EPISODE 32 – QUO VADIS?

I promised myself I would not talk about the ongoing FIFA World Cup but somehow it almost feels irresistible. Well, a line or two wouldn’t hurt now, would it? Let me quickly share this joke with you guys.

A teacher found his pupil sitting in class after school and asked him why he was not on his way home like the rest of his colleagues. The eight year old boy was sad because he had come second in the weekly test.
“Why don’t you want to go home?” the teacher asked.
“Because my mummy will beat me,” the boy answered.
“What about your dad?” the teacher asked.
“He will beat me too,” answered the kid.
The teacher was surprised. “So where do you want to go?”
“I want to go and meet the Super Eagles,” the kid said.
The teacher was shocked and confused. “Why would you want to go meet the Super Eagles?” he asked, wondering what his pupil meant.
“Because they do not ever beat anyone,” the boy simply answered.

I’m not surprised our dear Super Chickens Eagles crashed out in the first round of the tournament. Did anyone really expect them to do anything different? Now, whoever did must be a dreamer. I once heard ‘foolishness’ defined as doing something the same way over and over and expecting to get a different result. The team definitely needs a thorough overhauling and until that happens, we should not expect anything spectacular from these chickens eagles. This is the first World Cup on African soil and unfortunately all the African representatives except Ghana crashed out in the preliminary stage. Right now, I feel elated that Ghana have managed to beat U.S.A in the second round and reach the last eight, a record for them, making Ghana the third African country to reach the quarter finals of the World Cup after Cameroon in 1990 and Senegal in 2002. For the remaining duration of this tournament, I have become a Ghanaian and you can call me Kofi or Mensah. lol. Wao, have I gone beyond two lines? My bad! Back to our story, people.

I struggled to come to terms with the fact that BG was pregnant. It was a most shocking realization and I sat holding the lab result in my hands for almost an hour. My mind remained totally blank and I practically forgot BG was sitting beside me.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked finally.
It was a question I had no answers to. What was the next step? I asked myself repeatedly but could not quite find an answer. I had never being in such a situation before. I had been having sex for about six years but no girl had ever gotten pregnant for me and I never had any friends I knew who had been in similar situations. It was a totally new experience and I felt confused as hell. I decided immediately that we could not have this baby as that would be the very death of me. The problem however was how to get rid of the pregnancy. I realized for the first time that I was indeed a novice.
“Please, just allow me think, okay.” I told her calmly after she repeated her question.
“But you have been thinking for over an hour now,” she challenged.
I quite understood her fears. She was in a more precarious situation as it were as her overall personality had never prepared her for such a situation. She was the ‘baby of her house’ and her father and older siblings doted on her to no end. In fact, as at the time, they could vouch for her virginity, thus I could identify with her worries. I also had mine but I was doing my best to control myself. It would have taken no serious effort for me to throw myself on the ground and cry my eyes out considering the consequences that lay ahead of me. I got up without a word and took a walk leaving her sitting where she was. I believed I needed a clear head and her nagging would have made matters much worse.

In my desperation, I strolled to Viv’s Place, a spot in the neighbourhood where I hung out once a while. Viv, a rather interesting young woman ran the place and sold alcohol, Indian hemp and local gin among other stimulants men indulged in. She had always been fond of me and my friends and we usually had good conversation in between shots of local gin and puffs of smoke. I decided to confide in Viv, hoping she might be able to give me some good advice on what to do.
“How many months be the belle?” Viv asked after I narrated my ordeal to her.
I recalled the night BG and I had our first sexual intercourse; the one that had resulted in the pregnancy. It was a little over three weeks and I told Viv immediately. She simply laughed, took a puff of her joint and passed it to me. I declined with a nod of my head. That was the last thing I needed at that moment.
“Na that one dey make you fear?” she asked mockingly. “Na small thing be that now. If to say the belle don reach three or four months now, na wahala be that.”
I sighed gratefully and thanked the good winds that had blown me Viv’s way. She went on to prescribe the most ridiculous combination of items which included dry gin, alligator pepper, lime, Ampiclox tablets and some other stuff I can’t readily remember. I was asked to mix all these together and have BG swallow the mixture. Viv assured me that my woman would see her menses within two days. I thanked her profusely and left the place feeling much light-hearted.

That evening, we followed all the prescriptions and by the time the brew was ready, I tasted it and almost choked as it was a most nauseating concoction. However, the reality of our situation left us with no choice and BG managed to drink the potion, restraining herself from vomiting with great effort. I spent the entire night attending to her and trying to calm her down after the potion began to have its effect on her. By morning, things seemed much better and we patiently looked forward to the ‘flow’. Three days later, the situation had not changed and I was back at Viv’s. The woman was visibly shocked and told me she did not understand why the mixture had not worked. She asked if I was sure I had followed her exact prescriptions and I assured her I had. She enquired further if I was indeed sure my girlfriend was not over three months pregnant as that would have been the only exception to the efficacy of the concoction. When I insisted my woman was just about three weeks pregnant, she simply shrugged and advised us to go for an abortion. I realized this meant deep trouble. I had decided earlier on that I would not want to have BG go for an abortion as I greatly feared it could lead to unexpected results. I had heard many stories of the unpleasant outcomes of abortion such as complications, damaging of the womb or even death and I was not ready to take that risk. That was the major reason I had gone to Viv in the first place. At the same time, I could not bear the risk of having BG keep the pregnancy as it would put us both in a most embarrassing and damning situation. Now, Viv’s suggestions had failed and we seemed to be running out of time. By my calculation, BG was now four weeks pregnant.

We waited for another two weeks, hoping that somehow by a miracle, her menses would suddenly return and the pregnancy would be history but nothing of such happened. I observed BG closely but noticed no significant changes in her body and neither did anyone within her immediate family as she admitted. However, we realized we needed to do something about the situation as soon as possible. By the sixth week of her pregnancy, we finally decided to go ahead with the abortion. I had great fears and so did BG but we convinced ourselves that we would face a worse situation if her family found out that she was pregnant or if mine got wind of the fact that I had gotten a girl pregnant. I had a deep fear of the unknown and as such I decided I would not take BG for an abortion without someone from her home being involved. The lot fell on Cher, her immediate elder sister, a fun-loving girl who would be able to keep a secret. The one hurdle however remained how we would convince Cher to be a part of our plan.

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT EPISODE OF THE GEEBEE CHRONICLES.