Tonight
02:42 am
Creek Avenue Court.
Tonight;
I discover the difference between Ikota and Ikate; how they are a letter separate but kilometers apart. At Ikate, I tell the korope driver that I am going to Ikota, he stares at me for few seconds-his curiosity combating my perplexity. When he unravels my cluelessness, he sighs and says
bros; you go come down for here and take another bus over there.
I come down and walk hurriedly to the next bus-stop as he described while thinking about Seoul and San Francisco; both major cities starting with S, both on the same Latitude but different longitude and the 4 degrees difference in longitude and opposite direction leading to a 17 hours difference in time-zone.
Isn’t it scintillating that minor differences like these make major impact?
Tonight, I ate my first meal in 36 hours at 2:00am ; two packs of indomie and two eggs cooked by a lissom luscent teenager (probably 13), whose mum woke up at one am to answer her teeming number of clients. Her sister who had struggled to sleep was grunchy but her when her mum said;
“ao ti ta lataaro o, Olorun t’omu customer wa l’oru mo nnkan ti on se” which loosely translates to the fact that they didn’t make a lot of sales yesterday and since God brought customers in the midnight, He knows the best. I am intrigued about how we theists attribute random occurences to the involvement of a divine being. Maybe they are not so random, maybe it gives us the ability to let go off the power of choice.
I gave the teenager one thousand naira after she delivered my meal- I called it a Christmas gift and she knelt down with her knee caps resting on the dusty ground she stood few seconds before; I was flushed with embarassment and was shocked about how much so little mean a lot. I pause, and remember Yhemolee’s tweet a day before; how what he does for a living is to humiliate money; I wonder how many lives can take a 360 degrees turn with those thousands of naira he squandered. Twitter think-pieces says it’s a strategy; I do not disagree. Afterall, no one works hard to make money and use his hands to waste it, unless thier village people is after them.
I think of Nigerians, her leaders and the billions of naira that snakes swallow every year, I wonder how many lives are put on hold thanks to the leaking pockets of political kleptomaniacs.
Tonight, a 60+ old man tells me thank you, he accords me titles like agba, daddy wa, oga mi, baba agbalagba- and prays for me because I bought him 200 naira schnapp. He says I just invigorated him, and that I will never lack strength. I say Amen. I say amen again because this year, I have lacked strenght. I have caved, folded, I have searched for tears, longed for death, wished for the land to open and swallow me; wished for time to stay still or maybe rewind a bit. I have stared at the ceiling, at the heavens, at the stars, the sky and firmaments searching for answers with focused intent. I have also found strength, in people, in hugs, in random emails, and texts, in a feedback from a client, in a comment and a word of affirmation and random gifts from friends so when this frail man says “I will not lack strength- more like — wa ni okun ati agbara; which loosely translates You will continously have strenght and vigor, I say amen, because I have lacked strength, and I do not wish for anyone to experience paucity of strength.
Tonight; I am reminded that a slum and a lush meadow can co-exist; that debris can be next to luxury, that people can see wealth and never taste it. Tonight I randomly think about how many people will never taste wealth, and how many will taste it in the end of their days. I wonder how many people make it from the slum, more importantly, how many people didn’t make it. For a Wizkid that made it from Ojuelegba, there a thousand agboole potentials who didn’t see the limelight; heck, they probably didn’t even make it to the studio or drop an EP not to talk of a single. I see it, I know it.
I watch a lot of U-17s that never make U-20s and a lot of U-20s that don’t make the senior team, yet there are the rare, the chosen like Linda Caicedo who will play U-17, U-19 and senior team within 12 calendar months and Salma Paralluelo who will achieve the same feat in different timeline and conquer the world at 19.
My brother says life is a game of numbers; that he makes 50 submissions and expect to hear back from 5; I wonder about people like me, who don’t have the strength or resilience to make 50 applications in order to hear from 5, but more interestingly, I wonder about the few, the very selected few who make five submissions and get results from 4. They exist, don’t they? I have met them, I have seen them, I have heard stories of them; so why do I have to make 500 applications before I get my dream job, when there are people who graduated from Uni, started working and never really stopped until they went for MBA, and got multiple offers after their MBA. Do they have two heads? What kind of prayers did their Mother pray, because my mum prays a lot too. Is it my fate to try a thousand times before hitting it once? Is it luck? Is it chance?
Tonight, I am thinking about how many people have dreams, and goals and wishes because I exist, and I dare to dream and I wonder if people’s light will go dim if I do not shine mine, so I am reminded to shine, to shine bright and ask God for the strength to keep shining.
11:43 am
Ikota
I sweep the streets with my feet under the scorching sun; my friends drag their luggage along; they are going for holidays because Lagos is chaotic. We are trekking because Bolt has tripled thier fares again so we bolt from their shackles and embrace our inner hustler. I see a dark skinned vendor selling fresh kulikuli and buy two wraps; my friend wonders why few pieces cost 100 naira. I tell him it’s Lagos price, he giggles and says na why I dey go Ib be that.
02:30pm
Lekki Phase 1.
I am in a room, it is cozy; I am staring at a pack of Pringles but I can’t eat; it’s family tradition, some things never change. I am listening You crown the year by Hillsong United- it is my favorite song to listen to during Yuletide; my own Christmas song.
I will go and have a good bath, and dress up to go for ISWIS. I will say hi to people, wear a warm smile, give cozy hugs, recieve some too because tonight I am reminded, we are all moving vessels longing for a place to rest, a place called home where we can be our best, our very best.
P:S- This is first draft, unedited. I have published scantily because this year has been tumultously topsy-turvy. I was going to leave this in my drafts like I have done for the last four drafts but If you get to read this, it means I found the courage to hit the publish button. I hope you love reading it, you can leave a comment if any part of this resonates with you.
All my love,
EF.
