Even if you end up not getting it, knowing what YOU want validates you and gives your life clarity of purpose. So, what do you really want?
As mentioned previously, I wanted a good education above all else. To me, ‘good’ meant being able to reach university level. I had witnessed the many advantages and benefits such an education afforded — a case in point being my cousins — I did not need to look any further. Education was responsible for the power my little cousins had over me. Their father was highly well-educated, which gave them tremendous advantages; they had significant benefits because their father was extremely well-educated. It was a perfect circle with no break. I wanted that perfect circle for myself and the children, and I too would have in future. Although I was barely in my teens, I was very much a product; my culture, marriage was; therefore, something I knew was a top priority in my future. The thought of a future child of mine enduring the kind of treatment I was going through under my uncle’s roof drenched me with another type of fear that I could not even bear to imagine. Never! God forbid! Never, ever, ever! I used to click my fingers and flipped them over my shoulder as I lay on my sleeping sack at night. In our culture, that’s our way of warding off a potentially bad omen. Anyway, the only way I could guarantee that any future child I had would not suffer the maltreatment was to get myself a good education. And I will, whatever it costs me. I swore over and over again as I tossed and turned on my sleeping sack — always pushed under the bed when I couldn’t sleep or was crying so no one would hear me, which was often. Meanwhile, they all slept on — oblivious of my secret thoughts, oblivious of what had now become my almost-nightly mantra: a desperate prayer for God to make me rich so the children I wasn’t even old enough to bear would never experience my suffering and pain.
At the end of my primary education, there was a chance to achieve that because I was awarded a full secondary school scholarship. The award was based on a scheme initiated by the then Lagos State government. Its goal was to reward pupils considered ‘exceptionally bright’ with free (or hugely subsidized) secondary education. I was one of the pupils chosen.
Aunty refused to let me make use of the scholarship. Her reason? I could not start secondary school ahead of her eldest daughter, my first cousin. Her decision did not make sense; I was older than my cousin by at least four years, and as a result, also ahead of her in school by a couple of years. Making me wait so she could start secondary school before I did make no sense. It mattered not to my uncle’s wife. Her mind was made up; I wasn’t starting secondary school before her first daughter. Delaying my start date in secondary school was not Aunty’s ultimate plan, as I soon learned. I was not good enough to go to an excellent secondary school, period. She was prepared to send me to a typing school if I agreed. I did not. The whole Typing School idea sounds more glamourous than where my uncle’s wife had in mind to send me: which was a ramshackle roadside ensemble that populated Lagos at that time. I wanted more than that.
‘What an ungrateful child! Who does she think she is?’ Frustrated by what she termed my ‘not idem’ (or pride), Aunty had ranted to my uncle. ‘There are those who would give anything to learn typing skills, and here she is turning up her nose at it because she’s so full of pride. She wants to compete with my children; who does she think she is? Let her go back to the village; she’s sure to have an unwanted pregnancy or be married off to some ‘dirty old man.’ I give her two years, maximum!’
As was usual when Aunty began her ‘psychological’ warfare of words, the fears came spiralling, and for a moment, I thought. Should I accept? What if I get home and there is nothing better than this? ? A bony fish is still better than no fish at all. But that thought was fleeting and disappeared as quickly as it came. I wanted more. I didn’t know if I deserved it. I didn’t know if I was going to get it. I just wanted more. I wanted more for my life than a typing course at a roadside shack. If I agreed to Aunty’s proposal, my life would not amount to much — as she predicted. I wanted better than marriage to some older man in the village; I wanted more. I wanted more than a primary job as a junior typist in a room full of other nameless typists. I wanted more. Aunty said I should consider myself ‘extremely lucky ‘that her ‘munificence’ allowed me that much. She said I ought to be ‘grateful’ for her’ goodness and goodwill’ and take what she had offered. But I wanted more.
Even if you end up not getting it, knowing what you want validates you and gives your life clarity of purpose!
I will never know what came over me or where I found the courage considering how beaten down into never-uttering-a-word-without-Aunty’s-permission I was. Still, I remember speaking up for myself for the first time. I remember saying I wanted to attend the ‘good’ secondary school I’d been given admission into, not typing school. Aunty had looked at me as if she could not quite believe what her ears were hearing. And then she spoke. And what she said dramatically changed the course of my life, again.
‘You are not going to anything but the typing school; if you refuse, I will simply send you home to your father and mother.’
I looked at her and answered, ‘Yes, Mma, please, I want to go back home.’ That same year, Aunty took me back home to Cross River State (Now Akwa Ibom State).
