DIALOGUE WITH THE PAST PERFECT SIMPLE TENSE
Rachel and Takondwa are best friends. They go to the same secondary school and they are in the same class. Today, we find them at Takondwa’s house. Her mother and grandmother are there. They talk about life in general.
Takondwa’s mum: Welcome, welcome Rachel! Come in. Takondwa just arrived from the market. She had gone there to buy some mangoes for you.
Rachel: Thank you Auntie! Really? Takondwa’s crazy. Did she really do that? Takondwa! Where are you?
Takondwa: I’m here! Is that Rachel?
Rachel: Yes, it’s me. Is it true that you went to the market to get some mangoes for me?
Takondwa: Yes, I did! I found these juicy mangoes. You’ll love them.
Rachel: Wow, those are huge! I can’t wait to have one. Thanks Takondwa! Now I understand because when I called your landline, no one answered. Maybe you’d already left and no one was at home then.
Takondwa’s grandmother: I was here but you know with us old people. My ears are getting deafer and deafer by the day. I did not hear anything. Takondwa had told me before she left that you might call. I completely forgot. My memory is gone too. Old people will always be old people.
Rachel: Agogo, you look younger and younger. You’re a beautiful woman on top of that. Soon, you will be competing with us. We’ll be no match for your beauty!
Takondwa’s grandmother: Ha, ha, ha Rachel. You are kind my granddaughter. Your parents did a good job raising you. Until now, I thought my poor old ears had heard all they had to hear but some things will never cease to surprise me. Look at this young girl in her prime talking about youth and beauty to me. How can I look young and beautiful with these wrinkles?
Rachel: It’s true agogo, you’re becoming a threat. All the boys’ admiring looks will go towards you. Isn’t it true Takondwa?
Takondwa: It’s true Rachel.
Takondwa’s grandmother: Ha, ha, ha. You girls will kill me with your jokes. You are too naughty.
Rachel: By the way Takondwa, take your mobile phone with you when you go out. I called you so many times. I was worried that you’d forgotten about our meeting.
Takondwa: No, I didn’t forget. I just didn’t want you to come to our place and have nothing to eat.
Rachel: All right, I understand.
Takondwa’s mum: How is your mother Rachel?
Rachel: She’s fine but she isn’t at home right now. She went to our home village yesterday.
Takondwa’s mum: Why?
Rachel: I don’t know exactly. She’d received a phone call from her mother prior to her departure. I think she went there to discuss some things about my sister’s upcoming wedding.
Takondwa: Your sister’s getting married? I didn’t know that!
Rachel: She is and she’s so excited. She has known her future husband for quite some time now.
Takondwa: George’s her fiancé, right? He’s such a handsome and responsible young man.
Rachel: Yes, he is. He’d been her classmate before they started going out. He’d offered to help her with her homework so many times that she started to suspect that he wanted to be her boyfriend.
Takondwa’s grandmother: Is that what you do nowadays? In my time, the boy had to go to his uncle first and express his wishes. He couldn’t come to me directly. Only our uncles could talk first.
Takondwa: Is that how you got married agogo?
Takondwa’s grandmother: Yes! They took me to my husband’s house and that’s how I started my married life. I had never even seen the boy before!
Rachel: What? You had never met your husband before you got married to him?
Takondwa’s grandmother: I knew his character of course. He came from a very respectable family with good manners. I knew that he did not drink alcohol and that he had never been married before. He was no skirt chaser of course! I also knew that he had bought a farm just to welcome his new bride. He was serious about marriage.
Rachel: Really agogo? You were very lucky then. I don’t know if I can ask this question. I don’t want to offend you. How old was he?
Takondwa’s grandmother: He was just three years older than I was. Ha, ha, ha, you young girls. Do not think that the past was all about marrying old shrivelled men. Most of my friends married people of the same age. Our past was perfect, I tell you. Nowadays, people get married for money and I do not know what to say about that. Look for character, girls. Character is what counts.
Rachel: Was he handsome? I mean, it’s important that the person looks good. I don’t want to marry an ugly person agogo. Would you have married your husband if he had been repulsive?
Takondwa’s grandmother: I do not know how to answer your question. I have no idea what I would have done if I had discovered that he looked like the bottom of his feet. Fortunately, he was good-looking and he knew how to dress well. You should have seen him with his blue suit when he went to church. He used to be admired so much! Aaand…you should have seen us when we went to visit my parents one year after we had started living together. He had put on a double-breasted black suit and my white dress was absolutely stunning!
