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
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