The Struggle is real: Jos girl and her fried meat

2:51 AM 5 Comments A+ a-


Hey Lovies,

Happy Thanksgiving in arrears.  I hope those of you in the U.S had a splendid time with family and friends. Come to think of it, this whole “in arrears” mention as in Happy Birthday in arrears, Happy TG in arrears, all manner of arrears; I’ve noticed that my naijas use this more than your typical yankee person. Maybe it’s just my imagination though.
Thanksgiving was fun!! Just the way I like it. Small intimate, everyone can see each other’s face, hear each other’s conversations, huddled around, laughing, eating good food, people who genuinely love, care & respect each other. This is exactly my type of gathering. The older I’ve gotten, the more I shy away from huge & excessive gatherings. I’m very thankful for a great & fun evening.

My mum, visiting aunt & I went to great lengths cooking different dishes and everyone loved and most importantly ate very well. I actually wanted *Deolu (Deolu got introduced here) to come by because he's a bachelor & i don't like people being alone on days like this but the bush boy didn’t want to drive all the way out to my house (really??? Dude, we only live 45 minutes apart. All you have to do is get in your car and put it on cruise!!). Anyhoos, so the next morning he calls and asks about the night before, asking what was on the menu and I of course filled him in and rubbed it all in. In short sha “Dude, you missed mehn!” Deolu asks to come by so he could get some grub and I obliged, I mean what harm could there be in packing a plate to go for my friend. This guy shows up, I hand him the bag containing the packed grubs, and he turns around and says “Sav, I hope you didn’t put any voodoo into this food o”.

Chineke, Mo gbe! Emi Sav? Sav baby, Doro Sav, any other Sav is a counterfeit will put voodoo inside someone’s food? Abi ara boy yi o ya ni. I was like abeg abeg, give me my food back now now. Why would you even go there! He of course burst into laughter cos for some reason Deolu thinks I’m theatrical and hilarious and then says ahh Sav, I’m just playing nau. You know I’m a tall chocolate fountain & all dem girls be trying to tie me down so don’t blame me. I swear this boy is not well at all. Mchewww….oshisco.

Although I was hissing & rolling my eyes at the same time, his comment reminded me of a gist I just have to share with you guys.

Here we go.

A few years back 7-8 yrs ago I found myself in Nigeria for NYSC and was posted to one of those Niger Delta states. I decided to actually go through the whole 3 weeks camp process because 1) the person I was with at that time was just a evil human being who was intent on making sure my life was miserable so any attempt to avoid going to camp was a NO WAY, do you have 2 heads, you must go kinda situation, and 2) I remembered I had survived 6 years in boarding school where we were only given meat 1 time! Yup, you heard me – We only ate meat as in cow meat 1 time! All they gave us was fish, which was on rice days. Each table in the dinning room had about 15 students and the 15 had to share 4-5 pieces of fish. Mehnnn my enemies have suffered sha. BUT, I survived she so how bad could camp be?

Okay, so camp wasn’t so bad except for the part where there was no bathroom so I had to wake up around 4 am, go outside in the dark while reciting “hail mary” and I’m not even catholic, to take my bath and also refusing to do number 2 for 3 weeks - I never stepped into the toilet once. That’s right, I made sure I ate enough to stay alive but not enough to get my bowels moving.  I made friends right away with my bunkie and the chic in the bunk next to ours. The 3 of us bonded instantly and stayed glued to each other throughout.  My bunkie was a sweet girl who studied law and was from Jos; I had never had a friend from up north so it was quite nice.
One afternoon the 3 of us were sitting on my bed (bottom bunk) and gisting about men & relationships, while munching on fried meat that Jos girl gave us. The gist was going quite good and that meat was the shiznit, seasoned and fried dried to perfection. The kind that you will chew and chew and wouldn’t want to swallow cos it was that good. Apparently Jos girl got some cooking skills; i.e. until she told us the story behind the fried meat.

To cut a long story short, Jos babe was dating an Aristo (someone needs to define Aristo for me abeg, cos I don’t know if that name still applies if the man you’re with although married is a very young guy). The guy (*Philemon) in question was a young man whom she had met in Uni, but although he liked her then he went ahead to marry another girl from his town (tribal issues). The guy had being married for 2 years with a 1-year-old child at the time of NYSC. Jos girl tells us that she went to visit one baba that gave her something to put in fried meat for any man that she wants, and once the man eats the meat he’ll forever dance to her tunes.

See ehn, when she first made this statement it didn’t register in my head and that of the other babe whom I’ll call my jollof (there’s a story behind that name). It took like 20 seconds for the words “baba, powder and fried meat” to sink into our heads. For goodness sakes we were eating fried meat that this same Jos girl gave us!!
As soon as it sunk in Jollof & I jumped up and ran outside spitting, coughing, fingers down our throat to purge our selves of possible juju ridden fried meat. I swear this was so much dramatic than I could pen down. I just started crying and lamenting that ahhhh Savannah, Savannah, see your life, you survived boarding school without any mishaps only for someone to give you juju laden fried meat as a full fledged grown woman! Is this what they sent you to do at NYSC? How will you explain this to people? When they ask you “Savannah” what happened to you, your response will be “eran ni o (It’s fried meat oo)”, ahh, ahh, ahh temi bami, mo je eran daran!!
As I was spitting out and lamenting in a mix of Yoruba, Naija & yankee English, Jollof was lamenting in Ibo & yankee English as per fellow returnee concern. We were a sorry sight. Jos girl comes outside to join us and asks innocently what happened to us. I turned around and was like aje lo mo yi sha (this girl is a witch sha), how can she come out looking all innocent and asking what happened like she has no clue why we are afraid for our lives. We go back inside and ask her if the meat she gave us is laced with something from the baba; she bursts into laughter and was like ahn ahn,,, that’s why you people were vomiting? No now, there’s nothing in this meat. I only use the laced one it for Philemon.
Phewwwww, relief!!
Wait, what???
I know the struggle is real but dang this is real on another level! She actually was jazzing this poor stupid Philemon so she could collect money from him!
I have to dive into Jos girl & Philemon again cos trust me there’s more gist there especially when she moved to Abuja and realized Philemon was small fish compared to them billionaires in Abuja, but unfortunately the baba forgot to tell her the juju doesn’t wear out like that…….

To be continued.

Xoxo
Love is a beautiful thing. 

5 comments

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lanre
AUTHOR
November 30, 2014 at 10:18 AM delete

Sav....Sav....Sav....how many times did I call you? Hopefully, u av learnt not to be eating from people now....and that includes "eran ileyaa (sallah meat) oooo

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Savannah
AUTHOR
November 30, 2014 at 10:33 AM delete

Lolll... I learned my lesson o. I don't eat food especially by strangers. Even the ones from known people i still anoint & bind. Thanks for commenting...

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Anonymous
AUTHOR
November 30, 2014 at 10:40 AM delete

Savanah you won't kill person with laughter. I have been trying to imagine the whole scenario. Please come and update us with Jos girl and Philemon's story. Nice one.

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Anonymous
AUTHOR
December 1, 2014 at 12:40 AM delete

Waiting for part 2....shouldn't u have loaded both parts at the same time? Pschewwww. ...omo yii o mo ise

Anonymous noni

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MoJ
AUTHOR
December 1, 2014 at 11:27 AM delete

Naija girls no dey carry last sha. Fried meat!

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