#11 - Nigerian Proverb: A Building Plastered With Saliva Will Disintegrate Under The Morning Dew.

Reflections on the caution to always build to last.

Dec 13, 2022

Proverbs on Blast is a newsletter that publishes reflection on PROVERBS from around the world and the gems they offer for personal and professional growth. Posts are written by a learner on a quest for more wisdom (me). Please keep reading. Comment at the end. Share this post. Subscribe for more.

It’s less than three weeks to the end of the year and a critical time for reflection. I’ve spoken with several people who are itching to start writing the new year as the date on their documents. They’d “like to be done with this year and not have to think about it again.” Some are thinking about resolutions—wondering whether or not to risk compiling another list of things to start doing, stop doing, or simply do more of in the new year. Whether or not you’re eager for the new year and whether or not you’re interested in that perennial irritant called making New Year Resolutions, the new year will bear down on us all in about 18 days. It’s a wondrous prospect and worth thinking about. It’s also worth planning for.

What is the direction you’d like to see your life go in the new year? For those of us with November birthdays, we often start nitpicking that question early with self-assessments of the past and aspirations for the future . But January 1 is the great equalizer for everyone and it’s around the corner. We all get a blank slate then as the start of a new year. What would you like to see for your life in the new year?

Perhaps the specifics will come later. As you work out the details, I offer a general principle that you can use to drive the general direction of your life in the new year. It’s from a Nigerian proverb that translates in English as “a building plastered with saliva will disintegrate under the morning dew.” It has a ludicrous image of someone plastering a building with saliva. Who does that? That’s why this is a proverb. Perhaps no one does it literally. But figuratively, many do. I did. And got called out on it.

Several years ago, my mother told me this proverb to help me understand the ludicrousness of an action. Talk of an unpleasant but greatly needed feedback. This proverb helped reshape a disastrous bent towards costly shortcuts that could have hardened in me. It became a favorite gauge that I use a lot to appraise plans and actions—mine and of others. As the year winds down to a close and a new one beckons, could this proverb also help equip you to think more critically about what to do in the new year and how?

Maybe you’ll learn the lessons that I did. But before I tell you my story, here are three highlights to give you a better background of the principles it embodies.

Building Construction

In Nigeria, as in many parts of Africa, buildings are constructed with concrete blocks sealed with a wet cement mix. Bricklayers (as they are called) know how to lay the bricks so they are set straight. The good ones know the formula for mixing cement, sand, and water to make strong concrete blocks and the mix that holds them together. They know when to embark on the task, factoring in things like the weather, time of day to determine their start and end times, size of the building to be plastered, workforce, and the quantity of materials they have to work with. Whether as homeowner or bricklayer, there is a societal expectation that buildings attached to your name will last, and outlast you.

Plastering

When concrete blocks are laid and sealed to a formidable structural strength, the bricklayers plaster the walls with wet cement. They do this to seal the set blocks together, patch up holes, and to cover up the sealed blocks. Plastering goes through the dual process of slathering and smoothening. The good ones know how to mix so the wet cement mix stays on the layered blocks slathered and glides off smoothly as it’s smoothened.

Wet cement hardens quickly, so bricklayers work fast. However, dealing with wet cement is prone to a“garbage in, garbage out” end so bricklayers know that they also cannot sacrifice aesthetics for speed. While the finished product must be beautiful, it must also look a certain way—smooth with no visible jagged cracks or troubling fault lines that forecast chunks later falling off. Once the structural strength is established, the plastering is expected to be a fitting match in aesthetics and strength.

Morning Dew

West Africa is one of the hubs of humidity in the world where atmospheric precipitation is a constant. Morning dew is a reality. You wake up in the morning and the ground is damp. Droplets glisten on leaves and fall on the heads of unsuspecting loiterers under trees. With ample sunlight on most days of the year, it’s practical to use solar energy for drying a lot of things. However, if you forget an item that should stay dry outside, it could be ruined by an overnight dew spell. This is one of the reasons why bricklayers do not plaster buildings at certain times of the year beyond a certain time of the day. The right cement mixed with the right amount of water and sand starts hardening within minutes irreversibly. Hard clumps may chip off but will not disintegrate into constituent parts. However, a diluting force such as dew can greatly slow down or destroy the drying process of freshly plastered walls. It’d be a waste of time and money.

