The Congruence III

I am also brilliant academically, although not as much as my eldest sister but I managed to pass my S.S.C.E.

Sister Grace swore that I would get a degree as long as she was alive and she got me my JAMB form, I made it up to her by studying really hard and it paid off.

My score was 253 and it was good enough to secure admission into the University of my choice and the course that I wanted to study…Banking and Finance. Our landlord’s daughter was a banker and I coveted her lifestyle every time she visited her father…I just wanted to be like her.

It was like sweeping the whole house to get me everything I needed to start school. My sister worked extra hard, my brothers chipped in…likewise my mum and they were able to put together the school fees. My sister sewed me some clothes for school and I was just excited to be inching closer to my ambition.

Everything was set except my “pocket money” but luckily, our landlord’s daughter came that weekend and when she heard I was going to school gave me two thousand naira…oh my God! It was like a million bucks. I couldn’t take everything; I had to leave one thousand Naira for my mum.

And off I went the following day, Sister Grace went with me and helped me settle in, she made sure we paid the school fees before she left…after my mum’s experience with pick pockets, we got used to wearing local waist pouch bags…Yoruba people call them “ìgbànú”.

“Better to pull your skirt up in public and show a little skin but still have your money” was my sister’s slogan. Even the teller at the Bank laughed when Sister Grace brought out my school fees from “under there”.

Sister Grace helped me to get settled in the hostel…I was already used to having a lot of people live in one room but this time they were not family. Some of them looked friendly and some looked mean.

When my sister finally left, I could not help but tear up…it was the first time I was on my own without my family around. She hugged me and promised to come back and check on me…she advised me to concentrate on what I came to school for and never to forget where I was coming from.

Deola was supposed to be my bunk-make. However, she got to school about a week after resumption. We were about 30 in the room (including squatters) and someone else had been sleeping on Deola’s bunk all the while but since I didn’t know who was who, I never bothered to ask any questions. Besides, nobody in the room cared enough to try to know me or talk to me.

You know those girls that wore T-shirts and tucked them into skirts back in school? That was me…little wonder my roommates didn’t care to mingle. I dressed like one of the Born Again people but it was not for religion.

I was not even the religious type…I actually struggled with the thought of a merciful or good God because I simply had never experienced that side of Him. Whenever I was in the hostel, I would gently crawl into my bunk and just be by myself…but that all changed the day Deola came

“What’s your name?” She asked

I wasn’t sure she was talking to me until she asked again. I looked up and she smiled at me. I told her my name and she talked to me for a while…it felt good. She was in my faculty but was a sophomore. I noticed she had a lot of stuff…a lot, a whole lot.

I didn’t have a lot of friends and I want to believe that low self-esteem had something to do with it. There were people in my class that didn’t even say hello to me. That changed a little after one of our test scores came out and I scored highest…I became known as one of the “efikkos” (nerds)
  
Every evening back in the hostel, Deola would ask how my day was…she would talk to me for a while and I could tell she kinda liked me because she didn’t do that to everyone in our room. The day I ran into her at the faculty building, I had assumed she would snub me…it was like the re-enactment of when the prince met the pauper but she actually gave me a hug and I could see that even her friends were taken aback. She introduced me to them and some were still reluctant to say hi.

Deola said she would see me in the hostel later, as she walked away with her friends. They looked like real life Barbie dolls, from their hairdos to their shoes…and it felt cool to have even been “recognized” by and with them, maybe that would help hype my reputation with some of my snobbish course mates, I thought to myself.

Sister Grace visited me about five weeks after resumption; she brought me some stuff. I was already running out of things but I had learnt and mastered the art of surviving on little. She stayed a while and we talked and talked…she told me that my brothers were also doing well and had sent me some money as well. I noticed she was holding a GSM phone (the technology had been around for some years but only one of the providers had service in our town. Their rates were crazy and very expensive, so we never bothered to get one in the family). Apparently, the phone was a gift from a guy that had been trying to date my sister but she had been too busy to give the guy a chance or even an audience and my being in school made her relax a little bit.

She gave me the number and it felt good to have a way to communicate with my family, especially my mum. Quite a number of students, especially the ones from the cities, had GSM phones too and there were call centers all over campus. I couldn’t wait to call my mum the following day…it was a Sunday.

