Honey, so 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, but is it maybe not sufficient it is probably the most symbolically Nigerian thing, across all cultural lines?

Exactly what are these? Collectively, they form section of a “bride cost” – money and gift suggestions distributed by a guy’s household to a female’s upon their wedding. In school in Nigeria, during Yoruba history course, we had been told about ladies who attracted extremely high bride costs, determined by their characteristics. Inversely, there have been ladies whoever bride costs had been so paltry, it had been an embarrassment. I do not keep in mind the gifts that are specific whatever they signify any longer, but I actually do understand that these classes for which we were taught about our history were, for contemporary budding feminists, a difficult pill to ingest.

I’m considering bride price again this week, however, due to an app that is new’s been doing the rounds into the African corners of my internet life. Initially, I became reluctant to publish concerning this application at all. The narrative of Africa and Africans in the united kingdom along with other Western, mainly white areas is really old, therefore outdated and false, so wearying, that we conserve African tales for my safer areas, places where there is absolutely no empathy space. I enjoy dealing with Nigeria without some internet complete stranger telling us to “simply get on it!” Dealing with Africa – its good and its own that is bad on internet wears me away. So when we third-culture kids meet up, occupying that center area into the Venn diagram that overlaps our moms and dads’ countries utilizing the West’s, we are able to laugh about any of it. That is what this application is all about.

Down load the new Indpendent Premium application

Sharing the complete tale, not merely the news

The Bride Price app calculated that I became well well well worth the “Premium Babe”-ly amount of 494,500 naira that is nigerianNGN) –about ?1,816. Just just just How achieved it reach this figure? Via a few concerns, and they’re the star that is real of software. There is the choice to always check “we are always aware of, even when we cannot see or hear them, is our enemy for yourself” or “for your friend/enemy” – because as Nigerians, one thing.

Therefore, also I was smiling before I clicked. Then arrived the true concerns: my height; my fat (options 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”) and so forth. Each response features a value that is monetary no kola nuts here – often a “discount”, 60 percent if you’re regrettable sufficient to end up being the indecipherable “Mama Ronke”. The application takes some time 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. by the end of the test”

The expression “if that you do not laugh, you will cry” appears, as part of your, to be produced specifically for Nigerians. The accepted narrative is certainly one of woe, a country lurching from pillar (of calamity) to publish (of disaster) despite a resource wide range which could effortlessly function as the response to our issues. The thought of bride pricing is a screen to your past, a past that will be not necessarily glorious or edifying whenever seen by way of a lens that is modern.

But this application is sly – the nuance may possibly not be noticeable to all optical eyes, but it is here. Under skin color – which could or might not have had a direct impact on bride cost when you look at the days that are olden undoubtedly things within the hierarchy of beauty today – comes five groups. “Half caste”; “Light epidermis”; “Dark”; “Whitenicious”; and “Lupita” (such as Nyong’o). The worthiness for every decreases while german brides at mail-order-bride.net you get down record, you start with +NGN50,000. Issue answer and– choices simultaneously acknowledge the colour-struck manner attribute of a swathe of Nigerians, in addition to noting without fuss the number of tints we can be bought in obviously. There clearly was a level associated with Lupita skin, that is a little thing, not.

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

Then maybe it’s not for you if you can’t see the social commentary in this app.

Anyhow. The application advised my prospective in-laws deliver 100 yards of cord lace to my family that is ancestral homestead befitting my “Premium Babe” status. Finally, a software that gets me…