So I've been accused, for the first time in my life, of being soft spoken. Me? Soft spoken? Well, I call this an accusation because it is a description of myself that I do not recognise, but this claim has come from two different unrelated sources. The first time I heard it was when I went to meet my friend at a location that we had agreed to meet. I arrived early, so rather than enter into the building I went to sit with a woman selling snacks and drinks by the roadside under a commercial umbrella.
"Madam I beg, make I siddown, I dey wait for my friend, give me Coke make I drink", were the words I said to her while gesturing that she kindly make room for me on her bench where she sat. "Oga, welcome o", was the reply as she moved aside creating room for me to sit while at the same time digging into her cooler to fish out my Coke. "Your friend know say you dey here? You don call am?" (Meaning, does your friend know you're here? Have you called him?). "I go call am again to tell am where I dey", I replied, and this while I thought I was trying to be very Nigerian and embracing my Nigerian roots.
So I called my friend who said he had already arrived and that he was inside the building looking for me. Our arrangement had been for us to meet at the building, not necessarily inside it. Our plan was after meeting, to proceed somewhere else together. I then told him that I was outside sitting by the roadside among the stalls where people are selling things. As I sat I had my back turned to the building, which likely explains why I had not seen him when he arrived, so even as I was still on the phone with him I turned around and saw him emerge from the building. "I can see you, just look straight ahead, you'll see me."
I understood that he would not have expected me to be sitting by the roadside, but that's where I was, and try as I did to steer him towards me while calmly speaking to him on the phone, he seemed to be resolute in his belief that I could not possibly be sitting by the roadside. The woman, the stall owner, while sitting next to me had also turned around to see my friend approaching us, but whom she could see was staring in a completely different direction. So she stood up, waved both her arms, and shouted at high decibel levels, "Brother, na here, na here o", which finally caught caught my friend's attention.
After my friend and I were reunited, this woman now turned on me and accused me of speaking in a soft bedroom voice when trying to communicate my location to my friend, saying this in jest, mockingly. But I had seen no need to raise my voice, or put up a theatrical display. My friend had his phone clenched to his ear, and I assumed he could clearly hear the instructions I was delivering to him.
The second time I was accused of this was by my own brother. Last year on my previous visit to Nigeria I never heard the accusation that I am soft spoken, so did something happen between then and now? That said, I cannot but attach a lot of weight to my brother's observation. He would know, and he himself put it down to me having lived in England for as long as I have. Could it be true that I might be losing some of my Nigerianness?
