A Tribute To Aunty Mosun 💓
A dear, dear Nanny of ours passed away this morning morning and this re-triggered one of my goals to put together a compilation of short, funny stories of my life.
Aunty Mosun is one of those amazing ladies who influenced my upbringing and taught me never to be a pushover. Bless her beautiful soul.
We just moved to Nigeria from the U.K, following one of our Dad’s posts in the Diplomatic Corp. I was about seven years old. Dad plonked me into a nearby Primary School as the nearby Private School could not accept my brother and I as at the time of Dad’s application.
To cut the long story short, I was a mis-fit in the school. I had funny hair, which my Mum put in ribbons, I spoke with a funny accent, I couldn’t speak the local language and I simply looked out of place, in my clean, well ironed uniform, polished school shoes and gleaming white socks. I was a target for bullying.
The silly boys would pass by me, pull my hair, pull out my ribbons and simply taunt me.
Anyway, I got home one day in tears. Darling Aunty Mosun asked me in Yoruba, then repeated in English, as my Yoruba was still poor: ‘Why are you crying’? I responded that a boy hit me in school.
She looked astounded and asked again in Yoruba, then repeated in English: ‘Is that why you are crying?’ She rolled her eyes and said, ‘You go back to school and BEAT the boy back’. I looked shocked, because my Mum is such a Lady, she will never ask me to do a thing like that.
I literally took Aunty Mosun’s advice, went back to school, sought the boy out and BEAT this stupid, twat of a boy, up. The boy was caught completely unawares, never expected that and curled up like a frightened idiot, whilst I gave him a good hiding, plummeting my soft, but angry fists into him, punching and slapping him – Phew!!! That felt good.
When a Teacher came round to check out what the commotion was all about, I burst into tears of pity, wailing and cried, ‘He beat me’. The Teacher was disgusted with the boy and punished him. Double whammy for the silly boy: first I beat him, then the Teacher punishes him 🙃
After a few other incidents of me fighting boys and defending a couple of my girl-friends who were also targets of bullying, the school came up with a law. in the school, stating that ‘No Boy Must Touch Any Girl’.
Aunty Mosun taught me to be absolutely intolerant of bullies and never to play being a victim either.
Yes, thanks to Aunty Mosun, we stopped boys, bullying girls in that school. We stopped being victims and stood up for ourselves.
Aunty Mosun taught me to defend and protect myself and my loved ones.
Bless her beautiful soul!
Sasha Chronicles
