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THE TRUTH:YOURS OR MINE? Episode 4

Johnny and his near stepdad were coming towards us. The thought that they would have looked picture perfect if mother was there with them made me want to cry. Mum used to tell me everything, she told me about Aslem and was glad when I said he was okay, not because I thought he was perfect but because, mum looked so happy with him. I couldn’t touch that. She had been talking about us moving back to Nigeria, I don’t even know why she brought that up, before he showed up. She rarely talked of going back. It had never been much of a home for her or for us. She had only been there a few times herself and we’ve never been there at all.

My little brother looked drawn and haggard. Aslem’s large frame seemed to have sagged since the last time I saw him. Everyone seemed to be suffering from the same fever, except me and I had been the closest to her. I felt guilty.
I forced the words from my throat and out of my mouth. “I will drive. ”
“No, I will drive,” Trevor offered eagerly.
“No, I will drive…..i should drive and don’t you have anywhere else to be?”
“You can’t drive like this,” he insisted, “and “I don’t mind at all.”

I was getting pissed. “How am I? ”
He turned to Aslem with an exasperated look.
“Aslem,” I said, “why should he drive, and I shouldn’t?”
He was tired, and his face lacked any animations. “Come on Jade, you know you are not in the best frame of mind to drive.”
I felt another pang of guilt, for insisting on my way and stressing everyone, but I was alright, my frame of mind was solid and I could drive us all, safely home. I was grieving, not drunk.

I said okay and got in the back seat. I didn’t like that he said something had messed with my mind. Yes, my mother just murdered herself, but I was okay. Maybe I was not supposed to be, maybe that was a bad thing but I could drive. I was not pleased with Trevor and I refused to meet his eyes in the mirror from the back seat.
It was hard, it was damn hard. This was the reason why I wanted to drive. I didn’t want to think about it, about the why, when or the future. When you drove, you concentrated on the traffic and the road signs, and you didn’t think of your mother’s broken skull. We sped past malls and eating places and my mind was getting crowded.
Johnny dozed off as soon as he hit the backseat. I had noticed him struggling to keep his eyes open, back at the parking lot. I pulled him to my lap and shut my eyes.
Johnny didn’t have to face this, he was just a baby, not even nine yet. I patted his curly head, and suppressed the urge to kiss his forehead. I was going to protect him, I knew I was going to. I had no idea why mother abandoned us but I sure wasn’t going to abandon my little brother, no matter what. I loved him, and I would never jump.
If mother loved us, she would not have jumped, no matter what, but she did jump. My head pounded, my scalp itched, my ears rang, my eyes stung and my body shook violently, yet I could not manage a tear. It was all so surreal, like I was in a dream. Maybe that was why I was still strong, maybe I was still living in denial, and maybe I was hoping that when I finally got home, mum would be standing at the door, waving her hand at me and calling me Ada. She would have a good laugh if I told her this dream.

Trevor dropped us off at a hotel. We would be staying there until the police were through with their investigations.

#Lipservice# Stories
Watch out for episode 5

Copyright @Kitanaá 2017.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KITANAA

Odigwe Okpara Gloria is a young Nigerian writer and a student of the University of Port Harcourt. Miss Gloria who goes by the pen-name Kitanaa is one versatile and prolific writer who has written great pieces of poetry, lyric prose, and creative commentaries. Her stories can be found on her Facebook page and other social media platforms.

Today, right here at Okahsplace I’m wish this amazing aspiring writer and storyteller a happy birthday. Happy birthday Kitanaa, let your quill never run dry.

Love, Okah

THE TRUTH: Yours or mine? (Episode 3)

And here we were, and she was not there to meet us. Instead, was her Louisianan fiancé telling me, “your mother loved you very much, that is the truth.

What could make someone commit suicide, what could possibly have pushed mum?. I felt hot, I felt cold. I was hungry and at the same time, full.
Trevor who had been quiet since we came, looked at me with concern. “Are you okay?”