Takondwa: The photos are really pretty Rachel and grandfather’s still very good-looking. He’s such a charmer.
Takondwa’s mother: Ha, ha, ha. Yes, that is true. My father has always known how to take care of himself. he is a true gentleman.
Further Exploration:
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- Dialogue with the Past Perfect Simple Tense, Learn English With Africa, January 2020
- English Grammar, The Past Perfect Simple Tense, (Dialogue with the Past Perfect Simple Tense), Learn English With Africa, January 2020
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- Short Story, THE PERFECT PRESENT, Learn English With Africa, February 2020
- A Perfect and Comprehensive Grammar Lesson about the Past Perfect Simple Tense
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Past Perfect Simple Tense Reminder
A Peek at Wedding Traditions in African Literature
Excerpt from Chapter 11 of ‘Arrow of God‘, a novel by Chinua Achebe which was first published in 1964.
When Obioka’s bride arrived with her people and he looked upon her again it surprised him greatly that he had been able to let her go untouched during her last visit. He knew that few other young men of his age would have shown the same restraint which ancient custom demanded. But what was right was right. Obika began to admire this new image of himself as an upholder of custom —like the lizard who fell down from the high iroko tree he felt entitled to praise himself if nobody else did.
The bride was accompanied by her mother who was just coming out of an illness, many girls of her own age and her mother’s women friends. Most of the women carried small headloads of the bride’s dowry to which they had all contributed —cooking pots, wooden bowls, brooms, mortar, pestle, baskets, mats, ladles, pots of palm oil, baskets of cocoyam, smoked fish, fermented cassava, locust beans, heads of salt and pepper. There were also two lengths of cloth, two plates and an iron pot. These last were products of the white man and had been bought at the new trading post at Okperi.
The three compounds of Ezeulu and his sons were already full of relatives and friends before the bride and her people arrived. The twenty or so young maidens attending her were all fully decorated. But the bride stood out among them. It was not only that she was taller than any of them, she was altogether more striking in her looks and carriage. She wore a different coiffure befitting her imminent transition to full womanhood —a plait rather than regular patterns made with a razor.
The girls sang a song called Ifeoma. Goodly Thing had come, they said, so let everyone who had good things bring them before her as offering. They made a circle round her and she danced to their song. As she danced her husband to-be and other members of Ezeulu’s family broke through the circle one or two at a time and stuck money on her forehead. She smiled and let the present fall at her feet from where one of the girls picked it up and put it in a bowl.
The bride’s name was Okuata. In tallness she took after her father who came of a race of giants. Her face was finely cut and some people already called her Oyilidie because she resembled her husband in comeliness. Her full breasts had a very slight upward curve which would save them from falling and sagging too soon.
Her hair was done in the new otimili fashion. There were eight closely woven ridges of hair running in perfect lines from the nape to the front of the head and ending in short upright tufts like a garland of thick bristles worn on the hair-line from ear to ear. She wore as many as fifteen strings of jigida on her waist. Most of then were blood-coloured but two or three were black, and some of the blood-coloured strings had been made up with a few black discs thrown in. Tomorrow, she would tie a loincloth like a full-grown woman and henceforth her body would be concealed from the public gaze. The strings of jigida clinked as she danced. Behind they covered all her waist and the upper part of her buttocks. In front they lay string upon string from under her navel to her genitals, covering the greater part and providing a dark shade for the rest. The other girls were dressed in the same way except that most of them wore fewer strings of jigida.
The feasting which followed lasted till sunset. There were pots of yam pottage, foofoo, bitter-leaf soup and egusi soup, two boiled legs of goat, two large bowls of cooked asa fish taken out whole from the soup and kegs of sweet wine tapped from the raffia palm.
Whenever a particularly impressive item of food was set before the women their song leader raised the old chant of thanks:
“Kwo-kwo-kwo-kwo-kwo!
Kwo-o-ooh!
We are going to eat again as we are wont to do!
Who provides?
Who is it?
Who provides?
Who is it?
Obika Ezeulu he provides
Ayo-o-o-o-o-oh!”
But in the end her mother and all the protecting company from her village set out for home again leaving her behind. Okuata felt like an orphan child and tears came down her face. Her mother-in-law took her away into her hut where she would stay until the Sacrifice at the crossroads was performed.
