Of sacrifices and Love

6/8/2014 

I had Just watched this show on Oprah's channel about two women. 

The first was married to a man, had two kids and realized much later that she was a lesbian. She met the second woman after she came out and they developed a relationship but could not marry because gay marriage was illegal where they where, so the second woman underwent a double mastectomy, did a sex change and they got married in 2012(?).

I am not cynical about love and sacrifices, far from it, but I am thinking now about how love does not work out even when a party fulfills some condition or another to make a relationship work.

I am thinking about Bashir now.

We met through some very unfriendly circumstance during my second day at the NYSC camp (camp Bende) in Abia state. It started with us threatening to kill each other. 

See, we where registering for camp and that particular exercise had to do with filling the information of our hometowns, addresses and our next of kin. It was a huge line, I had stood in line for hours, and, just before it got to my turn, Bash cut through the cue, right in front of me. He came with his 'boys' too.
I didn't let him.
He told me I would 'hear from him soon', that I will be sorry.
I told him I was an Ijaw girl, that we do not fear threats like that.
He pushed me. I hit him, he fell from my punch too.

He succeeded at registering after I did though. being an open register, I was certain he wrote down my hometown and next of kin information so I waited to write his details down and told him I had his Momma's address too. It was so romantic.

The NYSC (National Youth Service Corp) camp is a para military training that young graduates in Nigeria undergo to equip them with some defense and life skills to help them 'serve the nation', so when our altercation broke out, the Nigerian military men who where the 'owners of the camp' separated and punished us for an hour after he (Bash) was done writing. Frog jumps, press ups. I did good. I had to, else he would see me as some fragile girl he could bully.

The days after our fight, news had gone around a bit. We were assigned to the same platoon (9). Bash was stalking me too. Once, during a para military party in camp, I had to be protected by a female army official from Bash and his boys too. Aronkus, remember? 

It became easier later though. He began to like me. I was not willing to cede a relationship but told him he would have to show that he really liked me now by doing something he was afraid of. He didn't know how to swim. Was terrified of villages in the Niger Delta because of Militant activities then, so I playfully responded one day that I may date him if he traveled to my village (a three hour boat ride by water to a little village surrounded by water as well.) . Months after we left camp and I had even returned to Law school, my cousin called from the village (Eniwari). Bash had, without even asking me for directions, traveled to my village, almost drowned because he had jumped inside the Silver creek to swim with kids,and had introduced himself as my friend to my cousin Corbon who housed him and called me until he left my village. When Bash called, I told him he was crazy but I would still not date him. I didn't loath him. I was just really unavailable by then.

Sometimes, sacrifices or even fulfilling a condition present to have a relationship with another person does not guarantee a successful relationship. My analogy with the lesbian is not on the same level of sacrificing, but, sometimes, we should just do the things that are best for us because having a life/career change for another may end up badly for you when the relationship ends (or never even starts, like Bash's disappointment). This woman probably had the surgeries because she really wanted to do it for herself but I am wandering; wont it just be the worst thing if her (wife? husband?) decides to leave her shortly afterwards?