His voice broke into my subconsciousness. Slowly, I became aware of the surrounding. It was cool inside, the nurse had her hair, pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head. She had been the one that rolled mum away on that stretcher and her face hadn’t altered a bit. I wondered what snarky jokes mum would have made, if she were there, if she hadn’t been the stiff, cold body they had just rolled to the morgue. I imagined that she would not like the morgue and she would walk out from there and demand a better lodging with air conditioner and TV but I knew she would not, and she would never make snarky jokes ever again. A cold shiver ran through me.

“I don’t know.” I said, trying to shake myself free from the darkness hanging over my head.

“Come on Jade, denial will not help anything.”

I shook my head in disagreement and tried to leave the room. Someone held me by my arm but I shrugged free and walked out of the room. I walked until I got to the blue car in the parking lot. I could not tell why I stopped until my head cleared. The car was Trevor’s.

“Come on! Cry, scream, do something.” Trevor urged me, sounding a little scared. “Don’t keep it in.”

I tried to cry, or scream but there was a huge lump clogging my nose and a big blotting paper on my tear stream. I was suffocating and I could not do anything about it.

“Stop holding it in, do something!” he was terrified of me.

I was terrified of me too. My mother just jumped out out a three story balcony, to her death, knowing I would be coming home with my first boyfriend in a few hours time and someone else wanted me to believe the truth was because she loved me. I began to shake. Trevor pulled me into his arms. He smelt of daisies, and the sun. He smelt of shelter in a rainstorm, a cashmere sweater in a cool evening, he smelt like alrightness, like the aroma from the kitchen when mum made jollof rice with chicken and nutmeg. He smelt like everything that was supposed to be, but was not.

I pushed him away. “I want to be alone….please”

I thought of Johnny and me. We were orphans now. How could the truth be that my mother loved us and yet she jumped. What was she thinking? How could she have done it?

“Ada, don’t be so hard on yourself. Things like this happen. The important thing is the truth. Your mother loved you and your brother. She–”
Then I realized that I was shaking. I was mad. I was mad at my mother, mad at myself and mad at Trevor.

“She never met you. ” I told him.

“True, ,” he said agreeably . “I am just saying your mother must have loved you. How could she not?”

“That is not the point here.” I snapped. My head was pounding like it was going to break into pieces. “You all keep saying she loves me, and how true that is, but what does that do for Johnny, or me? My mother killed herself, she jumped out of the fucking balcony, a few hours to my showing up with my first boyfriend, what has love got to do with it? She has a son, not even close to ten, and she jumped. What will her love, or hate do now?”

Trevor said nothing else.

.Copyright @2017

Stories
#Kitanaa#

THE TRUTH: Yours or mine? Episode 2

I was not also afraid to tell him, I was not interested in white boys.

“But one of your parents, is certainly white.” he had argued, as if I did not already know that, as if it was meant to change anything, as if I even knew why I was not interested.
I had finally agreed to go out with him. I was curious to know what his persistence was for, why he really thought I should date him. It was only meant to be one date. We went to the movies first and then, he took me to a fancy place to eat. We talked, we laughed and we shared a joint in his car. I found he had more than a fair knowledge of Africa. When I told him my mother was Nigerian, he did not say, “oh! that nice country that have the terrorists.” or “maybe she might have met Mandela.” what he asked me, was if she was Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa?”
I went out with him, several times after that night. Then, last night, we didn’t smoke any joints. We kissed.

Mum had been incensed and for the first time, I found it unnecessary.

“I don’t want you to make the mistakes I made.” she had said. “what do you know? You are young.”

I had called her a hypocrite and hung up. I was never going to call her ever again. She had been married to my father, a white man himself and she told me he was the love of her life. How was that a mistake? I folded myself on my bed and fumed.

Sometime by 1:38,am, she had called me sobbing.

“I never had good judgement about men, ” she had sobbed into the mouthpiece and I tried to smother a yawn. “but your father…. He was the best mistake of my life.”

She had gone ahead to tell me what I probably didn’t remember about him. How he fainted on the day she was in labor to deliver me, how he used to try to braid my hair when she was too tired, how he used to play us the violin and how much he had loved us, him, Her and our little Johnny. He died before Johnny was weaned.

