INTRODUCING 'YAR MAMA

Just got the greatest New Year gift; my own computer and internet service in my own space. Wonderful...my husband can't imagine what he is unleashing. I have bottled up feelings about so many things and I really needed an outlet. After living for too many years in Kano, we have just moved to Abuja. I am so-o-o happy. I needed to get away from those smog-filled streets, small-minded people, holier than thou religious freaks, misplaced priority government...I can go on forever. The Kano of my youth is no more. My childhood neighborhood of Yakasai is garbage clogged, almajirai infested, kwatami overflowing ..Our so called Mallam Governor thinks that providing signboards with Quranic incantations is a priority. Kano, the commercial centre of the 70s and 80s is dying and is on the last legs of the death throes..Oh woe is me and my people...just where did we go wrong? FYI this is just a rhetorical question cos I know damn well where we went wrong!!! This blog will tell you but for starters I am just estatic that we got away...I was already having nightmares about bringing up my children in Kano which was a struggle of ideas between mine and those around us that insist on helping me put my children right. My mother-in-law insists on our sending the children EVERY weekend to Wawure to acclimatise with the relatives. Their ideas are oh so extreme that when my twelve year old said that she wanted to be an engineer, my husbands aunt said, ' in mijin ki ya yarda kya yi da ga gidanshi' (if your husband agrees, you can do that from his house). IMAGINE!!! My husband actually was undecided about moving to Abuja but I used all my womanly wiles and guess who changed his mind overnight.