THE FATTENING ROOM EXPERIENCE

Still on the fattening room story, today we’ll be shedding more light on activities the to-be bride engages in during her stay at the fattening room.

After months of starchy diet and forced inactivity, the girl will be ready to re-enter society bearing the traditional mark of female beauty among her Efik people: fat.

The fattening room is at the center of a centuries-old rite of passage from maidenhood to womanhood. The months spent in pursuit of poundage are supplemented by daily visits from elderly matrons who impart tips on how to be a successful wife and mother. Nowadays, though, girls who are not yet marriage-bound do a tour in the rooms purely as a coming-of-age ceremony and sometimes, nursing mothers return to the rooms to put on more weight.

“The fattening room is like a kind of school where the girl is taught about motherhood,” said Sylvester Odey, director of the Cultural Center Board in Calabar, capital of Cross River state. “Your daily routine is to sleep, eat and grow fat.”

Etim, 65, put his two daughters. During the process, she is treated as a goddess, but the days are monotonous. To amuse herself, Margaret has only an instrument made out of a soda bottle with a hole in it, which she taps on her hand to play traditional tunes.

The matrons teach her such basics as how to sit, walk and talk in front of her husband. And they impart wisdom about cleaning, sewing, child care and cooking.

Efik women are known throughout Nigeria for their chicken pepper soup, pounded yams and other culinary creations. They advise her to keep calm and quiet, to eat the gari, and not to have many boyfriends so as to avoid unwanted pregnancy,”

The matron teachers also tells the young girl that unless she passes through the fattening room she will not be a full grown woman.

However like many traditional African customs, the fattening room is facing relentless pressure from Western influences.

Health campaigns linking excess fat to heart disease and other illnesses are changing the eating habits of many Nigerians and urban dwellers are opting out of the time-consuming process.

Effiong Okon Etim, an Efik village chief in the district of Akpabuyo, said some families cannot afford to constantly feed a daughter for more than a few months. That compares with a stay of up to two years, as was common earlier this century, he said.

But the practice continues partly because “people might laugh at you because you didn’t have money to allow your child to pass through the rite of passage,” Etim said. What’s more, many believe an unfattened girl will be sickly or unable to bear children.

Wao ! what more can I say.