animatedly with Bro. Francis behind Bisi. Soon, they were walking together down the road towards Moremi hall.
“I brought you some apples and kileshi,” Jamin said dropping a brown paper bag on Ulari’s reading table. It was 9pm. The hall was less busy. Ulari had excused herself from her friends saying she needed to lie down because she had a headache. She had more than a headache, she had palpitation of heart.
“Have you been sleeping well?” Jamin asked, pulling her reading chair and sitting down uninvited.
“Do I look unwell?”
“No,” he replied a few moments later because she distracted him.
“I couldn’t sleep well when I was away,” he said.
“Why?” She did not meet his eyes. He knew she knew why.
“I thought of you all the time – worst at night.” His voice was husky.
This was what they tried to shield them from, such male influence as Jamin’s. It was too late now and she realised with a jolt that that was why unmarried people had sex, to quench crave for their love or lust interest. She too had lain up most nights since he travelled out of Lagos thinking of him. Most times when she looked at her books, she would not see the words but her eyes would blur, her mind taking their function to travel over memories of Jamin.
“You know you can’t be visiting me here. It’s dangerous.”
Days before he travelled, they had a strange conversation in his car. It was after the visit to his house and he had made bold to ask Ulari to ride with him since Bukky and Bisi said they were riding with Pastor Marfi and his wife to watch a short Christian movie titled The Bridge in his car.
He had said in the car. “I need your permission to be seeing you on a regular basis.”
“Listen,” Ulari said mustering up strength which she never felt at Jamin’s presence. “I can’t offer that which men want. I can’t offer sex.”
She was expecting him to say, “Why?” But he said, “I don’t want sex.” And she had turned to look at him. “Why?” she asked surprised.
Words failed him. He was trembling within. It would kill him if he lost her before they started. Words became inadequate. He tried action. Reaching out, he took her hand, his eyes on the road because he was driving. She didn’t snatch it away. That gave him hope.
“I have honest intentions,” he said like a con man. She said nothing. He took his hand away to negotiate a bend.
“I shouldn’t be sitting here with you,” she said.
“I don’t know about that,” he said with a serious face and continued. “I don’t want sex, believe me. I want to get to know you, see you often, dine with you, but always in the company of other people.”
She nodded. Her heart beating loudly, the butterflies fluttering in her stomach knowing that she had flaunted her family commandment which said, “Thou shalt not place yourself under the influence of the opposite sex. Flee fornication!”
….To be continued next week.
.Culled from The Girls Are Not To Blame by Lechi
