BRIDAL CONTEST

Chapter 27

Hello Lovelies, look who's here.
Don't forget to include Nigeria in your prayer list for Arfat.
Anyways, dive in.

Her cheeks ache from smiling for cameras. Phone cameras, iPads, and that of the professional photographer. Their love for capturing every moment amazes her. They are fascinated with every move she makes,  aiming at getting the best shot. They attain different positions, circling and squaring their bodies to get the perfect angle to take a snap. Like some athletes, she wonders if their bodies doesn't hurt.

Because just sitting, standing, dancing, greeting guests, smiling, and posing for photos is causing her body to ache. Perks of discarding the physician's advice. He insisted that she shouldn't stress herself, but she thought it was for the first month after giving birth. 

The stress had accumulated due to the baby shower her family insisted on throwing even when her baby is a month and four days old. Over there in Saudi Arabia, where she gave birth, everything was done for her and her baby. Not that it was not the same with here in Nigeria, but the stress is psychological with trying to accommodate people and all. 

She didn't want the headache that accompanies such parties but her family wouldn't hear of it, her in-laws included. They wanted a talk of the country baby shower and the baby was not to be shown for security purposes. She tried to use that to slip away from the ceremony but they had their way of resisting.

The event planner devised the idea of wrapping a doll in a shawl, which she would hold and snap with while the baby is supervised inside the house.She will be alerted when the baby needs milk. 

That is why the event is held in their backyard. Four long tables, two opposite each other with the other two adjacent, are crammed with chairs facing each other for close family and friends. Diners come up from time to time to take orders and bring them to the guests. Music is blaring from the background courtesy of the disc jockey. Not far from him is a table filled to the brim with gifts for the baby and his mother, which will be carted into the house after the event. 

Those that are not eating, drinking, or chatting are swaying their bodies to the tune of  Buga by kizz Daniel ft. Tekno. The aroma of grilled fish mixing with the cool evening breeze and the scent of the living flowers and well trimmed carpet grass. 

Farhana felt her chest becoming heavier. Khalilly must be needing his milk. She made her excuse to the guest she was conversing with and made her way to the house. But much to her dismay, her sister-in-law and her friends wanted to take a selfie with her. She didn't want to sound rude, so she stayed for a few shots.

The boy latched onto his only source of food immediately after she exposed him to it. She released a breath she didn't know she had been holding. He sucked like he had been hungry for ages. "Sorry my love", she rocks the baby, afraid she left him hungry for too long. 

"See you, so comfortable that you've closed my daughter's chapter in your husband's life. Sorry, you'll have to revisit your sorcerer," she heard, and her head jerked up to look at the intruder at the door. She quickly masked her face with a full blown smile. "Assalamu alaikum Aunty Rahmatu," she replied. The two meanings contained in her statement didn't miss who she targeted. 

"I have known the Salam before you were born," she spat her jugular veins ticking. "My daughter must come into this house, write it down and keep." She gestured with her hand, "the earlier you accept that, the better for you."

"You didn't even hold your nephew." She removed the bosom from the baby's mouth and his shrill sound made her return it to his mouth. "Oh! I have forgotten he was a farcade ", she repeated the phrase the woman said some months before her departure for delivery.