I'M SORRY SIR, I USUALLY DON'T USE APPETITE TO EAT

I turned down the first candlelight Christmas dinner I was invited to.

It was my girlfriend who invited me. Well, I was 9-10 years old, so it is better if I call her just my friend who is a girl. She was about the same age and was my classmate in Primary 4A of Government Primary School, Abakpa, Ogoja.

Why did I refuse Ijeoma's invitation to a candlelight dinner? The answer to this question is embedded in my home training, my ignorance and how I actually met and became friends with Ijeoma and her brother Emeka.

Government Primary School was one of the two ordinary primary schools in an ordinary town, peopled by ordinary men and women. We knew ourselves, we knew our parents; we were poor but we didn't know or we didn't care. We felt no shame for going to school barefooted and with our buttocks peeping from holes in the backside of school shorts.

Most days we ate fufu at night, then we will eat the leftovers in the morning before going to school. We were not ashamed of eating fufu to school every morning until Ijeoma and Emeka came.

The headmaster brought them to our class one cold Thursday morning in early October. They were introduced to our teacher and us. They have just joined the school, they are now in our class, they will be going home today and resuming fully on Monday.

They appeared and left like the apparition of our deepest fantasies. There was something about those two. They were beautiful in a way that made me want to stay far from them. They looked like well iron clothes that I didn't want to rumple, like a dream I didn't want fulfilled just yet.

They resumed on Monday decked in the neatest uniform in the world. They looked like answered prayers and smelt like prosperity. They stayed away from us. They were shy, not proud. On our part, we stayed away because we didn't want to dirty them and get into any problem.

When our teacher stepped in that morning, he began by asking us to "stand up. Sit down. Stand up. Alright, each of you will tell me what you ate this morning." Normal question. Normal answers everywhere.

Fufu and groundnut soup.

Fufu and beeniseed soup.

Fufu and eruru soup.

Yam.

Fufu.

Yam.

Fufu.

Yam and beans.

Alright. Our new student, Ijeoma, what did you eat this morning.

"Noodles and omelette."

Her voice. So fine. Fine English too. Wow.

But wait, what is noodles and omelette?

I thought our teacher will ask her to explain that thing she said she ate. But he didn't. He just said "Alright. Sit down."

We sat.

But what the hell is noodles and omelette?

Well, I don't care anyway. I don't think I can even eat that kind of thing. Noodles and omelette: the way that thing sound eh, e no go ever bellyful me.

Emeka and Ijeoma kept eating very strange and irregular things to school. They kept eating their noodles. We were not answering them. Some days they will drink tea or pap with fried plantain or akara. Like seriously? Nobody prepares that nonsense in our house unless someone is sick.

One day they said they ate scrambled eggs. We were shocked. Scrambled eggs how? Which animal use to lay that one? The one we know is egg o, we don't know any scrambled eggs.

I started noticing something. All of a sudden, my classmates started drinking tea and eating fried plantain. One day two of them even had the guts to eat noodles. Even Odey, my main gee, ate noodles one day. Ah, ah, Odey! When did you know noodles?

It got so bad that by early November, about one month after Ijeoma and Emeka joined us, I was about the only one still eating fufu to school, as far as answering the teacher's question was concerned. What's happening na?

One Monday morning.

"Alright. Ijeoma, what did you eat this morning."

"I didn't have appetite sir. So I couldn't eat."

Emeka too.

Hmmmmm. This girl has brought another one again o. So they use appetite to eat in their house?

The next day, Ijeoma again didn't eat. No appetite. Emeka too. 

I was just thinking: this girl's parents must be very wicked. They should go and buy their children appetite to use and eat na. But what even happened to the one they have been using?

I was dazed when most of my friends said they didn't eat too. They said they didn't have appetite. Wow.

"Isa, what did you eat?"

Yam, sir.

"I guess you had a good appetite?"

The class laughed. I didn't even know why they were laughing. Maybe eating in the morning has become infra dig. To lose appetite is now a status symbol; because the celebrities of the class lost their appetites.

I tried to ignore them as I answered our teacher, "I'm sorry sir, I usually don't use appetite to eat. We don't have it in our house."

I saw a shiver of shock dance on the teacher's face before he roared with laughter.

"Isa", still laughing "appetite is not something like a plate you use to eat. It's a feeling. Like a feeling to eat." 

I was more confused. Feeling? How? As in they use feeling to eat? Me I don't use feeling abeg. If I see food I chop, if I don't see food I leave am. Which one is feeling again?

"I know you must have had this feeling to eat or not to eat before. You must have lost appetite sometime."

Now my eyes were misty, "No sir. I have never lost appetite since I was born sir. Please help me sir, I don't want to die."

"No. You won't die. If you have never lost appetite, that means you are actually very healthy. Ok. Sit down all of you, let's learn about appetite."

That day, I and many others who were claiming they didn't have appetite, learnt about appetite for the first time.

I and Ijeoma became friends after that day too.

However, when she invited me that December for what she called her family Christmas candlelight dinner, I turned it down. I was afraid to go because I didn't know what a candlelight dinner was and I didn't want to find out the way I found out about noodles and appetite.

I stayed home to eat Mama's rice and chicken under the sunlight in the day and moonlight in the night. Contented.

- Written by First Baba Isa (FBI)