Before long, we were both crying. My father was a succour for both of us, a shelter of some sort where we both hid when pressures became too high. It was the one language that we communicated in the years of my wild, though not so wild teenage years. Johnny was just a baby then, and he never knew dad so, I was of sort of the closer one to my mum than he because we had that one, monumental memory. She had made me promise to bring Trevor to see her the next afternoon.

And here we were, and she was not there to meet us. Instead, was her Louisianan fiancé telling me, “your mother loved you very much, that is the truth.”

#Kitanaa#

Keep in touch for more stories

TRUTH: Mine or Yours? (Episode 1)

Hello guys, I am super excited to put this up here. It’s been a while I shared stories here so…..Enjoy

“Your mother loved you very much, that is the truth.” Aslem said for the umpteenth time. The truth. My mother’s love. 
Nine year old Johnny was crying by the open door, the doctor was talking with Aslem and I was just rooted where I was standing, not moving, not crying, not saying anything, just looking. Trevor looked out of place, in his sunny shirt in the midst of sad doctor and grieving family members. If mother was here, she would have been the only black woman in the room. And maybe she would have joked about it.
But mother was not in the room, she had been rolled away, on a stretcher, the white sheet covering the whole of her petite fame.

I just could not understand how it all fit. I mean, the night before, we had, had a fighting match on the phone, when I told her I was going to date Trevor, a white guy and I did not care what she thought. I had lied. I did care what she thought. I cared about it so much, I refused his request for a date.

I cared so much about what she would say, I refused to go to the movies with him, when he got a group of some of my friends to come with us, if I was afraid to go with him by myself and even when I returned the roses he sent to me because I didn’t want mum to know about a white guy in the picture. I had cared what she thought of me and now, she was dead.

I always knew she was averse to them, white folks but I didn’t know why and maybe I should have asked her but it had never occurred to me to. I had never cared for white boys or white girls before until I met Trevor. It was the first semester of college. I was new and he was a year ahead. My roommate, Charlice had introduced us and suddenly left, leaving me with the suspicion that he set her up to it. I was not afraid to tell Trevor that. I was not also afraid to tell him, I was had no interest in dating a white boy.

Copyright @Kitanaá

Episode 2 is cooking…. Just keep in touch.

 

Need a professional web design company

If you are a business owner and your desire is to see high volume traffic flowing into both your website and mobile app, then what you need is a web design company that has the requisite skill to optimize your website and contents through the use of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that are geared toward channeling highly interactive traffics to your sites that would boost your business and increase your financial turnover which is what search engine optimization (SEO) does for you and your businesses.

In today’s world, information technology (IT) is the new oil field, and having a website, mobile apps, and web contents that have excellent search engine optimization (SEO) features; are the new oil-rigs needed to tap into this vast field of limitless resource and financial opportunities that would turn your company into an unending source of revenue generation. But to be a part of this financial revolution in the cyber space, your company’s website and mobile app must not only have a high level of visibility, but must also have an interactive interface that is user friendly, efficient, professional, and attractive. This is where a professional design company steps in to bridge the gap and open up the floodgate of high volume, interactive, and engaging traffic to your sites through the application of search engine optimization (SEO) for a highly visible platform.

Our web design company is professionally positioned to take your website and mobile apps to the next level by not only giving your site and mobile apps an attractive outlook, but going beyond aesthetics, their team of professional developers are ever ready to integrate your web contents and also your social media platforms to your website and mobile apps through the use of highly customized search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, efficient web hosting platforms, and web content creations; be it multimedia or contextual contents that are structured to make your site, mobile apps, and business ready for global attention and visits from highly interested parties. Our web design company is the leading voice today in the field of website and mobile app development, search engine optimization (SEO), and web content enhancement.

Okadabooks: A place for Nigerian books

Okadabooks is a place to find Nigerian books of all genre for your reading pleasure. Okadabooks is an online bookstore that is open to not just only Nigerian writers wanting to find their voice, but to everyone that has stories to tell.

It is for stories like the kind found in Okadabooks that I started this blog so that those without a voice can get one while those who have lost theirs can find it back.

So if you are interested in reading thrilling Nigerian stories, you should pay a visit to Okadabooks and find that story you want.

