The Battle of the Bulge

Hi and a great week to all and sundry. My back is almost breaking from the grueling work I’ve done today but it has been full of fun and stress. One thing I have to say is I know that when this film comes out I dare not show it to my mum. I don’t care how brave I am or will be in future there is no way I can stand up to my mother with what I did on set yesterday. Actually I did a couple o very raunchy scenes which I don’t know what the editor’s going to do with. But that is gist for another day. Today is what I promised to dish up two weeks ago and that is about Calabar.

I’d love to say Calabar was exciting and all, and that I sampled every local cuisine there was to offer but alas, it was work I went there for and every waking hour there was, was completely dedicated to work. The cast and crew were so wonderful and most of us worked as a tea… You know what the truth is? I’m struggling to resist talking about food as I have had so many jibes from my friends, old and new, over my fixation with ‘food’. I want to make one thing very very clear. I love good food and not food – there’s a difference! The former is simply poetry while the latter is just the run of the mill stuff. Sometimes I wonder and then opine that maybe I should marry someone who’s a terrible cook. That way I’d hate to eat and stay slim. What I’m struggling with is where my priorities lie; my mouth or my tummy. I’m now at the stage where everything I eat goes straight to increasing my girth or widening the spread of my bottom. It is no longer a subtle approach but a full fledged battle of the bulge. I now call my rear guard buddy ‘broadband megahertz’ in a desperate attempt to continually remind myself of the relentless onslaught of Mr Fat. I can’t eat my beloved pounded yam or akpu (fufu) anymore. Rather I go searching for healthier alternatives like tofu, soya extracts and suchlike supplements to replace my addiction to swallow food. My metabolism rate has dropped twice this year alone and every little thing I eat goes straight to the pantry for storage. If I don’t eat, trouble, I become so dizzy and I immediately wear the look of one who’s just trekked across the desert. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t! it wasn’t always like this.

As a teenager, my motto was ‘ Kama nri g’adoro n’ite, ka o doro n‘afo!’ Meaning, food is better placed in the tummy than in the pot. I could eat! I could wolf down a family sized loaf of bread, chug a jug of ovaltine beverage before jogging over to my friend’s house three streets away. I ate in one meal then what would take me two days to eat today and I was still as thin as the space between prison bars. I think most of what I ate then was put into making me grow from a runt of just 5 feet at fifteen to a dizzying 6”2” by age seventeen. Thank you my Lord. Someone once told about some native fetish or magic spell that could make one eat and the food would be diverted straight to the stomachs of those seated around him. While I may doubt the veracity of that claim, I can’t but think about it sometimes and then with a sigh bend down to pick up my jump rope to begin my dreary routine of 600 jumps. I hope, no, I pray (I’m very serious Lord) that it will be a very very long time before my best buddy - the one downstairs - gets tired of eating. Say, another fifty years? Please? Thank you!

Calabar? Ah yes Calabar. That, once again, is still a topic to be snatched at another day. Have a great week ahead folks and I love you guys!