It is why the work of plastering is not a mindless task. It needs to be done with the right material, at the right time, and by the right person not cutting corners. I learned this the hard way during a 24-hour spread over two days.

Day 1

I was 13 years old, and my mom asked me to assemble a small shelf. There were 6 boards in the box with 12 screws to hold them in place. I knew where the toolbox was. I knew I had to have the case assembled by the time my mom returned from work. I had handled similar assignments in the past and knew how to do it. My mom knew that I could do it. So did others in the house at the time.

However, we were at home on vacation. Three cousins were vacationing with us and the house was bubbly and fun. So, I played. All of us played, indoors and outside. We watched TV. We ate more than we should have. We yelled in glee and were hideous monsters to our neighbors, but we had no care in the world. Time flew by so fast because we were having so much fun.

Then, my brother realized that it was 3.15pm. 45 minutes before our mom would return from work. And the scramble began, everyone to their neglected tasks. The boards I had to assemble looked alike so there was no need to read the manual. I figured it would take five minutes tops to put it together.

Half an hour later, I decided to glance quickly through the assembly page of the manual. Of course, I knew how to assemble a shelf, but it made me feel responsible to glance through the page that showed how. At least, once.

Afterward, driving in the screws was fast. I had the frame up and was on track to put in the last two screws with two minutes to spare before my mom arrived. Not bad for a last-minute job.

But then, the two small screws decided to go for a spin. A fast one. Both fell from my sweaty palms and didn’t think to stop moving till their heartless run was halted by the wall.

It was the wall behind a hulking shelf. And the only place the errant screws could think to relocate was under and behind that shelf’s majestic heaviness. Too low for my little fingers to get under, too heavy to shift to the side without its contents toppling down. But I still planned to try.

As I strained and pushed to grab the screws, I heard the familiar honk of my mom’s car. Mercy!!!

Adrenalin kicked in. I ran to the hallway, saw a broom (the African broom), and yanked four broomsticks out. I bent them to about twice the length of the missing screws and ran back to my parents’ room.

My quick-thinking brain ordered me to stick bunched broomsticks where the screws should have been. They held the dividing shelf in place and I was done in a flash. Oh, what a save! What ingenuity!

The shelf looked good assembled, and my contribution gave me the confidence to welcome my mom back from work with joyful bliss. I had done what she expected of me and was proud of my accomplishment. She also was pleased. And the evening was wonderful. The following day was going to be even more wonderful since it was her day off. We were all looking forward to it.

Day 2

Early the next morning, mom called me to the room. She sat on the bed, her head angled to the side, peering intently at the shelf I had assembled less than 24 hours before. I caught a glimpse of something white and askew. I planned to devote more attention to studying it in greater details later after I had sat down

Mom patted the space next to her at the edge of the bed as where she wanted me to sit. She flashed me a quick smile and resumed staring at the shelf. I followed her gaze and slowly realized I was at the scene of a crime. My crime.

By this time, I was sweating from everywhere. I inched to the edge of the bed and sat up straighter to look at the shelf.

The dividing shelf was at an odd angle. It was the last board I’d put in. The previous night, my mom had placed a small bowl of a reddish oily stuff on the shelf. When the shelf collapsed, the oil had spilled to stain the bottom shelf and through the cracks onto what I knew to be one of her best tablecloths. It was light pink with a lace trim. She kept staring at the shelf and the table on which it rested, turning her head at different angles in silent dialogue with it.

The more I gazed at the horrific crime, the deeper my understanding that not even angels could save me from imminent life-changing punishment. Shame clasped me in a tight embrace. Water oozed from my pores and eyes. I was cold. I was hot. I wished I could be anywhere else but in front of that collapsed divider shelf. But even the ground refused to open up and swallow me.

Then the inquisition began.

