A Dark Light

"Anike! Wake up and tend to your younger siblings!" a voice said loudly. That was my mother, a short, fat woman in her early forties said aloud.

My mother is the most hardworking being on earth with ten children, yes ten children, you could wonder how she got ten children well, this wasn't new as it was customary for every young girl in my village to marry at the age of adolescence. My mother was probably 15 when she married my fifty year old father. You would wonder why a child of 15 year old would be bethroted to a man thrice her age, well it was the custom in our village.

As soon as a child is born there is a tradition that gives this old men an opportunity to marry a young child. This is predominantly common in a village were the poor aren't educated and have no means of wealth and are ignorant into encourage early marriage.

I would say my mother was a victim of such, she always told me her story of getting married to Adio my father at a young age of 15, in fact she should have been married earlier than that but because she ran away countless times the marriage was delayed. Adio my father has other wives, five of them to be exact, my mother being the third one.

Adio had one of the biggest farms in the village, he planted crops such as cassava, maize and yam. I was told that he was a very rich man in his time but as old age dawned on him, he didn't have the willpower to oversee his farm, thereby causing him to loose his source of wealth. Most of his children didn't care about this as they were only interested in spending all he had. Let me tell you a thing or two about polygamy in an African setting in the Western part of the world, there is riot, jealousy, chaos were everyone is only concerned about their personal needs.

This was a year before the colonial rule ended where everyone was anticipating a new government to take over.

"I'm coming mama" I grumbled as I stood up to fold my mat in my mama's hut. We had 6 huts in my father's compound, one for each wife and her kids while Adio had one to himself.

Adio made sure to spend a night with each of his wife, there was a timetable whereby once it was a certain wife turn to spend the night with Adio, they would prepare a sumptous meal and sleep in Adio's hut. You could imagine the jealousy and rival each time Adio praises the any of the wives he had a wonderful time with.

Mama was his favourite wife, obviously you could tell, she had the most children for him, the other wives either have 2 or 3 children for him.

Mama Tunde the first wife has three children for him, Mama Feyi the second wife has two children for him, my mama has almost a football team of ten children, while Mama Nike and Tola have two children each.

You can do the maths yourself, yes you are right a total of nineteen children. Oh and you can't imagine the rivalry that exists amongst the children as well. I'm the fifth child of my mama, and I have three younger brothers and a sister. Tobi and Tope are twins and only two years old, you can't imagine the stress of bathing and dressing them up each morning. It has become the norms as I was the eldest daughter. My four older brothers don't live with us anymore so basically I am the first child in this scenario.

I walked out of the hut tiredly as I set a bowl outside with some warm water Mama had prepared with the firewood for the twins bath.

"Ike!" Taiwo called excitedly and ran towards me. The speech of the twins wasn't fluent yet so instead of calling me Anike, they say "Ike". Where I come from twins are named Taiwo and Kehinde as thus, these are Tobi and Tope first names. My mama was fondly called "Iya beji" which means the mother of twins. Taiwo is the child that comes out first during childbirth of twins while Kehinde is the second child. Tobi is the Taiwo while Kehinde is Tope.

I lifted Taiwo up as I laid him in the big bowl of warm water, and scrub his body with the local sponge and the soap my Mama bought at the market the previous day. As I was done bathing Taiwo, I saw Kehinde with Mama as she tightly clutched the hem of her wrapper.

"Kehinde, come and have your bath before the water gets cold" I said angrily as she refused to let go of Mama. This was the harmattan season and everywhere was cold and dry.

"Leave me jhoor" Kehinde said with tears. I dragged her as she kept crying with Mama laughing as this was Kehinde usual routine of being resistant any time she needed to bath.

"When you are tired of crying, you will keep quiet, see your mate Taiwo who didn't give me any stress while bathing for him" I said.

I finished bathing for Kehinde and dressed her up in one of the clothes Brother Daso our first born sent from England. Brother Daso was only 13 year old when a white man came to our village and he travelled to England to be an apprentice. News travelled fast as other wives tried to also take their children to the European country for a better life.

Taiwo insisted he wanted to wear the "aso oke" a traditional wear worn by the indigenes.

"Taiwo, the aso oke is for your birthday" I said declining his request to put on the attire. "Your birthday is in a month's time if you wear yours, Kehinde would laugh at you" I said. He looked like he was pondering over it as I stretched my hands to pick out a similar cloth Kehinde was wearing.

He reluctantly put it on as we headed out to the backyard to assist with what Mama was preparing for breakfast.

Mama was fanning the charcoal as this would hasten up the preparation of the meal she was preparing.