Free I Used to Say My Mother Was Shirley Bassey by Stephen K Amos Page A

since stopped listening to our complaints about the food in Nigeria. I had moaned to Mama Bunmi back in Lagos that I missed things like McDonald’s and that unless you count puddings made from condensed milk there are almost no sweets available. When I explained to her about Wham! bars back in London she was disgusted and said, ‘Ah, Stephen, if you have sweets all the time then you will die of piles!’ She didn’t mince her words.
    I was hanging out by the sound system that was belting out Afrobeat music and a group of men in their twenties were standing nearby commenting on the women as they passed by. ‘Look at her. Oh my God! Shakara! Plenty! Stop it, sista! I’m falling in love with you.’ They noticed me watching them and they invited me to join them as they danced to the music. As we were dancing together, they offered me a sip of a milky-looking liquid in a clear plastic bottle. My taste buds were challenged once again: it had a weird tang. I didn’t know it at the time but I was drinking palm wine, which is a wicked concoction made of fermented tree sap. It is a bit stronger than wine and after a couple of gulps I was feeling very weird, but it seemed to give me energy to dance more.
    Soon I was sweating and had to stop. Needing a rest and with a woozy feeling in my head, I wanted to find the others. It was then that I saw the familiar brocade floral pattern and blindly stumbled over to a lady as she went to a different part of the stadium. When we got to another bonfire, I was starting to feel faint and I tugged on her sleeve. When she turned around I was horrified to see that this young woman was a total stranger. The cloth Granny had bought was obviously not that unique after all! I panicked. This was serious. I was in a stadium with tens of thousands of people around me, with barely adequate lighting, and I was lost.
    The young woman must have seen fear rising in my face and tried to calm me down. With the music playing so loud she could barely hear me as I tried to tell her my name, but I think it was pretty clear that I was a lost kid: it’s not like I was going to ask her to dance. She didn’t worry at all and actually took a moment to find a handful of sparklers. She gave me one and took one for herself and once they were lit we waved them around in front of us to clear a path back to where the Afrobeat music was playing. It was actually kind of fun as we strode through the crowds waving the sparklers ahead of us.
    â€˜Not so fast, young man. Remember to walk with plenty of effizzy . You want people to stop and stare as you go past them. So remember to swagger.’ I’ve never since managed a walk with such swagger and such fear hand in hand. I had no idea where my family was but somehow I knew that the feeling of being lost was nothing compared to the feeling of looking lost in a crowd full of people riding their shakara to the max.
    After about forty minutes we were in a different part of the stadium and I heard a voice. ‘Stephen! Stephen! Where are you?’ Through my drunken haze, I was very pleased to see that it was Auntie Yomi. She was watching a group of teenagers who were having a break-dancing competition. I ran up to her and told her I’d gotten lost.
    â€˜Stephen! What is that smell on your breath?’
    â€˜Nothing.’
    â€˜You’ve been drinking toddy. What were you thinking?’
    â€˜I followed that woman!’ Yomi looked up and saw the woman who was dressed in the same pattern as I was and she laughed.
    â€˜You had a lucky escape. But you won’t be so lucky if your mummy and daddy find out you have been drinking! Look at you now. A big man! Well, you better steer clear of the others. Here come with me.’ She led me to a suya stall, bought me something to eat and told me to wait there and not move an inch. She came back ten minutes later. ‘There. I told them you are going to stay here with me and so they