This memory is still very fresh in my head...
It was during my NYSC days, the first day I relocated with my belongings to the Eastern part of Nigeria, Imo State precisely, to serve my fatherland. I was exhausted and very hungry. All the junks I ate during the car journey didn’t hold my stomach. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have a house yet, I was to perch in one of my co-corps members’ places for the night before going to look for a house the next day. Yes, I arrived at night and I didn’t bother to disturb the guy for food because when I scanned the one room with my CCTV eyes, I didn’t see any gas cylinder or stove, neither did I smell any scent of cooked food in the house. So I decided to walk to the road to check for a restaurant to have my dinner.
I saw one, a very low-standard one, exactly like the ones we see in Nollywood movies where the food seller is suffering.
“Madam, what do you have? Do you have swallow?” I asked, and of course, you don’t expect me to go to a restaurant to eat rice or beans. Those foods will wash away via one-time urination. I eat what will last in my stomach and from what I had heard also, food from restaurants doesn’t last long in the stomach because they want the customer to come back for another patronage. So imagine a situation where restaurant foods in general don’t last in the stomach, why should I go for rice that’s just like water? Lol.
Okay, back to the story. The woman answered and said food had finished—both rice and beans—and the only food remaining was Oha soup, and it was the last plate.
“Oha soup? No okro, banga, egusi?”
“No, just that Oha soup.”
Mehn, I was damn hungry and was left with no option but to give in to the only available soup, oha soup, even though I hadn’t tasted it before.
Within 2 minutes, she served me the tray containing two wraps of eba and a plate of the soup. Due to hunger, I washed my hands quickly, cut the eba, dipped the eba in the soup, and immediately I put it in my mouth, the adaptation spirit in me left me and ran away from the vicinity. I paused with the eba in my hand, thinking about my life. I couldn’t shout at the woman, who was arranging her things to close for the day, because I was so sure that she didn’t prepare the soup well. I had heard a lot about the soup and only to taste it for the first time, the dissatisfaction and disappointment were just too much. I didn’t want my money to waste totally, so I just washed off the soup from the meat and ate the meat while I drank plenty of water to fill my stomach, and that was how I left and vowed never to taste the soup again.
Thanks for reading.
This is my entry to Com Contest