I quickly went to take my bath before the bathrooms were messed up. When I got back, I noticed someone had tampered with my bag…I was only away for about 10 minutes

“Ye…I don gawk myself” (I have let down my guard) I screamed.

PART 2                                                                                                              PART 4

Picture Credit (c) Ynaija

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental   

© 2017 Lanre Olagbaju All Rights Reserved

Are You Responsible?

Dear married,

Every one in a marriage has responsibilities.

Responsibility is the state of having a DUTY to deal with something or being responsible/accountable or to blame for something.

Your responsibilities are those things that would make it look like you don't exist in the marriage, if there are lapses or cracks.

Your responsibilities should never be seen as "doing a favor". You ain't doing your spouse a favor for handling your responsibilities.

Your responsibilities are nontransferable (only death should take them off)

Your responsibilities were not forced on you...they came with decisions you "chose to make"

 
Your responsibilities are never affected by a grudge between you and your spouse.

You may or may not get a thank you for taking care of your responsibilities.

Your responsibilities should be handled with pride

Even God expects you to take care of your responsibilities (1 Tim 5:8)

Your responsibilities should never make you feel like "I didn't sign up for this"...because you actually did, maybe you just didn't read the "terms and conditions"

Your responsibilities at home and how you handle them say a lot about the kind of person you are.

Your responsibilities at home and how you handle them is directly proportional to how you would handle any position you are given...little wonder, the first set of deacons were qualified/disqualified based on this

How you handle your responsibilities at home draws or repels blessings

God is watching how you handle your responsibilities

 

#AreYouResponsible?

Picture Credit (c) Ventures Community Services

© 2017 Lanre Olagbaju All Rights Reserved

The Congruence II

The stigma of being the drunkard’s child was another thing; every kid in the neighborhood made fun of us and would refer to it if a fight broke out between us and them. I remember the day my elder brother broke another kid’s head because that kid said my dad could drink urine.

My mum was a full housewife, what choice did she have? She had seven children to take care of and we were not spaced that much apart (I’m only about 10 months older than my immediate younger brother). However, she was resilient…she would do anything to make money and feed her children. She fried and sold akara (bean cake), she sold bread, she sold corn (both cooked and roasted)…she even sold firewood at some point. She would buy and process fresh cassava to make fufu and garri because she considered it cheaper than buying the finished products. She augmented the feeding allowance from my dad with her sweat and there were times she did with her blood.

She would put loaves of bread on trays for us to hawk to see if we could make some more money instead of waiting for customers to come buy them. We hawked in pairs, for safety reasons but how safe could a seven year old be, roaming the streets with another eight and half year old (one of her older brothers that’s supposed to protect her)

My dad ended up dying in a fatal hit and run accident on his way home; I was almost 10 years old then. I’m doubly sure he was drunk and must have not seen the oncoming vehicle…unfortunately, nobody was there to help.

My dad was a lot of things but he would always come home to eat and sleep…so when we didn’t see him at home that night, my mum started to get worried and she kept saying her “body” was telling her that something bad had happened. I doubt if she batted an eyelid all night. She sat on the couch facing the door, hoping her husband would come through and I could tell she was really scared.

We got to know of my dad’s death the following morning; they were able to locate his family from the Identification Card in his wallet, after his corpse was deposited at the state mortuary. My mum was beyond devastated…she almost killed herself. I couldn’t understand why she mourned him that much; as far as I was concerned, the guy was not even a good husband to her…I saw it as good riddance. I did not shed a single tear and I was kind of elated that my mum’s physical, emotional and sexual abuse would cease.

Many crazy things happened after my dad died; his younger brother, Uncle Fidelis…that we never saw and barely knew when my dad was alive, came and took my dad’s pristine motorcycle and some other things from the house, we were super poor and you would wonder what anyone would want to take from us. My eldest brother (15 years old) protested and got a dirty slap, he was ready to fight my uncle but my mum restrained him.

Things were really tough but we later got some lifeline from the government as they paid my dad’s gratuity…it was a glimmer of hope and we were very happy. A colleague/friend of my dad helped us to get everything sorted; he made sure my greedy uncle was cut out of the loop.

We paid off our outstanding rent…we had owed over a year’s rent. Our landlord collected his rents on a month to month basis (the man had been really patient with us, he was from my mum’s hometown and I guess that bought us some goodwill).

