Date Published: 07/22/09
LAZY OLD MAN MET GOLD DIGGER IN VENUS
By Farouk Martins Aresa
There is no reason to wait for a tragedy to strike before we discuss family relations in order to deflate pressing problems. Cultural clash has acerbated changing roles unlike the days of our parents’ instilled home discipline for fear of outside embarrassment. Leaders of dysfunctional families have rendered a devastating poverty on little people in the land of abundant gari and suya. If we thought we had bad leaders, wait until kids from just a few of these traumatized families became leaders.
There is hardly enough to live on: father absconded because he had no money for his family, mother turned into prostitute to feed her children and children left home for school or street-hawking with hunger pains. We seek no vindication of any side but a search for understanding for the sake of our children. So many stories than met the eye.
Obviously, because Mr. Lazy Old Man came from the village of Venus, his tragedy has been used to stigmatize most. Nevertheless, they were one of the most industrious and enterprising people. Sadly, the statistics of the few ugly incidences between husbands and wives, though one too many, could never be compared to those aggressive men in the host countries or Asia. Even then, nobody in his right mind would condone a tragic case.
Mr. Lazy Old Man could have been a hard working man who spent his younger days fruitfully, acquired some education and money. He might have travelled out of Nigeria and got hooked to a foreign wife or another African from the same village of Venus but the relationship might not have worked out. It could also be that at home, his party lost election, lost his job or sold his business and checked out after a divorce.
Seeking a new start, investment or adventure to last him for the rest of his life, he asked a reputable financial planner on how best to grow the money he had acquired. The financial planner pried his gut options. He said that as an African, his children were important to him and would like to invest his pension in their education. If that was the case, the planner asked if the children would repay him when they finished college. He replied that the children in Africa would but not sure of those abroad.
The planner warned him not to gamble on them and get lost into retirement home. Let them take out loans from banks or better still, use his pension but save their loan in his bank. The financial planner said he could also invest his money in real estate, treasury, security or stocks. Nigerian stock had taken a tumble then and men like Maxwell in UK or Madoff in USA had shaken his confidence in the markets. As for real estate, there were high vacancy rate in big cities in Nigeria and tenants would pay for the first three years and they would start trouble after. Nevertheless, it was a good option.
What about a Rolls Royce, a beautiful house in Lekki part of Lagos Nigeria or Las Vegas USA so that he could enjoy his life before death called. The financial planner told him that life expectancy was increasing and a man of fifty these days may live for another 50 years with the support of a lively family. There are also expenses or maintenance fee to keep those luxuries in good shape. So he might run out of money before he died.
He also informed the planner that he had relatives he could do business with, could help and he might need a life partner or a friend to invest his little wealth in. Mr. Lazy Old Man said that since he divorced, his relatives had been bugging him about taking another wife but it would be selfish not to accommodate a new wife if she wanted children. In Venus, each of his relatives had a sincere and respectable lady for him to pick from.
During his travels, he met many ladies from Europe, USA, China and Indian. He could not believe that the one from India even offered him dowry. But no woman could replace an African woman. It had to do with moves, life-style, taste, food and drink. While in the USA, he saw 419 women whose beautiful pictures were sent from home only to find out some men were sending money to rascals. A couple of friends who went home to marry came back losing their wives to boyfriends at the airport or a few days later. What a raw investment?
Mr. Lazy Old Man decided to seek the advice of a medical scientist on older woman he could share his life and savings with. He was advised that if he wanted a woman around his age, the chances of a viable egg decreases as the woman got close to fifty. As a man of about fifty, his sperm may not be as viable as that of a 20 year old, his doctor warned.
Both men and women could live for another 25 or even 50 more years, so he might be able to father a child or two and start a new family again in case he met someone who wanted kids. The doctor told him to either adopt or get artificial insemination for the woman around his age in case healthy pregnancy turned out to be an issue. Since a man could father a child at any age; he called his doctor or scientist a dunce and fired him!
Resigning to the fact that nature was not so kind to two 50 year olds starting a new family with children together, he decided on a younger woman with very viable eggs to make up for his not so viable sperm. After all this was nature’s calling, not his. He tried to back his decision with a crude method of mathematical manipulation. If a man at 100 years could still father a child and a woman could before 50, then a 50 year old man and a woman above 25 might not be off base to be happy and share his investment with.
So Mr. Lazy Old Man went back home to Venus in Nigeria in search for a viable lady. In Venus, people did not just pick up wives on the streets or in bars. Families married into one another. It was capital intensive with dowry. So much so that younger men waited until they had acquired some relative wealth on their own. In the village of Venus, it was said that you did not usually venture into marriage if you could not “carry” a woman.
One of the ladies the relatives had eyes on was that of a family that was getting worried that she might never marry. She too, at 26, realized that boys her age were not matured or ready for marriage in their twenties. Since they could start family at anytime, they could afford to wait. Because of her biological clock she could not wait. As her chances of difficult child birth increased with age, so did her chances for healthy baby decreased.
She tried for visa to different countries to escape constant nagging from families about when she was going to get married. She had a choice because some employers came from US to recruit. Unfortunately, she failed their examination. Some friends of a relative from Italy promised her good job in Milan but other friends and relatives talked her out of it. She was willing to pay to cross the desert through Libya when Mr. Lazy Old Man came into her life.
Mr. Lazy Old Man was generous and kind. He followed her to church and donated most of the money for a new building. He also bought a family house for the parents and paid for her siblings’ schools three years in advance. This man was so good, he was godsend. After the weeding he spent a bundle to get her back with him into United States. She did not run at the airport or a few days later. After some miscarriages, she had two children. He urged her to go back to school and she qualified with honors. She became his best wish, better than money.
Then what!
