Christmas Story: End Of My Masquerade Career

We will start with a story from an NIB fan. Enjoy it!

I always look back with nostalgia to my teen years back in the 90s. Nikky Christmas was fun on another level back then especially because it was a time for eating delicious delicacies, wearing your Christmas cloth, enjoying a bottle of drink alone instead of sharing it with others, watching masquerades and dance troupes to exhibit their skills.

My big dream was to join a masquerade group and get to be the masquerade. So i was excited when some boys in my class who also lived on my street decided to form a masquerade group and asked me to join them. My dream was coming true and I gladly became a member. We turned into designers and picked rafia from the bush, colored, sewed them together to make a garment for our masquerade. 

Our meeting point was under the staircase of our flat and some parents encouraged us by donating old rickety metal gongs (ogene). We were excited and could not wait for the Christmas day to arrive so we would show off our own masquerade at the famous Obiagu square (where all the masquerade in the state used to gather to celebrate Christmas).

A week to Christmas, we were rehearsing when a strange boy from the next street came with a message from their own masquerade group. Those boys were older.

We all gathered round and opened the rumpled paper. It was straight to the point; 

"don't show up at Obiagu. If you do, we will beat all of you!"

At first we were scared but somehow we encouraged ourselves and decided to teach them a bitter lesson but we didn't know how to go about it. After many days of thinking, we came up with a plan. One of us went to the bush and got some very itchy plants (I can't remember what they were called), we carefully put them inside a big empty milk tin and made a concoction from it. The plan was to pour our concoction on their masquerade and flee. It was a perfect plan and we could not wait to see the effect.

Christmas day finally arrived. In the evening, after all the enjoyment, we gathered under the staircase. You could hear  the sound of other masquerades performing far off. It was time to decide who would wear the rafia that Christmas and I was overjoyed when I was selected. I hurriedly dressed up while  my wing men carried our smelly milk tin. Hitting the rickety gongs loudly, we emerged amid cheers. My sister was peeping at us when I wore the rafia and must have told my mom so they were cheering the loudest. I danced around briefly before hitting the streets with my guys behind me.

Small girls were waving at us and I was showing off my acrobatic skills on the road when suddenly one of us pulled at my rafia. I peeped through it and saw some boys and a masquerade running towards us at top speed. I recognized the letter bearer from the other day and my tender heart went FIAM straight to my throat. Sweat broke out all over my body and that rafia bag started itching as if someone poured our concoction on me.

What could be pursuing them? My guys stopped hitting the gongs and you could feel our fears as if it was a living thing but somehow, we bravely stood our grounds wielding our milk tin, ready for war. We were surprised when some of them ran past us without stopping. We were still determined to show them we have become men when their masquerade hastily tore off it's rafia garment, threw it at us and continued dashing down the street. It felt like a movie so we were laughing and feeling victorious when suddenly one of them, with tears running down his face yelled at us;

"Run ooh! Run oh!!"

We thought it was all a prank and were still praising ourselves when all of a sudden one of us screamed. We turned as if in slow motion and my heart stopped beating. At the other end of our street, a giant masquerade flanked by bare chested men with rippling muscles welding long sticks and canes was approaching at top speed. To make matters worse, they were pointing at us. Before I could push the rafia off my face to see clearly, all my friends and the small crowd of girls clapping for us earlier disappeared as if by magic.

I had never seen that type of masquerade before and my legs Somehow became glued to the hot road, refusing to move. I was shaking in the sun, scared and sweating profusely as those men approached. I knew it was over for me because the big masquerade would think I was challenging it by staying on the road and that meant being flogged by all the men plus the masquerade. 

Tears started running down my face as I saw a vision of myself being flogged by them. I was about to collapse on my shaking legs when I heard a familiar voice screaming my name, telling me to run. It suddenly felt as if something snapped in my head. Turning on my heels I fled down the road in my rafia. You would think I had wings like a bird. Infact Ben Johnson of those days had nothing on me.

The milk can was abandoned on the street as I peeled the rafia off my itching body while running home to my mummy. The painful part was not that I peed on myself when  fleeing for my dear life, but the sound of the small girls on my street laughing so hard at me as I ran home. Infact I was traumatized and it took months for me to recover from being the topic of every jest. Anyway, that was how my masquerade career ended...lol!

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