Haraamu!

The large steel ‘basia’ over the firewood stove is breathing steam and the flame is licking the black underbelly of the pot of amala causing it to hiss and curse. ‘kpoto kpoto kpoto’ the black paste bubbles over the fire.
Sweat is pouring down her face and the smoke is stinging her eyes. She tries to avoid both as she pours more water into the ‘basia’ of amala and feels for the consistency of the paste, dipping her burning hands in a bowl of cold water beside the ‘basia’ (just the way Alhaja does it).
Alhaja is the owner of the ‘Buka’ where they serve only Amala and assorted meat to the men, spinsters and lazy wives of the neighbourhood who patronise them daily. Alhaji Farouk is Alhaja’s husband and the Imam of the family mosque where they all gather to pray in the mornings.

While she sits and waits for the paste to cook, one of the other girls, Bilqis enters into the kitchen shed carrying a volcanic ‘basia’ of egusi soup using shreds from old cartons to insulate her fingers from the heat. Gingerly, the new entrant balances the steaming ‘basia’ of soup on one of the tripods in the shed and walks back to the yard. In due course, to bring in the other ‘basias’ of efo riro, egusi, ewedu and other delicacies that have lent the buka the alias of ‘Jeun koo yo – mother of the neighbourhood’.

At the sight of the sizzling pot of egusi, a crisis starts to brew in the Middle East and a certain uneasiness envelopes the sitting girl. It is the third day of Ramadan and she is not yet accustomed to the cycle of hunger and sating. Having not woken in time for ‘Saari’ this morning, her enzymes were starting to protest in voices of rumbling and writhing within.

Alhaja is nowhere in sight. Neither is Alhaji Farouk.

She takes one last look at the sizzling soup filled to the brim with meat and hurries to her feet; picking up a dirty plate from a stack of unwashed ones lying in a corner of the shed.
She scoops some egusi from the basia, capturing three pieces of meat in the process and covers the steaming soup with another of the dirty plates. She looks around again to ensure no one is watching then ladles out a large glob of amala into one of the nylon wrappers idling about and wraps it into her wrapper folds placing some of the other dirty plates beneath and above the transgression steaming within.

The amala feels warm against her abdomen; the plates feel warm against her fingers. Saliva streams start to run in her mouth and her heart starts to pound. Ggbim, gbim, gbim in her chest. Swallowing one more time, she steps out into the open courtyard walking across the threshold aiming for the side of the house where the changing room hides secure from prying eyes.
As she crosses the courtyard, she tries not to look up but she notices all eyes are on her. Alhaja in a mass of flesh, is staring at her from the shed where the butchers cut the meat. Iya Abeebat is staring at her above the noise of the grinding machine, which rises and dips to the dance of the fluctuating current in the bulb above the mill. Children on the balcony; goats eating leaves on the eve of death; girls crisscrossing the courtyard; Everyone is staring at her but she doesn’t stop. Balancing the lot and walking carefully as to keep the amala wombed within from falling, she just about reaches the other side when,
‘Kafayat’
‘Kafayat!’
It is the unmistakeable voice of Alhaja.

She freezes in her footsteps and looks back: back into the courtyard as she catches the sight of another of the girls with which she shares a name, moving in the direction of the motioning hands of Alhaja.
It wasn’t her Kafayat!
She doubles her pace about the corner and ducks into the windowless changing room, a left turn before the dish washers’.

Shutting the door behind her she crouches in a corner among the clothes stack, her belly growling too loudly, like all expectations on the eve of fulfilment.
She unfolds the wrap about her waist, retrieves the amala, then tucks the plates underneath a clothe pile, retrieving the covered plate of soup which still feels so hot. Devouring the food quickly in no particular order, amala, egusi and meat begins to cramp themselves in her mouth all at once.

Then the door lever starts to turn. Before it opens, she crouches farther into the hanging clothes stack standing tall among the fabric soldiers: her weapons; on one hand, amala-sizzling hot; on the other hand, a plate of egusi yet untamed.
She can hear the shuffling feet of the latest entrants.
...Hushed voices and a quick riffling of clothes.
The plate feels hot now but she cannot drop it
...whispers and a groan
The amala feels hot now but she cannot drop it
...clapping and quicker breathing
Yee! She shouts, dropping the plate on the floor and jumping out of the clothe stack.

Right there on the other side of the dark room is Alhaji Farouk, his Jalamir folded above his hips; and Bilqis (her hands on the wall) stuck to his pelvic regions gasping for breath.

Ha! Haraamu!