MaMa Lasisi

Its 7:15pm and we’re taking the usual hike to the bus stop. It’s been another hectic work day and for me the next stop is home. I wave off “Ibru the facilitator” and hug “Dotun the delegator”. Ibahim and Dotun are my colleagues at work, and yea we’re hot like that at Contagious, we’ve all got code names. Contagious is the new media firm were i work. In one word? One small happy family. Ok! i guess it’s really four words, but you get the idea.

At this juncture, we part ways. I’m waiting for the “yellow and black” bus to convey me to Bariga. That’s the route i pass to get home every day and it’s usually a while before i can get an almost empty one. Why do I always wait for an almost empty one? You will have to see me to know the answer; I’m physically incapable of “jumping danfo”, I’d most likely be broken into bits if I tried it. Besides real ladies do not “jump danfo”

I’m tapping my foot and mentally re arranging my to-do list. People are daring fate and crossing haphazardly, horns are blaring noisily and curses are flying high in the air like kites. It’s a typical “Lagos on the streets scenario”.  Nothing new there!

The bus is here, jumping time! It stops right in front of me and before the conductor can say Bariga! A gazillion people are trying to get in at once.  I’ve never really understood that part. People would rather get in first and find out where the bus is going later. I’m pushed, squeezed, squashed and then finally shoved into the bus. It’s either “get in or get out” and as i’m the last to get in, i get the seat next to the “sliding door”; the very uncomfortable one that is slid out and warrants you sitting with half your butt. Lucky for me my butt’s small enough to fit but I’m uncomfortable none the less...

Rule number “something” in everyday bus jumping routine states “if you want to seat comfortably enough, GET YOUR OWN CAR”. Telling fellow passengers to “shift or dress” is a waste of breathe. They’d probably just wiggle their butts and act like they have, when in reality they haven’t moved an inch. So I’m resigned to suffer my fate stoically.

...off we go, another bumpy ride. There is “go slow”; no surprise there, it’s the norm for Lagos traffic. By this time its night already and people are getting on and off the bus. It’s a good thing for me as I get to change seats. Now I’m seating at the back in the dark and someone else has taken the uncomfortable seat by the “sliding door”. A good look at her shows me she’s nothing like me, she doesn’t look like she’s going to be broken to bits if she jumps a bus or anything at all, plus “suffering in silence” is not in her dictionary as she soon proceeds - quite loudly to let everyone  know that she is highly uncomfortable. My code name for her is “Madam X”. She is not a staff of contagious media of course, but looking at her calls to mind something. Her backside looks like mine when you multiply it by twenty (by the way i do that in my dreams; imagine my butt’s twenty times its actual size).

Madam  X begins to yell at the people on her row to “shift”, and when they act like they’ve got “palmoil cottonwool” in their ears, she starts to yell at the conductor to tell the people on her row to “dress”. The conductor disregards her; at this point he’s more interested in collecting his money so he asks her for her fare, which is twenty naira. Madam X angrily shoves ten naira at him and says vehemently in Yoruba “how can you ask me to pay twenty naira when am sitting with half my bum”?(in Yoruba of course). Here take ten naira for one bum!

 The conductor responds in the same tone “i don’t care if you’re not sitting at all you’re in the bus so pay me my money.

As expected they start to curse each other until they are breathless. Then its recess time, either they’ve run out of insults or thinking up new ones.....

For a while all is quiet, till we get to a bus stop and some of the passengers alight. Now there’s space in the bus again and the conductor suggests that “Madam X” move to the front seat so that she can be comfortable enough to want to pay the required twenty naira. She obliges the conductor and moves forward; suddenly everyone bursts into laughter, unrestrained guffaws of laughter! It’s at this point everyone sees what i had seen from my back seat in the dark; and it dawns on them why the woman had been so uncomfortable in her seat...

Madam X was actually Mama Lasisi! She had a BUTT as big as the comic character Mama Lasisi at the back page of The Punch newspaper.