Jabou Jobe was a fine young woman with a big flat nose, but all the same she was not hard to look at. She went on to university and got a degree in Finance and Business Management. She had a good job. Jabou became the daughter any parent would dream of any day.
Cola nuts came her way - it was to seek her hand in marriage - the Njie family - An American husband - had so much money - her family was happy to have such a suitor for their daughter. She never met her husband-to be. She felt something was amiss.
A big wedding ceremony was organized; families from far and wide came to wish her luck. Griots came to tell history and to make money. Her wedding was the talk of the town and every girl looked at her with envy, but to Jabou she might as well be dressed in black.
It took two years for her new husband to come. It was something about waiting for his green card which wasn’t really green to come out, he said as he flashed it in her face. It only took Jabou five minutes for her new husband to bore her with talks of “you know.”
She wasn’t really comfortable with his “I gotta, I wanna, see if my shit still stunk, set it off, all set for” slang. And the way he drags his words, even an African American walking in the streets of
She drove to his new home – their new home where friends and family welcomed her new husband. She only smiled when they called her lucky.
When night came, she wasn’t ready for the pain and struggles she went through. Every other night, she would lie on her back to perform her wifely duties. He would pump mindlessly and groan helplessly as he came and lay lifeless on top of her. He was insensitive, she would always tell herself.
But no one really told her that it would give her indigestions or that his bad breath would fan her baby-smooth face until he was done. No one really told her that she would answer to his every whim. No one really told Jabou that she would not continue doing all what she did for him as a hobby, but just for the sake of it. No one really told her that he would be gone again until the day her in-laws would call her to tell her that her ‘new husband’ had found her a mate.
But someone would tell her to move from the main house to allow her mate some space.
No one really told her that her new husband would grow tired of her and forget that she ever existed. That he would call her a dried soil that could not produce a thing, over the phone.
No one really told her the day she left her father’s house that she would never bear all these but would die a broken-hearted woman who everybody called a witch who ate all the children in her womb.
