Living in Lagos can be fun but also very frustrating. A nice little dreamy dinner can turn into your worst nightmare. However, I believe every Lagosian has an inbuilt defense system against situations that are threaten our peace of mind. Like we always say
Werey la fi n wo werey
(which translates to madness is the cure for madness 😂)
February 17th was my friend Arinola’s Birthday and we decided to have a little dinner date to celebrate.
Living in Nigeria’s downtrodden economy meant we had at least 5 weeks notice and had been saving up to turn up, believe it or not!😂 Afterall, we are students, in Lagos for that matter.
One wrong move and you’re sapalised for the month. Sapalised is derived from sapa which is short for
serious absence of purchasing ability
Now the semester had just began and we had to thread carefully. Did I mention we are law students?
yep we are and we had to thread carefully or risk being unable to go for lectures from sapa.
Anyways, I digress. The D-day came and I personally was already exhausted from having to do a colleague’s makeup, packing my outfit and going to Arin’s place (which was considerable far from my place) the day before.
I was tired. I’m pretty sure I snored like bull judging from Arin’s comment the next day. I kid you not, she said
Ronke (also my name) you need to get your breathing checked, I was so scared for you😂
Embarassed but I laughed it off and actually agreed with her. My baby cousin had to a mini surgery done to stop her snoring. Apparently her tonsil was larger than normal so I knew that might actually be in the works for me.
Anyways like every other girls day, our headmistress, Arin commandeered the day so as to ensure we were time conscious. We had to be. The ride was going to be at least an hour and since you can’t predict Lagos traffic. We needed to avoid rush hour otherwise our fine dining experience would become a takeout experience.
The itenary was simple. Arin was to go do her hair in the morning. I was to do Tosin’s makeup, Aunty Tobi’s makeup and Arins makeup. I left mine for last because I am a Muslim and I had to pray before glamming up( the struggle is real y’all). Also I do my makeup pretty fast so that wasn’t a bother.
Anyways, drama commenced. And it had since last night because her hostel butler could not get fuel for generator and we were considering lodging in an hotel so we could glam up without sweating our makeup away before reaching the venue. The only problem was that we didn’t have the budget for that.
After all the considerations, we still did not have money for an hotel but Baba, the butler was able to go over and beyond to get fuel amidst the scarcity. God bless his soul.
Fast forward to the birthday morning, we woke up early, said our prayers, took our baths and I started glam on Tosin. She wanted something very simple (which I did not believe) with a bold lip. So I went with a soft pink eye shadow look with purple ombré lips to complement her pink silk dress.
We gossiped for a bit about some private family drama and worried about how to straighten her hair since the generator could not be switched on that morning. Arin had gone to make her hair and I finished Tosin’s makeup just in time for Aunty Tobi’s arrival.
Aunty Tobi is that cool adult you want to be around. Although she is Tosin’s older sister, she’s as much a millennial as any of us. The calmest event planner ever🙌🏽
As soon as she came in, I started her makeup and amidst gossip I botched her look. I had to clean it and start the base all over. Thank God Arin wasn’t there😂 she’d have had my head from her constant “hurry up“ bickering. Like I said, she was the time keeper.
I was able to save myself and Aunty Tobi was calm all through in her usual fashion. Her’s was a cool beat as usual. A shimmering eyeshadow with a white graphic liner and nude lips.
Arin finally arrived and the the generator was switched on. I started Arin’s makeup. She wanted a nude glam so it was easy. Tosin, on the other hand, stubbornly tried to straighten her hair despite Arin telling her to wait to go to a salon. She did get it straightened but not before she burned herself from an outlet spark. We all oooed and ahhed over her before Getting back to our glam.
Anyways, I finished Arin’s makeup, took my bath, prayed and got down to my makeup. At this point, I tried getting Tosin to iron my dress only for me to find out that I picked the wrong dress😩 the horror on my face when I realized this. Thankfully my sister offered to help me get it but I was low key worried because I knew she wasn’t too familiar with the area. We tried monitoring her movements but it was at this moment the networks began act up. I was so worried but eventually she showed up only to admit she had actually lost her way but the driver was so nice enough to bring her back, in this Lagos! Faith in humanity restored!
