Honey, so that your life shall be sweet. Palm oil, to lubricate life’s aches. Salt, to protect and help keep you. Kola nut, i can not keep in mind precisely, it is it maybe maybe not sufficient that it’s the absolute most symbolically Nigerian thing, across all ethnic lines?
Exactly what are these? Collectively, they form element of a “bride cost” – money and gift suggestions written by a person’s family members to a lady’s upon their wedding. In school in Nigeria, during Yoruba history course, we had been told about women that attracted bride that is incredibly high, influenced by their characteristics. Inversely, there have been females whoever bride costs had been therefore paltry, it absolutely was an embarrassment. I do not remember the gifts that are specific whatever they signify any longer, but I actually do keep in mind that these classes for which we had been taught about our history had been, for modern budding feminists, a difficult pill to ingest.
I will be considering bride price again this week, however, due to a brand new application that’s been doing the rounds when you look at the African corners of my internet life. Initially, I happened to be reluctant to publish concerning this software at all. The narrative of Africa and Africans in the united kingdom along with other Western, mainly white areas is indeed old, therefore outdated and false, so wearying, that we conserve African tales for my safer areas, places where there’s absolutely no empathy space. I love speaing frankly about Nigeria without some internet complete complete stranger telling us to “simply get over it! ” Dealing with Africa – its good and its own bad – regarding the internet wears me away. So when we third-culture kids meet up, occupying that center area into the Venn diagram that overlaps our parents’ cultures utilizing the West’s, we are able to laugh about this. That’s what this app is approximately.
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The Bride Price app calculated that I happened to be well well worth the “Premium Babe”-ly amount of 494,500 naira that is nigerianNGN) –about ?1,816. Exactly exactly How did it get to this figure? Via a few concerns, plus they are the star that is real of software. There is the choice to always check “we are always aware of, even when we cannot see or hear them, is our enemy for yourself” or “for your friend/enemy” – because as Nigerians, one thing.
Therefore, also before we clicked, I happened to be smiling. Then came the actual questions: my height; my fat (options included the very”medium” that is standard and the harder-to-decipher “Mama Ronke” – just what does that even mean? ); my leg form (“straight”, “sexy bow leg (Beyonce)” etc); my facial beauty (from “intimidating” to “complete no try”) an such like. Each solution possesses value – no kola pea nuts here – often a “discount”, 60 percent if you should be unfortunate adequate to function as the indecipherable “Mama Ronke”. The application takes some time to determine the bride cost and provides a jaunty message russian date sites by having a blinking green shekere (a West African drum): “Please wait – the elders are consulting. By the end of the test”
The expression “if that you do not laugh, you will cry” appears, inside your, to be produced particularly for Nigerians. The narrative that is accepted certainly one of woe, a country lurching from pillar (of calamity) to create (of catastrophe) despite a resource wide range which could easily end up being the response to our issues. The thought of bride pricing is a screen to your past, a past which will be not at all times glorious or edifying whenever seen through a modern lens.
But this app is sly – the nuance might not be noticeable to all eyes, but it is here. Under skin color – which might or might not have had an effect on bride cost within the olden times and truly matters within the hierarchy of beauty today – comes five groups. “Half caste”; “Light skin”; “Dark”; “Whitenicious”; and “Lupita” (like in Nyong’o). The worthiness for every decreases while you get along record, beginning with +NGN50,000. Issue answer and– choices simultaneously acknowledge the colour-struck manner attribute of a swathe of Nigerians, also noting without fuss the number of tints we appear in obviously. There was a level for the Lupita skin, that is a tiny thing, although not.
There are various other markers. On teeth, a “white with gap” has got the greatest value (my mom has expressed dismay that none of her young ones inherited our grandmother’s “beautiful” diastema), while “Ronaldinho” is sold with a -NGN40,000 label. The positioning and citizenship concerns are fine “don’t cry – laugh” examples (America happens tops in both), and a Masters is desirable, however a PhD possesses penalty of -NGN100,000. Employment views gas and oil show up trumps (+NGN100,000); my journalism profession includes a value of only +NGN20,000. Fortunately, i’m “redeemed” by my English accent – the– that is highest respected at +NGN45,000.