You are pretty for a brown - skinned.

    Ujunwa stops for coffee every morning and hustles in her high heels to the coffee cafe close to the bookshop where she usually purchases the morning papers,  when the yellow taxi  that she boards from her home in Ikeja  to Main land crawls a stop in front of the cafe.

  " Good morning". She smiles at the tall man behind the counter wearing a T - shirt with the name of the cafe  encrusted on it boldly 'Black Coffee'.  He has over - sized glasses perched on the top of his nose.
 
    Ujunwa has never seen the face before, a lady who  is in her early twenties and always tied her hair in a bun served her coffee and cookies, she knew how to make her coffee strong the way she liked it.
 
"Good morning " he replied arching his brows at her and asked. " How can I help you ma'am".
 
"My usual". She smiles and apologies. " You are new here. Black Coffee and cream with cookies".
  
  "Okay".

 She taps her finger nails covered in black nail varnish on the counter as she watch him package her order in a paper bag while nodding her head to the Asa's song that blared from invisible speakers.
  
 " You are pretty for a brown - skinned". The tall man blurts out staring her in the eyes. She looks at him in awe.

   Ujunwa has a skin as brown as the color of a coconut. Her skin is flawless and glistens under six layers of coco butter cream.

   Why did he think she is pretty for  a brown - skinned.
Is she because she is not light - skinned like Sisi  who has skin as the color of over - ripe banana? 

  She knows the sterotypes girls like her faced in the society, modelling agency and Magazines wanted Sisi type of girls to model their 'nudes' 'lingerie', because they were the desirable ones, every man's dream girl.  If she is light - skinned with honey - colored eyes then she is the pretty one .
 
  In her college years, though she and Sisi were like sisters and strolled in the evenings wearing short shorts and hanging tops or oversized shirts , Sisi gets more admirers who buys her roasted corn or suya stuffed with slices of onion rings and wrapped in old newspapers.

  The sterotypes that the movies portray about the light - skinned girls as been more eligible to be married and girls like her being less marriageable and probably single.

' We  speak of color complex as a problem, as an issue, but it has negative emotional impact on people of all hues it's so serious that it needs to be called what it is - a disease. '
           - Marita Golden.