“What is the time, Tomi?”
Me: “It’s… it’s 7.30 ma.”
“When did you set up this shelf?”
Me: “Yes-yes-yesterday, ma.”
“What time yesterday, my child?”
Me: “Around 3…3…3.30, ma.”
“What time did I ask you to do it?”
Me: “Aro-ro-ro-und 7, ma.”
“What were you doing between 7 & 3.30?”
Silence ... Sweat ….
“What did you do between the time I left for work and 4 pm when I got back?”
Me: More sweat …. Silence …. Sweat …. Shaking …
(Deep sigh) “… ok. Let’s try again.”
“Did you have time to set up this shelf or did you rush through it?”
Me: “I did not have enough screws, ma.”
“Oh?”

Then, her face turned serious. No smile. No readable hints. Eyes bored into mine as the air in the room frosted.

She held the bunch of broomsticks that I had stuck in the holes in place of the missing screws on her open palm. They were in my direct line of vision and held my gaze.

“Now listen very carefully and hopefully I will not have to repeat this again.” She had the bunched broomsticks on her open palm, held up to my direct line of vision. In a measured tone, she said: “a building plastered with saliva will crumble under the morning dew.”

She then went on to explain how, by waiting till the last few minutes before her arrival to do what I was supposed to do, I stepped into a well of 7Ds.

I delayed working on my assignment, thereby leaving myself with little time to do a good job.
I denied myself enough time to respond to things going wrong, which is likely with any task.
I became desperate when things went wrong and sought any means to fix the problem.
I used deceit to conceal my delay and halted my ability to think through my chosen solution and process.
I acted dishonestly by giving the impression that my contribution/assignment was sustainable and reliable.
I acted dishonorably when I accepted gratitude and praise for the unreliable and unsustainable job I did.
I disappointed myself for not doing my best and not correcting it before being found out.

Dear reader, I was a mess. A hot, cold, shame-filled, sorry, shrunken, blubbering mess.

Mom said she was shocked that I could think of such a brainless plot and not expect to be found out. She was surprised that I was confidently incompetent to make such a choice at 13 years old. She also said she could tell that I was saddened, but only time would tell if my sadness was from what she outlined as my 7 Ds—delay, denial, desperation, deceit, dishonesty, dishonor, and disappointment—or from being found out.

She sent me to go sit for a while to think about my actions and stew in my remorse. Later that day, she also helped me find the 2 missing screws. And made sure that I drove them in as intended. Interestingly, that shelf is still standing, decades later.

Since Day #2

I left home a long time ago. I did not remember that incident until recently. But I still remember the important principle of a building plastered with saliva will crumble under the morning dew. The principle reminds me that time always unveils the rots in foundations. That while it may seem easy to wedge fickle broomsticks in place of missing screws, desperate measures by any means necessary are never the answer to missed deadlines.

You?

Each one of us is building something at any point in time. Or should be. The easiest thing to get is saliva. It is readily available and accessible. You don’t need permission or payment to harvest gallons of it. But is saliva meant for any part of a building construction project? Is it at all a viable alternative to cement mix? Plastering a wall with saliva may seem ludicrous in real terms but it is ubiquitously insidious in many more common ways that are easy to wink at. We each owe it to ourselves to evaluate what we’re building, what we’re using to build, and how.

An Appeal

The new year bears down fast on us. What lies ahead is worth thinking about, and worth planning for. 365 days is a lot of time to build. What will you build — at work, in your life, your relationships, health, wealth, body, soul, and spirt — that needs to be structurally strong and plastered well? Will your building last under the dew of many mornings? More importantly, will your building outlast you, as the builder or the homeowner?

Wherever you stand in these last two weeks—excited about the new year or not, wondering whether to outline new year resolutions or not to—the remaining few days present a good opportunity to review the passing year and preview the future one. There are clues in the past several months about what to leave in this year and what to carry on into the next one. There are also hints around you of what to prepare for in the future. Again, what will you build? Life will continue its cycle of precipitation and dews. What will you use to plaster that will keep your building intact under the morning dew?

Enjoy your reflections and planning.

LET’S TALK

What is your strategy for building to last? In contrast, do you have any saliva-plastering experience you can share for our learning and growth?

Proverbs on Blast

#11 - Nigerian Proverb: A Building Plastered With Saliva Will Disintegrate Under The Morning Dew.

Reflections on the caution to always build to last.

An Appeal

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