"Aliyu.... Aliyu..... where has that boy gone to?" mama Aliyu asked, coming from the backyard.
"he has gone cycling", her second daughter Aliya replied
"but he just came back from school, I have not even seen him"
"he dropped his bag, took off his shirt and took the bicycle with him" Aliya said
"good afternoon mama Aliyu" I greeted coming into the house. You would wonder what I am doing here. Actually, my parents travelled for a wedding this morning, and according to them I am still too young to stay alone, so they had shipped me off to mama Aliyu's place, since I still had exams. This place is kind of smaller than our place. Their compound isn't fenced and they had about 9 children not to talk of the fact that mama Aliyu is pregnant again. They have 7 girls and two boys; the second born and last of her twin. They all could really seem disorganized, the mother has a small stature and one could say she is really having a hard time training her children; her present condition is also not helping. she could get frustrated easily.
It makes me imagine if my mom had lets say five children like me, I imagine she would have run mad. I just thank God, she is not going through what mama Aliyu is going through. Although, I would have liked to have at least one younger one or better still two; but mom has not been able to conceive after me. Sometimes she could be really pressurized by herself. She could just have those very bad moods just like depression and I think after weighing her options and seeing she is better than Mallam Danjuma's wife, she just switches back to her normal mood.
Mallam Danjuma's wife has really been through hell. She has had it tough in life, she is actually barren. She had been married to Mallam Danjuma when she was 13. She had conceived many times in the early years of her marriage but she kept having a still birth. People said something about her being too weak to give birth. After her third still birth, she didn't take in again and so her husband got another wife and before anyone could say jack he got two more wives. The reason being that his second wife was always at the throat of the first wife, so to have decorum he thought bringing other wives in would reduce or stop the wife. Until tomorrow, I do not think we can ever stop hearing a shout of help from their place, and the first wife having no children, had no say and was also treated however, the other wives pleased. Even Mallam Danjuma himself hardly stays home because of the troubles he married.