I glammed up but we were already running late and the driver was already waiting downstairs. We rushed and got in. It was vibes and fun and snapchat till we got to Ebonylife place. I was starving so naturally I was ranting about how I was going to devour the food. If only I knew.🌝
As soon as we got down from the car, the next round of drama started. The driver wanted to dine with us. 😂😂😂
Wetin we no go see for Lagos (what won’t we see in Lagos)
I mean, we all thought he was kidding. All I could think of was ‘Do you know how long it took me to save to come up here?’
It wouldn’t have been an issue except for the fact that it was a private girls dinner. He could have come up and gotten his own food but apparently he wanted the fine dining experience with us and that wasn’t the arrangement. We had negotiated for him to take us to the venue, do his own thing while we were there and bring us back to the hostel when we were ready to leave. Simple! He decided that wasn’t enough and tried charging us extra because he couldn’t join us. I mean we were already paying for his time and service.
While Aunty Tobi was on the phone speaking to him, we were trying to get settled. Another drama commenced. Apparently we couldn’t sit inside because it had been booked. Trust Arinola to change it for them. They quickly realized their mistake. They apologized and came to take our order.
While we were taking our orders, emotions were flying all over the place and we weren’t enjoying ourselves. We couldn’t even appreciate the scene before us because we were still trying to deal with the driver issue. And as we always do, we used madness to cure madness. We changed it for him ASAP. We cut the call and concentrated on our meal.
Another drama. Quick flashback to the day we were browsing through the turaka menu in class trying to figure out what we wanted so we could avoid picking nonsense like we did at Tosin’s birthday back in December. I remember Tosin telling us not to pick the seafood platter and I was the one who supported Arin and said we should do the seafood platter.
Don’t get me wrong, I love food but as soon as this platter came in and i smelt it, i knew it wasn’t for me. It looked delicious but I hated the smell.
In this crew, I was the one who loved to explore with food the most but once I hate the smell, everything else would be off putting to me. This was the case here. It was a classic bad move because I ordered steamed vegetables as a side and I hated it. I should have just gone with fries. I didn’t like the smell, the taste or the texture. It looked delicious but it just wasn’t for me. Arin loved the entire platter. Tosin avoided the seafood and ate what she could. Aunty Tobi did the same.
I, on the other hand, went home a very hungry woman😂 . The only thing I enjoyed were the fries and rice balls that came with the platter.
You’d think the drama was done with until the following happened:
I got a call from my mom that a neighbor died
Family drama followed Tosin and she got into an argument with her other sister which made her cry
Arin was upset I didn’t like the food
You can imagine how much stress was behind the scenes but we still rose above it all. We still laughed took pictures for the gram and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, gossiping on the ride home about how much fun and drama was filled in one day. The driver later apologized for being a tool!
We got home pretty late but you can sure guess, we gossiped some more, posted some pictures, I prayed, I took my bath and we called it a night.
The moral of this story is that there’s always more to something than meets the eye. I used to wish for other people’s lives when I saw them on the gram but a picture hides a million other secrets. I realized fast that I was t going to be able to recreate the feeling I got watching others by going to Turaka. That feeling was not automatically going to appear when we finally did these same things we saw others doing and wished we could do. At least not all the time. The feeling you get when you’re in the moment is something else entirely. The feeling you get looking at someone else’s picture is an illusion.
If you want that feeling, you have to give yourself the permission to have that feeling no matter where you are. Whether it’s at Turaka or at your little student hostel. That Fun Feeling comes from savoring every moment with loved ones whether you’re at a fine dining or at home.
P.S That feeling I thought I was going to have at the fine dining, I had gotten it a week earlier playing charades with my best girls at my hostel with no budget and it was pure joy.
Do you have a similar experience like this? Share in the comment section and check out my review of the Turaka restaurant.
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