LIFE LESSON 3 CONTINUED

One evening, after she and her siblings had come back from school and preparing their night food, her Father’s first sister came to the house, she inquired after her father and was told that he was not around and so she decided to wait for him. When he came back later in the evening, he met his sister waiting for him and he was surprised seeing her. He asked her to stay the night, so that they could talk over what brought her in the morning, she agreed. In the early morning while the girl was preparing her siblings for school and also getting ready her self, they heard voices coming from the sitting room and they were the voices of her father and his sister and her father was talking and shouting at the top of his voice, suddenly his voice ceased and she heard her auntie shout ‘ewoooo, ewooo, onye no nso o o o’ (meaning who is near by) she rushed to the sitting room with her brother to see their father slumped on a seat there and his sister just crying, they called him and shook him but he was not moving and they joined in crying and calling his name, the woman ran out of the house to get help and by the time she came with men of the household (which was like eternity to the young children of this man), it was quite late but all the same,  they quickly took him to the hospital which was about an hour away, on reaching the hospital, he was pronounced dead on arrival. The woman was devastated and was asking herself ‘what have I done? What have I done?  I have killed my brother!!!”

The news of the death of their father took away the shine in the eyes of the remaining children of the man and the older girl knew that her world had come to an end and she and her siblings had no one to run to now.

After the burial of her father, their paternal Uncles and Aunties held a meeting at which they farmed out the children of their late brother. The man’s immediate junior chose the girl while the other two girls and the boy were given out one by one to the other Uncles and Aunties.

The Uncle took the girl to Onitsha where he was living with his family when all the ceremonies for the burial of his brother had been completed. He was so nice to the girl at the beginning, he promised to enrol her in a Secondary School so that she can finish her secondary education. He also used to buy her things and told her to regard him as a father.  4 months after, his countenance towards her changed, he started being mean to her, getting unnecessarily worked up for little offences that he used to overlook before, he made her cry a lot and his wife was also not helping matters as she made the girl the slave girl of the house.

One day in the 7^th month of the girl’s stay with her Uncle and with schools about to resume for the new term, she went to him to tell him that she wants to go to school so that she can complete her education as he promised her and she was sternly rebuked by the man, accusing her of wanting to use the opportunity of going to school to go and prostitute, this accusation made her cry bitterly as she told her Uncle that she is still too young for that kind of accusation and for which the man whipped her mercilessly.

On the day that Schools resumed, all the children in the house went to school, the man and his wife also went to their shops leaving the girl alone in the house; after about 2 hours, the man came back and met the girl crying, he pacified her and told her that he would enrol her in a school if only she would do what he wants her to do. The girl replied that she was willing to do anything in order to go to school and complete her secondary education so that she would be qualified to be admitted into a School of Nursing. So the man asked her if it is true that she had not played with a boy before and she said yes and he told her that he would like to find out if she was saying the truth, the girl was confused and asked him how he was going to do that. He told her that by the same time tomorrow he would come to the house and find out if it is true that she has not been playing with boys.

Knowing that she was in more danger staying in that house than being out of it, when the next day dawned and everyone had left the house, she packed her few clothes and left the housel she didn’t know any where or any body in the town so she went to the Police Station. She told the Station Master that she didn’t want to continue staying in her Uncle’s house as her life was in danger, they got the name  and address of the man and when it was clear that he would be in the house they brought the girl back to the house, telling her that she would be well, she cried and cried but they would not listen to her; that night the woman of the house beat her mercilessly when she could not find out why she ran away from the house and put all of them under tension. So the following morning while they were still sleeping around 5 am the girl ran away from on the pretext of going to urinate. She kept running with all the strength she could muster without even knowing where she was heading to, all she wanted was to be very far away from her Uncle’s house, when she had lost steam, she then alternated walking and resting, for more than 6 hours she ran, walked and rested without food or water but she kept on the major highway which she thought would take her to her village. When she got tired of walking, she approached a woman selling akara beans on the road and told her story; she told the woman that she wanted to get to her village but didn’t have any money or how to get there, eventually the woman asked her to work by selling akara and when she had accumulated enough transport money, she would take her to the Motor park and put her in a car going to her village. She had no choice but to accept that offer and so she started working as an akara balls hawker. After about a month of doing this and having saved enough money for transport, the akara woman took the girl to the motor park and put her in a cab going to her village and thus the girl safely came back home, those at home were shocked to see her because her Uncle had come back to search for her when she disappeared from their house at Onitsha and so they had assumed that she was dead. They did some things on her to prove that she was living and she passed the tests - and she was just 15 years old.

She went to her Mother’s friend in the village to relate her experiences to her and to ask her to accommodate her while she looks for things to do to raise money and go to school, the woman spoke with her husband and he agreed that she can stay with them. While with them she was apprenticed to a hair stylist and after 6 months she was free to go on her own, so she put all her energy into the work and at the end of 2 years she said she had saved enough money and wanted to go back to school. She went to her former school and asked that she be taken back in Class 2 and which after many pleas the Principal allowed, so she paid her fees and  bought her books. While attending school, she was also working part time as a hair stylist – plaiting and weaving.

3 years later, at 21 years of age, she passed her West African School Certificate Examinations with flying colours and the following year she was admitted to read Nursing at a prestigious School of Nursing and Midwifery. She still continued with her hand work which was what assisted her greatly to cater for herself and her studies.