Honey, which means that your life will be sweet. Palm oil, to lubricate life’s aches. Salt, to protect and help keep you. Kola nut, i can not keep in mind precisely, it is it perhaps not sufficient it is the absolute most symbolically Nigerian thing, across all lines that are ethnic?

Exactly what are these? Collectively, they form element of a “bride cost” – money and presents written by a guy’s family members to a lady’s upon their marriage. In school in Nigeria, during Yoruba history course, we had been told about ladies who attracted bride that is incredibly high, determined by their characteristics. Inversely, there have been ladies whoever bride costs were therefore paltry, it had been an embarrassment. I do not recall the gifts that are specific whatever they signify any longer, but I really do keep in mind that these lessons for which we had been taught about our history had been, for contemporary budding feminists, a tough pill to ingest.

I will be considering bride price again this week, however, as a result of a brand new application that’s been doing the rounds when you look at the African corners of my internet life. Initially, I became reluctant to publish about that software after all. The narrative of Africa and Africans in the united kingdom along with other Western, mostly white areas is indeed old, therefore outdated and false, so wearying, that I conserve African tales for my safer areas, places where there is absolutely no empathy gap. I love dealing with Nigeria without some internet complete stranger telling me personally to “Just get over it! ” dealing with Africa – its good as well as its bad – regarding the internet wears me away. So when we third-culture kids meet up, occupying that center area in the Venn diagram that overlaps our moms and dads’ countries aided by the West’s, we are able to laugh about this. That is what this application is approximately.

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The Bride Price app calculated that I became well well worth the “Premium Babe”-ly amount of 494,500 naira that is nigerianNGN) –about ?1,816. Just just exactly How achieved it reach this figure? Via a number of questions, plus they are the genuine celebrity of the app. There is the choice to always check “for yourself” or “for the friend/enemy” – because as Nigerians, something our company is constantly alert to, even though we can’t see or hear them, is our enemy.

Therefore, also I was smiling before I clicked. Then arrived the actual concerns: my height; my fat (choices included the very”medium” that is standard and the harder-to-decipher “Mama Ronke” – just what does that even mean? ); my leg form (“straight”, “sexy bow leg (Beyonce)” etc); my facial beauty (from “intimidating” to “complete no try”) an such like. Each response features a value – no kola pea pea nuts here – often a “discount”, 60 percent if you should be regrettable adequate to end up being the indecipherable “Mama Ronke”. The application needs time to work to determine the bride cost and provides a jaunty message by having a blinking green shekere (a West African guitar): “Please wait – the elders are consulting. At the conclusion of the test”

The expression “if you do not laugh, you will cry” appears, inside your, to be produced particularly for Nigerians. The accepted narrative is certainly one of woe, a country lurching from pillar (of calamity) to publish (of disaster) despite a reference wide range that may effortlessly function as response to our issues. The thought of bride price is a screen to your past, a past that will be not at all times glorious or edifying whenever seen through a contemporary lens.

But this software is sly – the nuance might not be visually noticeable http://www.brightbrides.net/estonian-brides to all eyes, but it is here. Under skin colour – which might or may not have had an effect on bride cost within the olden times and undoubtedly things within the hierarchy of beauty today – comes five groups. “Half caste”; “Light epidermis”; “Dark”; “Whitenicious”; and “Lupita” (like in Nyong’o). The worthiness for every decreases while you get along record, you start with +NGN50,000. The question answer and– choices simultaneously acknowledge the colour-struck manner attribute of a swathe of Nigerians, along with noting without fuss the number of colours we are available obviously. There is certainly a level regarding the Lupita skin, that is a tiny thing, although not.

There are more markers. On teeth, a “white with gap” has got the value that is highest (my mom has expressed dismay that none of her young ones inherited our grandmother’s “beautiful” diastema), while “Ronaldinho” includes a -NGN40,000 label. The place and citizenship concerns are fine “don’t cry – laugh” examples (America is released tops in both), and a Masters is desirable, but a PhD includes a penalty of -NGN100,000. Employment views oil and fuel show up trumps (+NGN100,000); my journalism job features a value of only +NGN20,000. Fortunately, i will be “redeemed” by my English accent – the– that is highest respected at +NGN45,000.