SULTAN {Preview}

Chapter Thirty-four

Our apartment was in Ya Sameer's father's house, it contained had six bedrooms, each with an adjoining bathroom, four sitting rooms, a big kitchen with two adjoining stores and a court yard that could host a little gathering of fifty people, then a passage that links my side to the main house.

Abba furnished all the bedrooms and sitting rooms for me, the kitchen though big enough, was too small to keep all my kitchen utensils in, the stores were already filled up with my gara (food stuffs that a bride brings along to her husband's house). The food stuffs in there could feed us for five years. Space was created in one of the sitting rooms and the rest of my kitchen utensils were kept there and it was locked.

I didn't have much interest when I was toured around the house on the day I was brought, all I wanted to do was to hit the bed and sleep for I was very tired. I had to admit though, that my house was beautiful, very beautiful, and classy too. One of my rooms had navy blue furniture in it, another was white, the third room black and white, the fourth was cream and coffee, the fifth room black with a touch of red and the last which was the biggest, was white and red, it was the master bedroom. All the beds in the room were king sized.

My favorite colours were red and black, that's why almost everything in the house was red. Umma's were cream and coffee, she loved red and turquoise blue too. One of my sitting rooms was furnished cream and coffee, the second was red and turquoise and the third which I liked the most looked Palace like. There were no cushions in it. The walls were designed with bright colours and our tutar sarauta *sign of royalty* was carved on the wall along with other paintings. The big rugs laid on the floor were red and black. The black had a big drawing of a peacock with it's feathers of different colours spread out. There were big round pillows (tim tim) which were weaved and designed by really skilled craft men, they looked expensive, arranged in a circle and small sized throw pillows too, the colours were red, black, ash and turquoise. There was however a big sofa pushed to the wall, it looked like a throne, a queens throne. Ya Sameer said I was going to be a queen in his house.

The sitting room had so many colours but I loved it the most. The fourth sitting room that was turned into a store was supposed to be navy blue, Ya Sameer's favourite colour.

I went to sleep in one of the rooms immediately after the tour, I was so tired I didn't even know which of the rooms it was. The following day when I woke up, something caught my attention and I quickly sneaked outside before anyone notices and stops me. What I saw outside left me awed. It was an orchard, a very big one with trees of different fruits like mangoes, bananas, paw paw, guava, plum, lime, pineapple, avocados and coconut trees among others. The trees that caught my attention the most were the apple and date trees. There were water melons, sweet melons, tiger nuts and hibiscus bushes at one end of the orchard, there were also lilies, roses and daisies. I wonder when he grew all those trees. I spread my arms and started twirling, inhaling the fresh scent of the fruits.

"kimbiya kimbiya " I heard a high quirky voice which belonged to no other... I turned around and saw my newly possessed parrot jumping excitedly in it's cage, it was formerly Abba's before he gifted it to me on my wedding day. It called me Kimbiya because it couldn't pronounce Gimbiya well. "Hello Tutu, it's good to see you here" I jumped excitedly too, imitating it, I looked around for something to feed it but there's no food in sight so I apologized, I chatted for a while with it, before my peacocks decided to show their faces too, I was so going to enjoy my stay here. I bade them good bye then hurried back into the house in time before they started looking for me to come eat breakfast.

After breakfast, Mama Jakadiya and few more elderly woman who slept over went to the main house to give out the paute. Paute are gifts given out to the grooms family by the brides family, after she's brought to her home. It normally consists of things like bed for the grooms father along with other things, then boxes of clothes for his mother with kitchen utensils such as water pots, buckets and cooking pots, plates and food flasks, more gifts for the relatives also and brothers' wives if any, then bags of food items. There's nothing a paute can't contain actually, it contains almost everything.