My mum then traveled to the city with the remaining money, to stock up her stall (it was right in front of the house…another perk the landlord gave us). She was going to buy Milk, Bournvita, St Louis sugar, OMO and Elephant detergents, laundry and bathing soaps, canned Titus and Mackerels, toothpastes…all those daily essentials in bulk, so we could start selling them.

My mum came back in the evening with nothing, her clothes were dirty and her eyes were red…she had cried her eyes out.

What happened? Unfortunately, the money didn’t make it to the market she went to. Her bag was cut open on the side and someone stole the money. She didn’t even know until she was about to pay for the goods she had bought. She had to beg people for money to transport her back home.

Things went from bad to worse fast…my mum’s health took a hit as well and she could no longer do as much as she used to…but she never gave up. Every child in the house helped in every way we could, to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads.

My eldest brother stepped up to be the man of the house and in the process made some wrong moves/bad decisions. At first, when he started to bring money home, he claimed to had gotten a menial job with some of his friends and they paid him on a daily basis. My mum was not comfortable with this and kept bugging him until my brother moved out of the house at age 17. He left and never came back.

Up till today, we don’t know what became of him…we later heard that he was killed on a robbery mission but there was no proof, we just never saw him again.

It was just too much for a family to take; my mum would cry day in and day out. My father’s family abandoned us and never bothered to see how we were doing. The fact that my dad married someone from another tribe was a big family issue and they never accepted us. It was the same thing on my mother’s side…she was an outcast for marrying from another tribe, against her father’s will. We had cousins, uncles and aunts that we never met or had relationships with. My mum was the obstinate type and chose to live with the consequences of her decision rather than crawl back to anyone. Even when her dad passed, she never bothered to go see her family. It was just so messed up.

We managed to get by and people helped us in their own little ways…our landlord was God sent as he came through for us many times. I’m sure we would have been homeless if we had another person as our landlord.

It was a sad thing seeing your mum go through such things and as young as I was, I felt really bad every time I saw her in pain or tears; I hated my dad even more and consequently started to hate men in general.   

The second child of the family, Sister Grace, was very brilliant...she passed her G.C.E. Ordinary Level examination and Poly JAMB with flying colors at age 16 (My mum could not afford to pay for all the exams so my sister did not take the UME) but because there was no money to further her education, she had to go learn tailoring. My mum tried her best to raise some money but it was just not meant to be. It was a tough decision; my sister cried and cried but had to accept the reality…however, she vowed to do everything within her power to make sure her younger ones got tertiary education. She believed so much in education and called it the antidote to poverty. My mum vowed that she would get all of us through Secondary School at the least…luckily, our state offered free education.

Getting the supplies for school was the big issue and it was tough. I remember the stitched uniforms, the torn sandals, the hand-me-downs…everything we could do or endure to get through school. We were closely knit and we didn’t have many friends…we didn’t even have time to make friends. After school, there was something for you to do…if you were not hawking, you were doing chores or sitting at my mum’s stall to sell things. As hard as it sounds, I didn’t know anything about boyfriends till I left secondary school, boys could not even come close to me…maybe my “men are useless’ vendetta contributed to this.

It wasn’t long before Sister Grace was done with her training…she rented a little shop and was getting her own customers. She still lived in the same house with us; she felt it was better to stay and help with the rent instead of getting her own place.

My immediate elder brothers (Twins) started a barbing salon as soon as they were done with secondary school. They did not even bother to take the entrance examination. The suffering/poverty was too much and they just wanted to do something meaningful that would bring money immediately.

They didn’t have to learn the art because they were already doing it even as students, practicing on the boys at their school, and were quite good at it. They just got a shop, furnished it and made it official.

My mum and Sister Grace tried to dissuade them but they had made up their minds. They said they couldn’t afford to put our mum through the stress of sending both of them through school when they could be making money right now and be helping out. The long term plan was to raise money from this and start a business at some point. When she saw that she couldn’t change their minds, Sister Grace helped them raise money to get the things needed for the barbing salon to take off

My sister since then started to tell the remaining three that we would get degrees whether we liked it or not. It was a daily reminder and before leaving for school, she would tell us to repeat the statement “I will ‘go’ to University and get a degree”…it was like a mantra

PART 1                                                                                                              PART 3

 

Picture Credit (c) guardian.ng
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental   

© 2017 Lanre Olagbaju All Rights Reserved