I am in Jakarta. I love the city. Chaotic traffic, kind of like Lagos, with all the selling going on at traffic jams, road side food sellers, you see the odd man in a sarong style wrapper( although on Fridays, they are out in the hundreds) and lovely ladies going along minding their business. There's even 'okada' (motorbike public transport system),the only difference here is that the ladies cling to the biker! I can imagine an okada man in naija going 'oh to be a Jakartan'! Don't be fooled by the 'chaos', this is a thriving tourist economy so there are about twenty two five star hotels resplendent their beauty and welcoming in their south east Asian courtesy.

I'm off to church with my family and being the 'multitasker' that I am, I decide to start cooking the lunch as we were to leave for church at 8.20am. I turn of the beef I'm boiling at 8.10am and my husband decides to change his shirt. Why waste the next fifteen minutes I know it will take when the meat could get a little bit softer? So I turn it on and increase the heat a little while I play the role of mummy soothing a now forgotten need that was of utmost importance then.

In church, feeling very pretty and much loved by God, I enjoy the service and dance and sing my appreciation. After church, 'should we go home', hubby wants to know, but I want to visit my friend, so we pile into the car, buy some MacDonalds lunch we know her children will love and invade her house.

I have such a lovely time coz she has some other girl friends visiting; hubby leaves to sort some things out in another part of town. In the middle of a very riveting gist I was giving ( I was really feeling like a star) I said something about beef and paused, mid sentence. My friends were just watching while I stood transfixed. I was frozen, my heart literally with the knowing that I had no recollection of turning off the heat on the then important but quickly abandoned lunch. Ye paa!

In another man's land. Five bedroom, marble infested, expensive furniture, all not mine, crisp and toast because of moi! I could not pray. My legs turned to jelly, while my friends tried to soothe me. Call your neighbours, call your husband etc.

In the end, my husband got there first, twenty minutes later; this was way after four pm. The pot had been on fire and the lid had sealed. The smoke was everywhere, the fire alarm got tired I'm sure but the only thing we lost that day was the pot and clean air? for the next couple of days. !!!!

The relief and my joy cannot be explained. That night, I went to bed and if you were a child raised in naija and ever got a spanking or ever cried your heart out for a long period of time, then you'll understand this bit. I slept like a child who having cried and cried sleeps like a log with its breathing punctuated by heaving and sighing.

Now, I am ever so careful.

(The story in this post happened four years ago)