Meeting Chukwuemeka: The Visitor (Ep.6)

“Oh, you don’t know that there is a difference between Yoruba and Igbo egusi?” She asked as we stepped into the kitchen. The maid was monitoring the food and cleaning the dishes, but she paused to greet us as we walked in.

Mrs. Nwosu took a seat and stretched an arm towards the seat in front of her so that I could take a seat too. I sat down facing Mrs. Nwosu, “do you know why I agreed to Emeka dating a Yoruba girl?” She continued, “it’s because Yoruba egusi soup is the best, and I’ve been praying to my God that at least one of my boys would bring a Yoruba girl to me, now look at God”. She said, with her hands up in surrender.

I kept staring at Mrs. Nwosu while she spoke because I was waiting for the part where she was going to say “Tadah! I was only joking to see your reaction”. But unfortunately, it looks like Mrs. Nwosu isn’t joking about the Yoruba Egusi soup so I answered, “ma, the problem is, I’m not so good at Yoruba soups”, I grew up eating Indomie, and pasta.

I was hoping that Mrs. Nwosu would actually believe that lie but she insisted. “Don’t worry, the way I’m seeing you, you look like someone that can cook very well, the type that your generation calls wife material three hundred yards” she teased.

Did Mrs. Nwosu just call me three hundred yards of wife material because of egusi soup? I thought to myself.

“Don’t worry, I already made starch, and fried turkey, all for you. So all we’ve been waiting for is for you to come and cook the egusi for us, and God so good you even came earlier than expected” she said.

“We thank God for journey mercies,” I replied sarcastically. “Don’t worry the entire family would come around very soon, they’re also putting things in place for you” she said.

“Ufoma, please shift and allow Eniola, my daughter-in-law, to take over the kitchen,” she said, referring to the maid who was cooking and cleaning the kitchen. After saying that, she gracefully walked out of the kitchen to probably attend to other stuff i do not know about.

Immediately I stood up from the chair, a wicked plan crawled into my brain.

I prepared the egusi with zero or almost no supervision from Mrs. Nwosu, but I got some help from the maid to prepare the much anticipated egusi soup. After cooking the soup, I returned to the living room to meet the rest of Chukwuemeka’s siblings including his sister who was present on our first date. She embraced me and complimented my dress.

Mrs Nwosu introduced me to the rest of the family, and they all welcomed me with smiles on their faces. For a moment, I wasn't sure if I should have pulled the stunt in the kitchen, but the deed has been done. About the stunt….

We all gathered around the dining table to eat. Chukwuemeka's father was the first person to exclaim after putting one morsel of pounded yam and egusi in his mouth. “Why is this food so pepper…peppery..” he said, as he grabbed a glass of cold water hurriedly, gulping it down his throat.

“I thought it was only me,” Chukwuemeka’s sister said, gulping her second glass of water . Mrs. Nwosu immediately fired a strong look at me and I froze. “Eniola what did you do to this soup?” she asked.