Uncle Emeka 1965-2009.

My uncle passed on. He lived with my family in distant northern Nigeria, so I grew up knowing him. Those afternoons when momma's cooking was late in being ready, I'll go over to his "boys quarters" apartment and he'll give me all these different kinds of snacks (nasco buscuits, bush meat, 7-Ups, peanuts) ... it was another Uncle who gave me beer and let me smoke his cigarette once, but that's another story. By the time I was in Primary 6, I was mature enough to seat in the adult section in church, but those sunday school teachers and church ushers kept on pestering me to go sit with the toddlers in sunday school. Humiliating huh. Till Uncle Emeka told me to always tell them I was in Primary 6 and could sit in the adult section. Uncle Emeka was cool like that. I was in awe of those posters of Rambo and Commando in his apartment that were popular in the late 80s to early 90s in Nigeria. In our relatively sheltered upbringing, those evenings when my parents weren't home and he let us watch war movies like Rambo: First Blood, Inglorious Bastards, Commando, a stark deviation from The Thief of Baghdad and the Sound of Music ... the sort of movies we were permitted to see, those evenings were the high-point of my movie-childhood. I know I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with him, until we moved to the middle-belt. I saw him last in 2004 christmas, still sturdy and smiling with his new wife. That was the last time I'll ever see him. Uncle, rest in peace and God bless you.

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