Deji is a bush man!

It is unarguable that I had fun this summer. I had my share of traveling and meeting people. People that I will never forget, “the Yosimilale’s” “The pade mi ni sa le” “the sugar mama wannabe” “the aunty of aunties” and how can I forget the “the wannabes” but the story that I will never forget anytime soon was my trip to New York. Over the past few months, I have been home sick (ekiti) and wanted some home cooked meal. As usual, I notified my friends in New York that I will be there for four days covering an event.

On Friday after I got to New York, Ronke called me, “Mr. Xprexxion, how was your trip, my husband and I will stop by at your hotel to take you out for dinner” This is my first time meeting them even though we had exchanged emails and comments on facebook. First impression is the best impression; so I quickly jumped into shower, picked out my best shirt and got dressed. I must admit, I was looking fine and neat.

An hour later, I met them in the hotel lobby; there were four of them, Ronke, her husband and two other ladies (Shola and Teju). They all agreed that they should take me to a Naija restaurant because over the past few weeks I had been mesmerizing about naija foods. They claimed that the restaurant is the best naija restaurant in NY area. An hour later, we arrived at the restaurant. It was time to order, everyone ordered pounded yam, Amala, Eba rounding it out with assorted meats and fish both dried and fresh. You would think it was a feast for a whole village. Initially I was thinking to myself, I hope they are not expecting me to pay for all of these. Before I could say anything, Ronke’s husband quickly said, “don’t worry, everything is on me”. That was close, car note is due soon and so is the mortgage.

I ordered rice with dodo and assorted meat. Before I could place my order with the waitress, Ronke interject, “Mr. Xprexxion, rice! No way!!!!!!!!! You are going to have either pounded yam or eba” Reluctantly, I changed my order to eba with okra soup with fresh fish and assorted meat. Few minutes later, the waitress delivered the food. Everyone dug in with fork and knife. Fork and knife? For Eba and Iyan? Nonsense! I’m an ekiti man………am going to use my hand. I refused to eat; I was waiting on the waitress to bring me water to wash my hand just like my grandfather in the village.. Few minutes later, Teju said “Deji aint u going to eat. I beg eat with fork jaree.. U this ekitiman” Reluctantly, I started eating eba and okra soup with fork. Can you imagine! Assault and insult on tradition using fork with okra soup. We had completely sold out our culture to the white man. No big deal.. it took me a few minutes to get used to it.

In the process of running my mouth and I forgot that I was eating draw soup with fork. I almost finished the food so I decided to eat one of the meat as I was about to put the meat in my mouth with the fork, it dropped and rolled off my nice white shirt into my lap creating a nice red streak of okra soup on my shirt. There was a silence in the room.. no one want to speak. Embarrassed and upset got up and tried to clean it. Can you imagine.. room filled with all Xprexxion Omoges and readers and am walking around with okra stained white shirt.

So much for the first impression. Spent the rest of the afternoon in an okra stained white shirt. From now on, am using the instrument that God gave me to eat, my hands. There is a reason why our for-fathers were using their hands to eat pounded yam and eba.