Let me tell you why I’ll be having that talk with her so no one thinks I’m a bully.
A few weeks ago, I decided to cook Jollof rice and I wanted to use fresh peppers for it so badly so I went downstairs to a Sainsbury’s store and asked for it. They gave me peppers alright, but sweet peppers. I explained to these fine people that I wanted peppery pepper, not the sugary kind, still they looked at me like I was yanning dust.
Eventually, one of them said I had to go to the bigger Sainsbury’s to find “things like that”. If you’re lost, it’s PEPPER I was looking for like this o, ose!
Anyway, so I started the journey to this bigger store and it took me about 15mins to get there.
I looked around and all I could find were the same “sugary pepper” I found in the smaller store. Hia, I cannot trek this long distance and go home empty-handed o, I thought. So I asked the staff there to gather round, they did. Then I asked them if they had ever seen HOT PEPPER as in PEPPERY PEPPER as in PAINFUL PEPPER as in the kind of pepper that after touching, you dare not touch your eyes with it?
One started going through his computer, probably checking for “peppery pepper”. Another one kept picking up the sweet pepper, examining and putting it back. Then the third one said she was going to ask another colleague. I waited.
After about five minutes of standing and waiting, one man walked up to me and asked “did you mean chilli?” I said chilli o, pepper o, anyone, as long as it’s peppery hot biko, give it to me!
So they went to a different corner and brought their “chilli”, the chilli bu our Nigerian pepper. Odiegwu.
I literally bought all the packs on that rack because this journey cannot be wasted and I wasn’t prepared to make it a second time soon.
Now, can you see what I had to go through to buy that pepper? Okay. So I just walked into the kitchen now to cook noodles, opened the fridge and couldn’t find my peppers. Then my eyes just randomly went to the dustbin, and behold, there lay my hard earned packets of pepper AKA chilli. I swear, tears ran down my eyes.
I put my hand in the dustbin, brought them out, opened them all and put in the sink. I washed, put them into those kitchen bags and back in the fridge.
My beautiful flatmate must have been doing me a favour because the expiry date on the pepper packs said 14th Dec. Everything here has an expiry date, including carrots and onions and tomatoes. I honestly don’t blame her but this talk must happen, because this is exactly the kind of favour I don’t need in my life right now.
She needs to know that where I come from, peppers and tomatoes and onions don’t just expire, no they don’t. Highest, they’ll get soft. And when they get soft, we blend and still use them. There’s such a thing as awalawa, for my Igbo brethren. I’m sure they exist in other tribes too.
Oh and did I mention that each pack of that chilli cost 4pounds? Please do the calculation. My God, what else will she throw away now when I’m not in the kitchen? My stockfish? My okpa? Ogbono m? Chineke ekwekwana!
So, I am sitting patiently, waiting for her beautiful self to walk in. Bye bye nu.
-Uzoamaka Doris Aniunoh
This Story has been described by foreknown author Pa Ikhide R. Ikheloa as an “Effortless Luscious Writing’ and a story which can never be seen on books, but on Facebook.
http://starttells.com/2015/12/19/nigerian-lady-narrates-experience-shopping-for-peppers-in-united-kingdom/
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