Cream Skin (Non-fiction)

Being an albino, I have had all kinds and manner of experiences, especially with the locals. In reaction to my uniqueness, people have uttered all sorts, ranging from simple harmless ‘hellos’ to quite unsavoury words, to downright embarrassing statements.

Just like there have been all sorts of reactions to me or my skin colour if you will, have I also had series of reactions to them and their commentaries. I have gone from replying simple greetings of “Oyinbo” (not that it’s exactly a greeting if you ask me) to simply ignoring them. There have been rare times of humorous interactions, albeit how brief and times of utter disgust and more rare times of hurt.

One of the humorous times I would never forget was when I had to walk past Sodehinde Hall and quite a number of boys started calling out. I could have been pissed but decided to stop and do the royal wave instead (you know that one where you move your palm side to side without moving the rest of your arm?!)  

Of course, my little act caused them to cheer more and so I decided to increase the tempo of the moment- I blew them a kiss and the noise pitched. At this point, I had to walk away briskly as people had started to gather to see what was causing such raucous.

You must wonder, “So why is she writing this”?

Well, I had another humorous encounter yesterday and thought to share it wich’al. Folu and I had met up earlier in the day, watched a movie and did a bit of catching up. All the while, we had folks staring at us like we were for’ outta space’ (or maybe just me sha). We decided it was time to go home and so, continued gisting as we strolled leisurely towards the bus stop.

All of a sudden, a bus that had been speeding from a street behind us slowed and packed from across us and to our utter shock and surprise, about six guys started to bellow from the bus windows, 

                      

They sang this a number of times and then zoomed off just as suddenly as they had packed. I could not help but laugh. My belly still hurts from laughing hard because I thought it quite hilarious. I am not sure how exactly Folu felt about the whole episode but I gotta tel’ya, it was, strangely but sweetly, the highlight of my day! *chuckles*