Should a man adopt his wife’s surname

My friend got married last year. She sponsored the wedding because her husband is a low-earning unskilled staff in the firm where she works as an operations manager.

As a matter of fact, she paid for EVERYTHING in the wedding and traditional marriage rites, including giving her husband more than 70% of the amount requested for her bride price and the list (She’s from Imo State, and you know how they take bride price very seriously there😐).

She earns more than 10 times what her husband earns.

The plan is that after they have their baby, the man (who earns less than N100k) would quit his job to manage the home and look after their child, since she earns (over a million as basic pay) more than enough to take care of the family. She would also open a shop for him at the front of the house to keep him busy.

They both reached this agreement. She’s five months pregnant, and entitled to 6months maternity leave. So, the husband will quit his job after her maternity leave.

However, there is a problem. She told me that she asked her husband to change his surname to hers and he refused. Ok, let him just kukuma hyphenate o, the man still refused. 👺

She’s very angry because she feels the man should have brought it up before their wedding.

She’s planning to kick him out. Yeah, they both live in a duplex that was given to her by the company where she works as a manager. So, technically, she’s the owner of the house.

She’s also planning to sack her husband from his job, because she’s the manager, and her husband is just a security guard. So, she’s her husband’s boss at work.

I asked her to take it to God in prayers, but she said she’s an atheist. 🙊😳

I understand my friend’s anger though. I mean, after all she’s spent on the man. She even sponsored their wedding and all. Some men are just stubborn and ungrateful. I mean, what does it take away from you to just change your name, and do it to keep your marriage, job, life of luxury, and for peace to reign? 🙄

The Bible says the man shall leave his family and cleave to his wife, and two shall become one. Life would be much easier if only people learn to read their Bibles very well.

The Bible also commanded men to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Christ died for the church, yet ordinary change of name, some men cannot do.🤕

This is the reason for the high rate of divorce in our societies today.

But I pity the man sha, even though he brought this upon himself. 🙉

I keep telling people to discuss things before marriage.

Moral of the story: Men, if you want to keep your names after marriage, make sure you discuss it with your wives-to-be before marriage, and SEEK HER CONSENT, to avoid stories that touch. It never ends well. Like my boyfriend has told me he wants to keep his name after marriage, and I’ve permitted him. Some women will allow such, some won’t.

Hmmm, things are really happening in this world o. End times.

May God help us all. Amen 🙏

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Cultural Heritage of India

India is a country rich in culture, stories and heritage, and to embark on a cultural tour of India is one thrilling escapade that you can’t afford to miss. The rich cultural heritage of India is one that has made India a choice tourist destination.

India is a nation endowed with natural and man-made beauty. From the sensual and exotic dance steps of the beautifully and colourfully arrayed Indian women to the majestic splendour of the architecturally wonders of the Taj Mahal, the essence of India oozes elegance, beauty, grandeur, and religious purification. This is why many tourists yearly go on a cultural tour of India to experience the beauty and rich history of this country where the beauty of the ancient age meets the aesthetics of the modern world and telling stories of poetic beauty.

For those planning a cultural tour of India, we have selected a few destinations that we feel captures the essence of India. It is our belief that no cultural tour of India can be deemed to be complete without a visit to any of these destinations.

Here are some of the rich cultural destinations:

• Taj Mahal, Agra which happens to be one of the wonders of the area known as the golden triangle that also place host to other beautiful sites like the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
• Malabar Coast, Kerala which is a beautiful and exotic tropical paradise of fruits and nuts.
• Venice of India (Udaipur), Rajasthan. Actually one can say he or she has gone on a cultural tour of India without a visit to Rajasthan that host a number of our beautiful sites like the hinging fortress at the fringe of the Thar Desert, the Pink city and a host of other sites.
• Chola Temples in the city of Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu is another beautiful spot to visit while journeying on a cultural tour of India.

In truth, India is a land filled with countless beauty. The sights, sounds, and stories of India are steeped in majestic splendid so this list cannot be said to represent the totality of India’s rich cultural heritage, but it does captures the spirit of India and so is a must for any cultural tour of India to really be called a cultural tour.