Episode 3
The Congruence III
I am also brilliant academically, although not as much as my eldest sister but I managed to pass my S.S.C.E.
Sister Grace swore that I would get a degree as long as she was alive and she got me my JAMB form, I made it up to her by studying really hard and it paid off.
My score was 253 and it was good enough to secure admission into the University of my choice and the course that I wanted to study…Banking and Finance. Our landlord’s daughter was a banker and I coveted her lifestyle every time she visited her father…I just wanted to be like her.
It was like sweeping the whole house to get me everything I needed to start school. My sister worked extra hard, my brothers chipped in…likewise my mum and they were able to put together the school fees. My sister sewed me some clothes for school and I was just excited to be inching closer to my ambition.
Everything was set except my “pocket money” but luckily, our landlord’s daughter came that weekend and when she heard I was going to school gave me two thousand naira…oh my God! It was like a million bucks. I couldn’t take everything; I had to leave one thousand Naira for my mum.
And off I went the following day, Sister Grace went with me and helped me settle in, she made sure we paid the school fees before she left…after my mum’s experience with pick pockets, we got used to wearing local waist pouch bags…Yoruba people call them “ìgbànú”.“Better to pull your skirt up in public and show a little skin but still have your money” was my sister’s slogan. Even the teller at the Bank laughed when Sister Grace brought out my school fees from “under there”.
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