April 11, 2013 — Taqwa
April 11, 2013 — Taqwa
Chickens, the first sound that starts my day here. I have absconded from my place of work for 3 days and retreated to my parents’ house because I feel the need to refuel. It is not food that is my problem, it’s just that I have missed home, the safety of my old room, the peace and quiet of my house, and my mother’s voice, old, yet ever so beautiful.
Okay, I admit, her cooking is another essential reason I travel home. My mother cooks with seasoning and sweat, and I have become accustomed to the salty nature of her cooking. The salt isn’t so much that you easily notice, it’s just that wherever I go to eat, my taste buds alert me that the meal doesn’t contain as much salt as my mother’s.
I am leaving today, away from solitude, away from safety, back into the wilderness where sharks and snakes and saints all look alike. I am a grown man but in my mother’s house I am forever a child… as long as she is within visibility I lose my sense of maturity and let her be the Queen mother.
Quietly I find my way back to my life, the one I have been given, the hustle and bustle, the boring job where I day dream for half the day. Everyday seems to be the same routine, with only minor changes from day to day. In a senselessly ridiculous way, I am quite contented. Somehow, I feel it would get better. I am in that dormant phase, the one before so many awesome things start to go right. I have my scars from the past and I have high hopes for tomorrow. In the mean time, soccer keeps me going, and when I am not at home reading a book or doing some deep thinking, I am at the wooden mash of planks we call a viewing center, watching or listening to intelligent or stupid analysis of a game that adds nothing to lives of Nigerian youths. But hey, Up ManU.
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Taqwa Ghazal is a young man stuck in an old man’s mind. He sometimes gets lost in his daydreams and doesn’t find his way back to reality for days. He has published many books in his head and ‘used’ to blog at www.kassalli.wordpress.com. He is serving Nigeria in Ibadan, Oyo state. He is in a very boring phase of his life. He is also a farmer (which is an incredibly awesome job by the way).