CLOSING ORDER! - A Short Story (2)

CLOSING ORDER! - A Short Story (2)
By Femi Abolade


Continued from last week

In case you missed the part 1 of this interesting short story, you can read it here

http://femiabolade.blogspot.com.ng/2017/04/closing-order-short-story.html


O ya, let's go there.....


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On number 15 Tekobo street, stood an old one-story building. The building made from burnt red bricks but plastered with cement mortar to make it look modern but with wooden stairs and decking, has four rooms and a shop on the ground floor with three rooms and a spacious living room upstairs. From the frontage of the building it looked like a pigsty with dirts everywhere.

Wole and his two assistants commenced inspection from the passage of the ground floor of the house. Taju, the junior health attendant covered his nose immediately they entered the house as junks of various sizes and categories filled the floor of the passage.

He was quickly cautioned by Wole, who, even though had perceived the very bad smell himself.

"Oga, that must be faecal matter smelling seriously" opined Taju jokingly.

"What do you mean?" the dirty one belowed from behind.

"This place stinks" Wole responded with a straight face. "I guess you can perceive the odour too".

A middle aged woman was sitting so loosely on a locally made chair with heaps of dirty clothes ready to be washed in the passage of the house. Fat, unkempt, and with an ugly appearance, the woman hissed when she heard the conversation of the men.

"Mama Solape", the dirty one turned to the other tenant, the fat and ugly one, "remove the clothes and let us pass".

As she made attempt to remove the clothes carelessly scattered on the floor, albeit reluctantly, a stench emanated abruptly. Apparently, she had used the heap of clothes to cover her baby's nappies filled with excreta.

The team led by Wole quickly marched to the backyard of the premises, avoiding several junks, indiscriminately packed in the house lobby. He shook his head in pity. How could anyone be living in this condition and expects to live healthy. It is a shame.

"Where is your toilet?" Wole asked after they had been refreshed by the fresh air at the back of the house.

"It is there", the dirty one answered, stretching forth his hand to an area covered with overgrown weeds at the far rear of the land on which the house was built.

"Where?" the health Officer asked again already suspecting what he meant.

"In that bush".

"You mean to say that you throw your excreta there?"

"And so?"

"That is so unhygienic and highly prejudicial to public health" Wole informed him, already bringing out his pen and the Abatement notice book to issue them one.

"If you like speak all the grammar in this world, I don't know how our lack of toilet concerns you" the dirty one replied, visibly upset.

"Where is your kitchen?" Woke asked, consciously giving no reply to his query.

"We don't have."

By now, the Environmental Health Officer had almost completed the writing of the notice to be issued to the defaulting premises. He carefully worded every nuisance observed in the premises, beginning from the frontage to the rear, and to all the sanitary conveniences lacking especially on the absence of toilet facilities which had been encouraging the act of indiscriminate disposal of excreta into the surroundings. He added that the act will attract flies which are vectors for the transmission of faeco-oral diseases such as cholera and dysentery.

Mama Solape had left her unwashed clothes in the lobby of the house, and along with another young woman who happened to be the wife of the dirty one, joined them at the back of the house. They were all now watching the young health officer scribbling into the booklet.

"Baba Sakiru, what did they say we did wrong?" Mama Sakiru asked bewildered. She was backing a baby who was sleeping peacefully unaware of the troubles going on around.

Baba Sakiru, still fuming with rage, did not respond but grunted with his nose.

Wole addressed the abatement notice to the Owner/Occupiers and gave a twenty-one day period for them to make provision of a toilet facility while abating other nuisances with immediate effect. After detaching the original copy from the carbonated duplicate, he gave it to the dirty one, Baba Sakiru, for onward delivery to the landlord of the house.

Reluctantly, and more out of curiosity than obedience, Baba Sakiru collected and tried in vain to read all the jargon contained therein. Before the tenants could bat their eyelids, the sanitary team had disappeared into the next residential premises.

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She requested for a bottle of cold Origin beer.

Motunrayo sat beside her area Mama and friend, Mama Alanu who was having her brunch after working alongside the attendant in the shop in cleaning up the place. The Joint at No. 15 was very busy the day before, with many top brass of the sleepy town present at her place. Alh. Saka Maje, the Local Government Vice Chairman and many of his stalwarts were there to fill their bellies with hot pepper soup and alcoholic beverages. Politicians of various leanings also came in droves as the beer parlour was source of political jibes and some contractual agreements.

The wastes generated were cleared by Mama Alanu herself and her only attendant. Trash cans and PET bottles as well as other perishable wastes from food remnants were indiscriminately dumped at the back of the premises where the tenants dub as their site for faecal matter disposal. After being satisfied with herself on a job well done, she sat down to her meal of semovita with egusi soup garnished with assorted meats.

Of the three gossip-colleagues, only two were present, seated around a table at the far end of the Joint. Motunrayo gently sipping her cold origin beer asked innocuously.

"I called Salewa this morning and I could not understand what she was saying."

"Yes", Mama Alanu replied amid morsels of semo. "She said she would be going to the Local government secretariat."

She picked a chunk of goat meat and stuffed it in her mouth.

"What for? Does she now seek for a job at the Council?" Motunrayo joked.

After swallowing what was in her mouth, Mama Alanu explained that Salewa's husband instructed her to visit the Health Office as regards the construction of their new toilet.

"She said her husband reacted swiftly to the small paper left behind by the Health Officer" Mama Alanu explained further.

"Heeneen. So Salewa can go to that health office?" Motunrayo said mockingly.

"Stop it joor," Mama Alanu reacted, defending her other friend. "You know Salewa's husband works in Lagos and usually wants to do like the Lagosians."

"Okay ooo, what are they doing about it now?"

"She told me that the filled up pit latrine have been covered up with red earth as instructed by the Environmental Health Officer and a new one has been constructed now to a modern state," her plate now virtually empty.

"So that small sheet of paper can be that powerful?" Motunrayo asked aloud, speaking to no one in particular.

While washing her hand from the bowl of water, Mama Alanu spoke, "I don't know, but it's like Salewa's husband has money to spend."

For about a minute, Motunrayo sat there dreamy-eyed, starring into space.

"Salewa should be back any moment from now" Mama Alanu noted not noticing her friend's absentmindedness. "She was sent to inform the Environmental Health Officer that the work has been done to avoid their house being sealed off."

"Motunrayo! What are you thinking about?" Mama Alanu asked loudly to bring her friend back from her state of thought.

"Don't mind me jare" she replied smiling sheepishly. "Just thinking of the kind of offence I can commit to bring the handsome young health officer to my house."

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To be continued

Feel free to add your comments on the blog.

Femi Abolade, licensed EHO, Writer, author and public speaker
femibolade12@gmail.com
+234 8074275257