Recently, I was in a cosmetics shop to buy some items.
As I was browsing through the merchandise, I could
hear a woman talking on her cell phone. It took me
approximately twenty minutes to make up my mind
about what to put into my shopping cart. All this time,
the woman was still on her phone. She was speaking
rather loudly and animatedly, and at some point, she
got emotional. For a while there were only two of us
in the shop, and it seemed that she had convinced
herself that even if people around could hear her, they
could not understand what she was saying. You see,
the shop was in Atlanta, USA, and she was speaking in
Yoruba. You might be wondering why she did not
think about the fact that I could be another Nigerian,
but I have been told my dreadlocks fool some people
into thinking I could not be African. A few years ago,
when I was in a shop in Liverpool Street, London, a
guy was on the phone to someone, raving about the
two women he was currently ‘banging’, and how hot
they were. He said enough for me to know he was
also married! The details were so explicit and juicy, I
lingered longer than I needed to in the shop. When
the guy finished, I decided to teach him a lesson in
discretion, so I walked up to him and said ‘Good
afternoon’ in Yoruba. He reacted as if he had received
an electric shock. I did not know you are a Nigerian he
said. It should not have mattered if I was a Nigerian
or not. He should not have been having that kind of
conversation over the phone in public.
Fast forward to my co-shopper in Atlanta. When I was
ready to pay for my items, I went to the payment
counter and queued behind my Naija sister. She was
still on her phone. She was so engrossed in her
conversation that it did not seem to bother her that
there was no one to attend to us, she kept on talking.
After a few minutes, I called out to get the attention of
a shop attendant, and someone came forward to assist
us. All through the process of payment, the sister kept
her phone glued to her ear. As she turned to go, still
on her phone, I looked at her and said in Yoruba, ‘It is
well’. She too panicked for a second, then smiled and
thanked me. I hope she got the message. In the twenty
minutes or so I spent listening to this sister, I learnt a)
She is married b) Her mother-in-law lives in Nigeria
but looms very large in her marriage, c) Due to the
insatiable demands of her mother-in-law, her marriage
is in jeopardy and d) if her husband does not keep his
mother in check, she will leave him and take her
children with her. I fully sympathise with this
distressed sister, but this is an awful lot of information
to learn about a total stranger in a public place.
We keep talking about how young people these days
do not have values and manners. In the Yoruba
language, when people talk about young people and
manners, they are classified in two. We have the `a bí
ikó – those who were not taught manners when they
were young and the àkó ìgbà those who were taught
and refused to learn. For the purpose of this article, I
am using 21 and above as my definition of an adult.
Good manners are not something that was imported
into African cultures from elsewhere. We all received
the appropriate training from our parents, relatives,
teachers, community leaders, religious leaders and so
on, so we should not have an excuse for poor
manners. When we become parents and wards, we
continue the cycle of teaching and learning. We cannot
claim to be good leaders if we lack character, and good
manners is one of the foundations on which character
is built. I will list a few pet peeves I have with regards
to adult behavior and good manners as follows: continue reading...
http://abovewhispers.com/2016/04/09/loud-whispers-adults-and-good-manners/
