She Is Not A Plantain, She Is A Pineapple!

Hey Tribe,

I know that in my previous post, I said ‘New post every Sunday’, but here I am on a Wednesday evening night. The true reason is that I had a bit of a hard time letting this go as it is a pretty sensitive one (at least to me, it is) and I have been awfully procrastinate-y (time to stop that!). So, here we go! Be patient, I assure you, I have a point.

I was jejely scrolling through Instagram on Monday, and one of my favorite food bloggers had a picture where she asked what our favourite fruit is? Mine is pineapple.

The pineapple is my favourite because it is just the right medium texture and has an amazing flavour (even though the ‘pines’ give me an itchy tongue). Plus, the pineapple is just such a pretty-looking fruit.

See, the thing about life is that the beauty truly is in our diversity. Imagine a world where we all are the same colour (that means no Yara Shahidi or Tracee Ellis Ross! Or dare I say it.. Drake?! So sad just thinking about it) and speak the same language (there would be no annoying Telenovela voice-overs, which would have actually been great for us).

So, diversity does have its pros and cons.

When I was in Secondary school, there were these children we used to call ‘kiosk babies’ (Dear Lord, please forgive us as this was so wrong!). These were some of the children of the ladies who sold snacks to us during lunch break. They seemed to always have only underwear on and constantly playing in the sand.

A friend of mine used to run away from them, even though they probably weighed less than 20% what she did. Honestly, I didn’t find them pleasant either, so I kept my distance.

Thinking back, I realize now that some of these children must have been born by children who really didn’t have the slightest clue how to deal with life. It wasn’t really their fault that life had started out like that for them.

I still wonder what happened to those babies (Where are they? Are they getting a formal education? Are they living with a stable family?), but I probably never will find out.

I used to live in an estate where some immigrants with really beautifully, dark skin occupied some empty plots of land and a woman’s family piqued my interest. We called her Iya Hajide. She had 10 children, and was definitely in her early thirties.

Hajide who was about 15 was the first daughter, and she had children who probably ranged in ages 3 to 16. Now, Hajide got wedded/married, and I was pretty shocked to hear that. I’d heard and watched stories about such occurrences, I had never actually ‘known’ anyone.

I saw her as this beautiful, young girl. Why cut her childhood short? Was she actually given an option? What would happen to her education? How would she take care of her home? She might not be the first wife, so how was she supposed to deal with other women’s prowess, as a teenager?

I mean, then at 19, I had NOTHING figured out, and now at 23, I still don’t, so how was she supposed to?

I mean, she wasn’t allowed to vote, drive, drink or go to a government-owned university at that age, but somehow, she is allowed to get married??

 Some of the ‘kiosk babies’ were probably like Hajide, and they probably were bringing up their children to be like Hajide. This is one place where diversity loses its splendour.

Now, back to food!

There are two things you could sell me for: Ice cream and fried plantain with eggs. So you can imagine how much I love plantain!

It can be harvested year round and one plant could even produce for up to 50 years! The fruit come out in bunches, so many are harvested at once.

Now, plantains don’t need to be ‘ripe’ before consumption. In fact, some people prefer the unripe version (never met one person who likes unripe pineapples).

You could also hasten the ripening of plantains by placing them in a black nylon bag overnight (or longer, depending on the degree of ripeness you want). This stuff really works!

However, the plant in its entirety is a pretty bleh-looking plant.

My favourite fruit, on the other hand…

 It could take up to three years to ripen one fruit (that’s a long time in fruit time), and a pineapple plant can only produce one pineapple at a time.

Once it is harvested, it can’t ripen any further no matter how long you leave it out.

It’s also pretty quick to perish, even when it has been stored in the fridge (about a week, unlike oranges which can stay up to a month)

Also, have you seen how pretty pineapple flowers can be??

Now, look at both fruit…

Look at The Girl Child

Which better represents her?

Her Timeliness?

Her Rarity?

 Her Beauty?

Her potential?

You can’t just pick her up at any time, in any where at any age and expect her to be someone she doesn’t have any clue how to be. It takes training, strength, time and love to build her up!

I don’t even care how many times this has been said or how many articles have discussed this or how many movies have been made, we NEED a change!

No matter how diverse our cultures, religion, languages, sartorial choices, face shapes, finances, amongst other things, are, there should not be a place for THIS to be ACCEPTABLE!

Until we start moving to actually change, we would remain here; a people who do not thoroughly believe in The Girl Child.

You may really think that such things cannot really be happening anymore, but they do. They actually do!

Just because something is not glaring, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

SHE IS A PINEAPPLE.

Rare, Beautiful, Timely.

SHE IS NOT A PLANTAIN.

Bunched, Available whenever, Random.

I was waiting to have a solution before putting this out but YOU might have the answers that I don’t have. I am in a dilemma, I really want to do actively do something (Who’s with me?), but I honestly don’t actually know what to do.

How do we prevent this? What can we do in our little capacities to get the ball of transformation rolling?

I know that this might be a religious issue for some people. I have not much of an idea how that goes, but I would love to know! Please enlighten me.

Have any answers for me? Any thoughts at all? Disagreements?

On a lighter note, what’s your favourite fruit?

Please let us know in the comments! (It could be an anonymous one too)

P.S. It’s The Girl Child’s Month (Oct 11 is the official International Day of The Girl Child).

VENI, VIDI, AMAVI.

Desire.

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