Nigerian writer and social media manager, Eketi Edima Ette shared a story about the importance of timing and patience that has since gone viral. She started her story as follows:
“Are you one of those people who’s looked back on 2017 and convinced yourself that you haven’t achieved anything? Worried about catching up with your mates who seem to have done much better?
Let me tell you a story about #time.”
She then shared an eloquent and hilarious story about a time when her younger self was tasked to prepare food for her parents. After a day of fun and play with her siblings doing everything but the task at hand, her parents walked in, when she was just barely starting with the food. Set on meeting expectations, she concocted a quick fix meal, which was an obvious fail and got her into a lot of trouble with her mother.
Ette’s story is incredibly relatable especially as we all navigate familial and social expectations, pressure, and time. Twitter has fallen both in love with the story and Ette’s storytelling which are a great insight as we usher in the New Year.
Read the story below:
Are you one of those people who’s looked back on 2017 and convinced yourself that you haven’t achieved anything? Worried about catching up with your mates who seem to have done much better?
Let me tell you a story about #time.
A thread
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
A long #time ago, back when I was about twelve or thirteen years old, my parents travelled to Uyo.
Before leaving, my mother asked me to prepare Edikang ikong soup so she and my father would eat when they returned.
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
When I was finished with the soup, it was supposed to look something like this:
*photo credit: waiter foodies. pic.twitter.com/M8VNpREXiE
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
As soon as they were out the door, I commandeered my siblings to prepare all the soup ingredients, cover them up and leave them on the kitchen table. #Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
In those days, my nickname was Ekpe Mbre. Literal translation – Lioness of Play. If playing was an Olympics sport, I would’ve won gold for Nigeria, back to back.
Anyway with no adult supervision, my siblings and I did the only wise thing to do.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
We played our hearts out!
Climbed trees. Hunted grasshoppers. Played football. Watched TV. Scattered the house.
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
We played our hearts out!
Climbed trees. Hunted grasshoppers. Played football. Watched TV. Scattered the house.
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
And it came to pass, that the hour of parental return drew nigh and we were still at play and the soup was yet uncooked.
Then my sister, I think, ran into the room while I was lying in front of the mirror….#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
….in the middle of giving birth to my fake baby, the result of my fake and unusually gigantic bedsheet pregnancy.
“Daddy and Mummy are coming!” she screamed.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
….in the middle of giving birth to my fake baby, the result of my fake and unusually gigantic bedsheet pregnancy.
“Daddy and Mummy are coming!” she screamed.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
The soup!
My eyes widened in horror as I remembered the single most important thing I’d been asked to do.
At the thought of what my mother would do when she walked in and there was no soup, I felt a little pee leak in my panties.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
I dashed into the kitchen, yelling for my brother. He ran in, quick as lightening and like headless chickens, we gathered the ingredients, put water for garri on one cooker burner and the soup pot on the other. #Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
By now, I could hear the car engine idling outside in the parking slot.
We always go to the door to welcome my parents when they get home, to this day. Anyone absent from the welcome committee, often gets a query.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
I sent my siblings to go welcome my parents, and inform them that I couldn’t come to the door because I was cooking.
From the kitchen, I heard my mother’s loud voice. It was liberally #Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
“Ideghe afere anke bogo anye abok tungho isua, k’enye atutungho idagha m?
Literal translation: “Is that the soup I asked her to cook since, that she’s cooking now?”
Life translation: “I’m going to kill her.”#Time pic.twitter.com/5BouVEmg1V
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
My brothers and sisters, there are special demons that wait around for when a soul is desperate.
One of such demons was on its way to Balogun market, when it heard my mother screaming.#Time— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
It sensed that someone may be in trouble. So it made a detour and landed on my left shoulder.
“Is it not just soup?” it said, stroking my head with its scrawny talons.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
“It doesn’t matter what time the ingredients go in. Just pour everything inside the pot at once, turn it and voilà!”
As my mother’s voice and footsteps neared the kitchen, I was beyond desperate.#Time pic.twitter.com/X1QFOnEGV7
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
I could actually see the hooded figure of Death, standing near the fridge, giggling.
I took the demon’s advice. Quick as a flash, I poured everything – pumpkin leaves, crayfish, fish, meat, waterleaves, periwinkles etc in the pot and stirred.#Time pic.twitter.com/AaBVpW6PiL
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
My mum stepped into the kitchen a second later.
“Ah, Mummy welcome o,” I said, adding salt and pepper to the mixture.
“Sorry about the food. I was actually timing your arrival, so the soup will still be hot when you return.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
Don’t worry. By the time you finish undressing, the food will be ready.”
All these I said without pausing for a breath, in that fast, glib manner of lying children who have suckled the devil’s left breast.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
She gave me a long, suspicious look and walked out of the kitchen.
Fifteen minutes later, food was ready and served.That soup tasted like exactly what it was: an abomination!
I’m sure the spirits of my great-grandmothers groaned in their tombs.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
All the ingredients stood on their own, all separated by rivulets of water and oil.
What my mother did to me that day, is the stuff of legend and a story for another day.
My point is…. #Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
Every good cook knows that each ingredient has a different cooking time. Thus, they shouldn’t be added to the pot all at once.
If that is done, it’ll ruin the taste of the food.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
So it is with life.
Our individual success stories are made up of different ingredients based on nature and nurture, time, hard work, talents, God’s intervention etc.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
If you’re in a hurry to achieve something because your contemporaries have, you may find yourself using the same ingredients, but failing to achieve anything good, because you wanted to have it all at once.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
Give time, time.
It is good to read autobiographies of successful people and long to be like them.
But take your eyes away from the success for a moment and look at the time and effort it took them to arrive where they are.#Time— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
Good things take time.
No matter how hard you wish, a pregnancy will only be full term at the end of nine months.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
Don’t be like Eketi.
Allow life and time cook you at your own pace, adding maturity, wisdom, self-control, discipline and success at the right moments.
Trust me, at the end, you’ll come out delicious.#Time
— Eketi Edima Ette (@eketiette) December 26, 2017
The writer has other stories, rooted in popular Nigerian culture, including a recent Bridesmaid thread, that have also gone viral.
