Suya Stick

Tsire is the popular name by which kebab is known in Northern Nigeria. Although tsire and balangu, loosely, barbecue or steak, depending on how large it is, are also called suya in the North, both tsire and balangu are commonly called suya in Southern Nigeria.
It is doubtful whether the word tsire or the distinction between tsire and balangu would ring a bell in the South. While the word tsire is apt because it is linked with the lining of the stick with meaty appurtenances, it could not, to all intents and purposes, be synonymous with suya because suya is essentially fried meat.
Could the confusion of suya with tsire have emanated from the non-Hausa speakers who perhaps miscued the name on the false grounds of the sizzling swish on the grill and the psychosis with which tsire or balangu is relished by its customers?
For convenience and avoidance of doubting the theme of this piece, it is apt to stick to suya. Suya stick is not synonymous with stick of suya. Suya stick is here so called because it is a stick that is usually associated with suya but can only be so called when it does not contain suya. Stick of suya is so called only when it contains suya.
In these days of desire and want, note the subtle difference, a stray stick of suya can tempt the hungry. It can also tempt sudden hunger even in the surfeited. This is especially exemplified by the way some bloated plutocrat would approach any suya joint, ask for some suya, eat it up, pretend as if he is going away and turn back again soon after munching the last pieces to ask for more!
Could suya be as tempting as the pieces of suya Koti tore from the stick one NEPAless and moonless night only to find tiny worms sticking out from them? By then, the culpable seller having collected his money had disappeared. Koti was lucky not to have started eating the suya straight from the stick as some suya customers would do. How else could he have arrived at his horrifying finding? Koti’s luck was manifold in that there was a lantern nearby. Koti simply allowed the worms to continue warming their way back into the cold suya consequent upon his rude interruption.
Some people tend to think that a stick without suya is as useless as Koti’s bad suya. It should never be imagined that suya stick without suya is useless. That is why on a good day when the pay, the negotiation and the suya are all good, customers who trust the suya to the extent of taking it away with stick do not hesitate to throw the stick away after eating up the suya straight from the stick.
It is not surprising to find many of these sticks lying waste everywhere. Had they cared to know whether the sticks could be put to good use, customers would not have been throwing them away.
It is not clear whether suya sellers pick the sticks for re-use if they find them lying about as some food sellers would do whenever they find what look like their plates anywhere as long as the sorry states of the plates would not be revealed after the plates have been washed and mixed with the rest for good food service.
This scenario is reminiscent of a secondary school in which female cooks went as far as the woods where human wastes lay waste to pick long lost plates to complement the few left to serve students’ food.
Just in case it is beginning to seem that suya stick is being lost in the midst of some relative narrative, it must be remembered that suya stick is a good and durable facility or utility for kerosene stove in the sense that it can serve as a good replacement for the commonly used broomstick in lighting the stove.
All one needs to do is to soak the end of the stick in kerosene and use it to spread flame round the wick of the stove. Suya stick can save many broomsticks that are staked in many households everyday in the name of unthinkingly lighting stoves. When one sees the typical household brooms shrinking by the day, it is not as a result of the pressure of regular sweeping which in many homes is not a daily routine.
One has to delve into the philosophical bowels of the kerosene stove to be confronted with all manner of assaults from match, water, oils, flour and broomsticks and it is to the credit of the stove for remaining unruffled in the face of such conflicting assaults.
This narrative will not make sense until a typical kitchen stove without kerosene is turned upside down and shaken. The assorted cut sticks that will be instantly thrown out would be a grim reminder of how forbearing kerosene stove can be in the face of sustained overbearing misuse by supposed sophisticated users.
The very few who have applied suya stick method have attested to its utility and have even recommended every Nigerian household to follow suit rather than following the soot of sticking broomstick, match and all into the stove.
Just in case suya sellers begin to wonder why there is dearth of suya sticks as a result of the adoption of this method, they should simply go back to the woods in defiance of threat of deforestation to obtain more sticks.
When next you are invited to a state banquet, and after having your fill at the barbecue joint, do not forget to go to the kebab joint and pick one or two suya sticks or sticks of suya, as the case may be, for the sake of promoting this utility.
Do not hesitate to stress the need for suya stick to (un)invited guests you meet on your way up so that they may continue with this utility on their way down the banquet. They all share similar Nigerian households and are all users of the typical Nigerian, if not Third World, kerosene stoves, notwithstanding their outward façade which tends to hold them out as users of gas cookers.
A visit to their kitchens would convince you that it is important to spread this good message so that the uses of suya stick may stick even in the minds of the sticks-in-the-mud of suya joint or banquet or both.



 

Could you ever avoid your toes, especially little ones, been stepped upon during congregation prayers? This is so regardless of whether you always take reasonable care to avoid stepping on others’ toes yourself.
There are people who on hearing a hada kafafuwa which requires them to join feet to emphasise unison in supplication, would proceed to step on others’ toes rather than simply place the sides of their feet against their neighbours’. It appears they do so unconsciously.
But if you are conscious enough to try to avoid the inconvenience of having the skin of your little toes bruised by long-nailed toes of your neighbours, they might think you are trying to avoid contact with their toes contrary to the rule of congregation prayers. Some might think you are too sensitive to bear the friction of little toes uniting in prayers.
Sometimes it is not just the toes that overstep but the adjoining feet that drift restlessly thus distracting the attention of the neighbour.
When the friction becomes unbearable and you are compelled to betray your discomfort, stepping on toes might move from the literal to the metaphorical which in itself is contrary to not just the rule of congregation but the rule of prayers in itself.
But it is only natural to react to such distracting stimulus no matter what the level of your concentration just like it is not unnatural to be bemused by such reaction no matter what the level of the unconsciousness of the offending feet or toes.
This is very much so in congregation just like in multitude where stepping on others’ toes or having one’s toes stepped on happens or is taken out of context consciously or unconsciously!