What The Dog Told Me About The Riots

I have talked about this dog on FB and I remember saying that he can work for the CIA but his area of expertise is food detection! I can't vouch for his ability to be able to differentiate contaminated food from edible ones, though.

I had just concluded making a sumptuous egusi soup, complete with hold-ups of substantial chunks of iced fish (Horse) that I discovered at a weekly market known as La Batte. And has helped myself to a generous mound of fluffy eba in my usual yellowy flat plate, on the one hand, and loaded the thick soup on an unusually deep plate, on the other hand, and was making my way out of the kitchen when I discovered the dog has all the while been lying patiently by my exit! Shuo! See this dog and brain!  

Tempo I of Liège
His name is Tempo. He is a very friendly black dog. I developed allergies a few weeks after my arrival, and DT and I have cast suspicious eyes on the dog. Yet I still feel so soft for his unquenchable appetite that I find it difficult to completely keep him away. That doesn't mean I didn't take some preventive measures: I don't touch him like I used to and I don't allow him into my room.

But this dog has mastered my kitchen timetable; one that I am not even sure of how it operates. Tempo knows when I am going to make food and when I am just going to the kitchen to get water. So, each of these determines how vigorously or otherwise he wags his tail (or the tail, with a mind of its own, wags itself).

On this fateful day, I wasn't in a generous mode to share my fish bones with him before I start eating, like I do usually. Besides, his owner, my landlord, had got me angry and I have taken it out on the dog, in that rather than let him have the chicken or fish bone, I throw them into the thrash. But today, I was feeling happy with myself for the fish-ful egusi soup that I felt I should oblige him with the fish bone first!

Tempo’s owner feeds him well, or so he thinks! He is prompt at buying huge bags of biscuit-like food for the dog. And he always pours them generously into the dog’s plate, without forgetting the water trough (which is actually a toddler’s toilet seat that may not have been used for that purpose). But I have noticed that the food remains untouched for most of the day and I keep imagining myself feeding on just biscuits and water for the rest of my life! So you can understand why he always gets the bone from me and that oftentimes help him to eat the biscuit in order to fill his belly.

So, I discovered we were talking a few minutes after I have demolished the mountainous ration of eba, licked the empty plate of soup clean, and lazily pushed the plates to one side of the table. And with a toothpick dangling between my lips (something my wife hardly approves of), our discussion commenced:

Me:       Why do you always follow me about when I bring food?
Tempo:          What kind of question is that? I like food too!
Me:       But you always have food that you don’t even eat?
Tempo:          (Switches over to Nigerian Pidgin English) Bros, why you de talk like dat? Oya, think am now! If na you dem de give biscuit and water all the time? Bros, I been wan’ ask you something sef!
Me:       Wetin?
Tempo:          You fit adopt me, carry me go back Naija because I hear say enough bones dey for dog to chop?
Me:       Why do you want to go to Nigeria? You are European and dogs are treated better here?
Tempo:          For where? No be black I black so? If I go follow you go, we go sign agreement … mek I talk am for grammar … We will sign an undertaking that you will not take me to anywhere in the south…
Me:       Why is that?
Tempo:          It is too close to Calabar! I hear that it is a dangerous place to be a dog …
Me:       So where do you want to go, then?
Tempo:          Anywhere above the Middle Belt, because there, a dog’s life is better than some dog owners' lives. It has even become more important than the lives of Corpers and people who belong to certain religion! Dog mortality during politico-religious killings has been zero percent!

It then dawned on me that I have been talking with a dog not a human being. I pinched myself. Coming to, I discovered I was lying on the bed (couldn’t remember how I go there) and the empty plates where still where I left them. My toothpick has fallen to the bed, by the side of my mouth, which I discovered was open. I raised my head to find my door open, and Tempo sprawled on the floor at the foot of my bed.
Shocked, I quickly put my head down and said, in what I believe to be the voice we have been using,

Me:   So, Tempo, as we were saying …

The response I got was a whimper! I got up and called the dog. It just wagged its tail and did not speak back. I sent it away from the room and closed my door again! Mtscheeewww! Didn’t know that egusi soup also intoxicates!




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