MY GRANDMOTHER I
There are moments shared in life with the people we love the most and those that we cherish so dearly, the one am fond of the most is that spent with Grandmothers. They are wonderful creatures that touched our lives in a great way, with memories that we'll never forget.
I would love to share with you my sweet and pleasurable times with my grandmother. She is such a strong and wonderful woman, know-it-all kind of person that always have tricks and magical ways of doing everything.
Her use of language and choice of words is simply astonishing, shes an expert in hausa proverb that I like listening to her when she use them. Her ways are always lovely, full of knowledge and wisdom.
She lived in a village called Kunya in Minjibir local government in Kano State, North-Western part of Nigeria. The excitement of visiting her cannot be measured, we all used to be happy with my siblings, especially me because she loved me so much and I was named after her. Its like a tradition in the North that the first child of the family is usually named after the grandfather or grandmothrt from either maternal or paternal side, they would be called 'Babangida', 'Alhaji','Abba' etc for the males or 'Ummi', 'Hajia', 'Daada' etc for the females. Its called 'Kara' or 'Alkunya' in hausa, an ancient hausa-fulani culture used to show respect for the elders that their name wont be mentioned in their presence or absence, and whoever has the name of your parent you wont call their name either.
My Grandmother can walk for miles without getting tired, she used to visit some of her friends and relatives in the neighbouring village. She'll wake up very early and start getting ready, when I complained that its too early she'll say " da zafi zafi ake dukan karfe", a proverb in hausa meaning "you hit the iron when its hot". She'll wear her best 'zani biyu' its mostly made of 'atamfa' sewed in blouse with two wrappers, the other one is used as a veil, covered completely she'll take off before the sunrise.#GrannyWisdom. to be continued...