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.
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