It’s been a year now that I wrote my final exams as an undergraduate and if you ask me how life has been, I’ll be tell you it’s not what imagined it to be.
Life started messing with my plans when I registered with Batch A stream 1 and was shifted to Stream 2, my direct posting and relocation not working, business not thriving due to bad network and falling terribly ill like 2 times within the space of 3 months.
I realized this was not drill, I’m actually slowly becoming independent and I’ve never imagined been in a situation that I can’t run home to my parents or man at any slight inconvenience. I had to start making some decisions on my own and mapping out things myself. Failing at some things I’ll naturally wouldn’t have failed, excelling at what I never thought I’d excel.
A baby died in my community about 6 weeks back and for some reasons I was happy for the baby because he did not have to go through life (I was sad for the mother tho) and I am super jealous of my students that their biggest problem is calling crocodile “korokodaile”.
My life, of course is not the center of this publication, it has just been tiring.
I did an analysis of this community and realized that one of the reasons most of them are living conveniently without basic amenities is because they don’t actually dream bigger than Takete-Isao at most Lokoja. I’ve had the opportunity to engage a good percentage of the people here and most of them just wants to farm and make money from the farm. The kids in school would rather go to farm or go produce charcoal than coming to school. I engaged some of the seniors in school with a discussion about their plans and most of them are not even planning to further their education. They are so satisfied with their level and way of life here as long as the “bororo” people did not raid their farms or kidnap them. Still, even tho they enjoy these things, there are still some of them living tough lives even as kids.
A girl in my class has been absent in school for 2 weeks and I went to see her, she told me she has been working with a charcoal producer so that she can pay her school fees. I was speechless, I have in my entire life never had to lift a finger to pay any fees and here is this little girl doing all she can to pay her fees. After been absent for 2 weeks, she won’t be able to cover what she has missed, fail tests and exams. I asked myself what is all the work for then?
80% of the women here are so young and most of them are not up to my age with 3 kids already, the men impregnating them are either married or the same age with them and at the end of the day, if they had any aspirations it all ends there because they get a house (95% of th houses here are free I.E no rent and they give out free land to people who are not leaving here) and start living as a family. The man starts farming or making charcoal with his strength the wife stay at home most times to care for the kids and the cycle continues.
Some of them actually get to go higher level of learning but they mostly don’t come back home and when they come, they don’t use the degrees.
I realized everybody is battling with life at different levels and I’m actually not dreaming or in a simulation or something. This is not a drill, it’s the real thing.
Dearest readers, how are you handling your life? Are you handling it well or you just want to give up? I know it is not easy and you can talk anyone about how you feel. If you can’t find a person reply this mail if you’re reading directly from your mail and if you are reading from the Substack app still use the mail.
Relax, you’ll figure it out, sleep well, eat good and try again.
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LOVE, LIGHT AND AMALA,
OLUSEUN AYANFEBABA
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