A man once called my grandmother ‘a War’. Something about the way she didn’t back down from a fight, did not sit well in his bones. He would feel a shiver race up his spine when he remembers how she made another man eat sand for laying claim to a land she earned in sweat and blood.
He did not understand how she always seemed ready. But she had to be- with a young daughter, an even younger son, and a husband who now sparkled in the sky as one of our ancestors. He must have spat his spirit into her before he joined them- how else was she so formidable? He wondered.
Unlike most women who weaned goats to sell, my grandmother kept them for the apologies often demanded of her, for teaching some titled man or the other a physical lesson that starts with words and ends with sand in their mouth- something she did often.
When my grandmother died, the people who came to pay their respects wanted to be sure. It was like announcing that sand was now green or the moon forever red. When she lay in state, they somehow expected her to stand up again- until they saw me walking around with her face- “ósè!”, they would shout. My grandmother called me, ósè, pepper. She said when I arrived, I took her fight, that only something so hot can end a war.
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