Being a Twin

One of the questions I get asked a lot when anyone finds out I am a twin is 'What does it feel like to be a twin?'. A pretty profound question if you ask me, especially as I have never been anything else in my life and have no experience to compare it with. On days when I am feeling naughty I answer with a question of my own 'What does it feel to be a singleton?' and if I am in a particularly good mood, I answer 'it feels normal' :)

Being a twin can be a great experience especially if you were born into the right culture. I am yoruba so being a twin is a big deal. If I was born several centuries before I would have been accorded special privileges seeing as yorubas consider 'ibejis' as gods. And if I had been born many years before I was in certain parts of Nigeria, I would have been killed shortly after I was born! Thank God for right timing:)

Anyway I was born into a family that treated us as we were, children born into a  family, no special treats were given us- the only time I remember being treated specially was on our birthday ( I remember our 5th birthday) when ewa ibeji (beans for twins) was cooked for us by our grandma. And considering that we would rather starve than eat beans, it was not marked on our calendar as a special treat. A few relatives always made it a point of duty to sing our oriki (praise song) whenever we met them.

'Ejire ara Isokun
Edun A gbori igi regrege
Winino winini loju orogun
Eji woro loju iya e
O be kisi be kese
O be sile elekisa
O so o dalaso
Okan mo ni n o bi
Eji lo wole to mi
Bu mi ki nba o rele
Yin mi ki npada leyin re..................................

I especially loved the 6th and 7th lines which translated mean, the twins arrived in a poor mans house and made him rich:) That made me feel special:)Special treatment came when we went out. I remember going to the market with my twin and grandma in our hometown and having free or extra things pushed into our hands because we were twins. Once we went into Tejuoso market in Lagos when we were in university and we wore the same outfits, a trader saw us and went into hysterics, shouting to her fellow market women o 'come see twins wey don grow o' and blessings and singing and dancing heralded our steps as we passed by each stall. When they heard we were in university comments of how blessed our mother was to have  us were made! This happened over and over again.  Walking down streets together was not very pleasant, we especially disliked being called 'tiiwwwwiiiiiinnnnnnnnsssssss' whenever we passed by!

For starters we do not look alike, our simple explanation to people who claim we are identical is that we are sisters who just happen to have a strong resemblance to each other.We are not identical but fraternal twins who when we dress alike just draw attention to ourselves. So even though we had the same clothes growing up thanks to my mum and other relations who had to buy the same dress twice, we stopped wearing the same things out when we were old enough to decide what we wanted to wear. Once while driving through the University of Lagos we passed by twins who wore the same things from their hairstyles to the shoes on their feet. They were very short and looked more like 'iwins' (gnomes) than human beings, my sister who was particularly averse to our dressing alike said 'you see what we look like when we dress alike'. I can tell you that contributed a lot to our dressing differently.

Another common question we get asked a lot is that do we both fall sick at the same time or do we know when the other is feeling sick or depressed if we are apart? My ready response then was that if twins grew up in the same environment, get bitten by the same mosquitoes or are exposed to the same source of chicken pox or measles, they were sure to be sick at the same time. There is nothing twinnish about that. And No I can't tell if something is wrong with my sister, neither can she. None of us are possessed with intra twinning telepathic powers. If I speak with her on the phone, I can tell if she is happy, sad or withdrawn! Shikena!

Now to answer the big question 'What does it feel like to be a twin'? I still would say Normal. I love the fact that I have a ready made best friend, and I did not have to go through the phase of looking for one and getting dissapointed when friendships did not work out. It turned out to be a disadvantage when we first seperated and attended different secondary schools and universities. I was so used to having someone by my side all the time, that I would not go out without someone to accompany me. I would wheedle, beg and cajole my friends to accompany me on short walks to class or to the market. And so I made other people my twin when she was absent.

We have some similar likes and dislikes. We do not like eggs, milk, quaker oats, french toast and could not stand beans when we were younger. We find out that we have done the same things when we have not told the other what we planned to do, we have similar interests- reading books and writing. We have completely different career paths, she is a maths guru, I hate maths; I love medicine, she cant stand the sight of blood or the smells of hospitals. We have different friends, a different circle of interests, different lives. Being a twin is just happening to be two people who shared the same womb and were born minutes within each other.What happens after that depends on the environment and if they decide to have a great relationship!