A Resident's wife in Nigeria

by Constance Belcher Larymore

With the exception of the cook and steward, our household is required absolutely to speak Hausa, and nothing else, to us and each other, which saves endless confusion, and gives a comfortable sense of security that one’s orders are correctly transmitted to doki-boys, gardener, etc.

It is the custom to pay a certain percentage of the wages weekly, usually two shillings per head, for ‘chop money’ (subsistence allowance), and the balance at the end of each month, which arrangement shows ingenuously what a solid, clear profit the household makes. This balance of pay is generally expended, on the spot, in the acquiring of such luxuries as a gaily striped umbrella, or a smart pair of ‘English’ boots.

The majority of servants are reckless gamblers, and a perfect network of lending, borrowing, and extorting of an exorbitant rate of interest, prevails amongst them, in spite of strictest prohibitions on the subject.

The Cook and His Kitchen

The Nigerian kitchen is arranged on the Indian plan—apart from the house, and just as much inspection and supervision will have to be exercised.

Kitchen appliances of a rough-and-ready kind can be bought at the local stores, but it is far more satisfactory to bring most of them direct from England, especially a nest of aluminium saucepans, their lightness being a great advantage while marching.

At headquarters, a kitchen table, some rough shelves and pegs will be available, and a meat-safe, which, however, has to be accommodated on the breeziest corner of the verandah.

The mistress will do well to walk into the kitchen, as a matter of course, at any hour of the day: the cook and his mate will, possibly, like to sleep there, and if the visit is made regularly, after breakfast, the beds or mats can be whisked out of sight, for the time being, and the malpractice never discovered. In Lokoja and Zungeru the kitchens are now fitted with very good little ranges, which are a great improvement on the open, brick fireplaces of earlier days. I remember well, the day that mine was first put in, going to the kitchen to see how it worked, and finding the cook, radiant with pride and pleasure, lighting the fire in the oven. The fuel consists entirely of wood. In out stations, the poor chef has a good deal to contend with, usually an open fire for ordinary cooking (on the floor) and for an oven, an ingenious arrangement of a large country pot half buried in the ground; into this, blazing wood is thrust until the interior is quite hot, when the fuel is hauled out, the cake or bread popped in, a flat piece of tin or iron laid on the top, and piled up with burning wood. It can be readily understood that an oven of this description makes successful baking a matter of some uncertainty.

The kitchen table must be scrubbed with soap and water daily, the pans and utensils scoured, and the walls occasionally whitewashed. You will find your cook slightly bored with your insistence on these small details, but always polite, cheerful and amenable. He is a teachable person, too, and takes a kindly interest in one’s making of cakes, sweets, etc., but his knowledge of cookery is strictly limited—the veriest tyro in India earning ten rupees a month is a cordon bleu compared with him.

Housekeeping in his department is of the utmost simplicity: he turns up immediately after breakfast, smiling genially, usually arrayed in a spotless white suit, or a suit of pyjamas of striking pattern and colouring, a jaunty straw hat in his hand, and immaculate white shoes on his feet. He gives you the account of the previous day’s marketing, you reproach him for the toughness of the mutton, the heaviness of the bread, and the total absence of the savoury; all of which he takes most philosophically, and explains glibly, to his own entire exoneration. You then give him half-a-crown (or, to save trouble, ten shillings twice a week), and indicate tentatively what you would prefer for luncheon and dinner. It is no use ordering dishes definitely; they never appear, and when you indignantly demand the devilled kidneys arranged for, the tranquil answer: ‘Cook say, kidney no live for market to-day,’ defeats without soothing you.