Growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, was fun. But returning to the village with my parents, my mum especially loved to celebrate Ileya (Sallah) so it was always something to look forward to. It was one indescribable joy I never had the words for as a child. I would look forward to Ileya day from the next day after the recent one. Yes, my Ileya days were fun.
My siblings, together with my cousins, and I would mark our calendars because Ileya for us was such a reunion. It was one of the two times in the year all the mummies and daddies will be around- mummy Ibadan, mummy Itire, Daddy Bariga, Daddy Shomolu, and Mummy Oworo, Mummy Redeem Camp all coming together as a family- a big family in one small house in the village. My maternal grandmother was raised as a Muslim but married my grandfather who happened to be a Christian. It was funny how she had practiced Christianity with my grandfather till his death and then went back to her faith as a Muslim. I think she’s a feminist. Well, I respect such a woman, not just for her boldness but also for the sheer feeling of me having some “birthright” monopoly of Ileya meat. Not that I met or knew who my grandfather was. I was conversant with the story about my grandfather as if I was born at his period. Uncle Idowu would always tell funny stories of how bold her mother, my own grandmother, was and Uncle Kehinde popularly known as Small Daddy Shomolu would emphasize the way women love men in his own view. Small Daddy Shomolu had two wives, or maybe three….well, that is another story for another day.
Iya Ibeji (Mother of twins) as my grandmother was fondly called, always had two rams for Ileya. We were balling..gosh! One would be killed on the main Day of the Eid immediately after returning from the Eid prayers. The other ram on the following day would be killed and its meat shared according to age groups.
The Eid prayers were always fun. The truth is that it was quite long for me.I was young, you know; we wouldn’t eat in the morning before Eid as every one was worked up and excited about the chunks of freshly fried ram meat to be devoured, especially when your ram is a “Uda” not sure if that’s the spelling but everyone usually referred to the half- brown, half-white big ram grandmother always got for Ileya as Uda.
And we were always the village champions with the most prized Eid rams on the school field where rams were brought for fights days before Eid. Some people would lose their rams to the fight, while some would go home with rams with broken horns. I will come to one gist in a bit, but for now let’s get back to Eid.
Eid and Eid prayers were my first contacts and introductions to any and everything Islamic. The Eid was always colourful with the entire village all decked out in their best attires for Ileya. For instance, It was the only time, you would ever see Baba Tanimola in anything cool, or should I say, “to-match” as he dragged in his deep Ijebu dialect, *“To match r’ im wo”* He was never bothered on dressing or on clothing.
He was a farmer, and my clear image of him was always his brownish/white singlet , khaki shorts and one of those cane caps with his hoes and cutlass strapped to one of those elastic luggage at the back of his Raleigh bicycle. We could hardly recognise him at first when we met at Eid; his jacquard lace would have been so starched as if he bought the entire village’s cassava to make the starch just for his jacquard. You could tell that if his Jacquard has spent 10 more second under the coal Iron, he won’t have “Jac” of his “quard”. It wasn’t only Baba Tanimola who paid attention to his dressing on Ileya like this. Some family members came wearing uniformed aso-Ebi to slay on the praying ground and I love the sight of pomp and pageantry. No other festival matched this in the village except the New Year eve but the main highlight happened in the night or dawn of the new year.
We would all show up at Eid with our new mats in different sizes and colours. To be sure of a vantage sitting position, you must have sent a young family member to reserve a good spot for you with one of the old mats, else, you sit wherever was left unreserved. So when we showed up, we showed the new mats and place them over the old mats used in reserving spaces. I particularly liked to sit with my grandmother. It came with a lot of 50 kobos and one naira giftings from her friends and the rest of the Alasalatus. It was my way of low-key crowd funding without asking or burning data doing a go fund me. All I needed to do was a smile like a happy grandchild that I was under the smothering sun. I skipped a part though. The Eid prayers would go on and on then you would be wondering when it would come to an end and my mum’s voice would be ringing in my head, *“Segun, eat something before you go to Eid o!”* but my love for Ileya meat and, more importantly, those one-one naira gifts at the Ileya praying ground are the goals.
So we made it back home, prayers are said and then we got to work with the ram! Uncle Idowu a.k.a Olooto is the natural guillotine man or sometimes my older uncle, Uncle Kehinde. Uncle Kehinde believed burning the ram’s fur was better than Uncle Idowu’s “scraping approach”. He always argued that burning the fur makes the meat sweeter. I agreed for a simple fact that when we burnt the ram’s fur in no time our mouth would start getting busy with the roasted ends of the meat and that was the fun of hanging around during the methods anyway. It was not hunger games afterall. Our job as the boys or little rascals was the organ meat popularly known as “Inu – eran” or “Tinu- eran” among the Yoruba speaking people. The “shakis”, “abodi” and intestines or “roundabouts” as the “buka” people would say, were usually my areas of concentration and specialty, especially the “Inu-eran”, loosely translated as “inside-meat.” My cousin, Sunday and I were experts at sorting and cleaning the inside-meat. It was also a surety that we would get more than a fair share of the main meat afterwards, a card I held to my chest all through childhood. The “inside-meat” or “organ meat” as some often refer to it, is a major delicacy in Nigeria. It’s a crown on special meals. It’s the part of the meat people around here refer to as “assorted”. So, you see, we had the ace. We would take our time and keep it all clean inch by inch- Kempiski Hotel standard clean. We would have obviously kept some for ourselves.
It’s important to know we didn’t steal it, we kept some away for ourselves; according to the tradition of ram “butchering” as learnt from our uncles, it was our right, but you had to sort it yourself else, you got nothing. By the time we might have done with the organs, meat processing and cleaning, we would be reeking of the ram filth and had to run to the river to clean up. The river was always tempting, you could not just get in and get out. We would swim to our satisfaction and by the time we got home, the meat would have been cooked and fried. How we knew the meat was ready was that aroma of freshly fried Ileya meat that welcomed you just before you entered the courtyard… gosh. I can perceive the aroma of roasted ram meats as I write or is it that from my Lebanese neighbour frying his ram?
Ileya festival days, as it is, are the periods I miss my dear grandmother the most and, of course, a major part of my childhood. Up until my University years, I would leave the campus on Ileya days for the village to get my share of the Ileya meat. My portion was always kept aside for me. She would keep it safe and have it locked in her special iron barbecue cage she called *“wire”*. Ìya Ibeji always kept my portion of Ileya meat. Even when I went far East for my National Youth Service, she knew her Akanni would come and she never stopped till her last Ileya 10 years ago.
Iya Ibeji, my grandmother took her final sleep on the 3rd after the Ileya of 2009, but kept and made sure I came for my portion of the Ileya meat. How sweet a soul! How audacious a woman! She waited for her last Ojude Oba before she said her final goodbye to this beautiful world. I miss you grandmother. May God continue to grant you eternal rest. Eid Mubarak!
‘Segun Lafup Ogundipe
Accra, Ghana, 2020
Twitter: @lafup
