Hurrying, navigating myself through the human traffic, with only five minutes left for my appointment with the cocoa wholesaler, in a narrow path where I could bump into him if I didn’t slow down, this gawky man stood, almost blocking me. I gestured to him to move out of the way before I got there. He didn’t budge.
‘Move!’ I cried in exasperation. But instinctively, my pace slowed to normal walk.
He made a sign I understood. He was hungry and needed food. I was in such a rush I couldn’t slow down to get some cash out of my bag and for all I knew, he might not be hungry. He could be a professional beggar. In that case, there was no need bothering myself about him. There were one thousand and one of us passing that way, God would use anyone to bless him, not me, not now.
I needed to get to this trader and close this business deal before he entered the market mosque. It was a Friday and when they get in there, that is it, you’d have to wait for ages. I didn’t have one hour to wait because I needed to drive across town to pick my eleven-month old baby from the crèche before they make me pay for late-picking. I sucked in my breath and my size and slid past him, looking straight.
Immediately, I lost my peace. I slowed down. ‘What’s it, Lord?’ I asked without opening my mouth.
‘Where are you rushing to?’ I heard in my spirit. ‘Ah, that’s me,’ I said. The Lord couldn’t ask me that knowing how hard I worked for this order before I got it, how I didn’t even have all the money to pay for the whole thing and how this very kind man said I should come and talk to him so he would know how to help me. I quickened my pace again even as I stole a quick glance on my brand new Raymond Weil leather watch.
‘Go back,’ I heard in my spirit. ‘That man needs your attention.’ What? ‘You must be kidding me!’ I exclaimed inwardly. I could see the Alhaji’s shop/office ahead of me. I had only one-minute left. Maybe he has stood up and is about to come outside, saying to himself, ‘This woman is not serious, that’s why I hate doing business with women.’ I went on anyway.
Standing in front of the shop, I was shocked to see the place locked.
‘Please, where is this Alhaji?’ I asked someone.
‘They don go mosque.’
‘What? All of them?’
The fellow nodded.
‘Go and see that young man,’ I heard in my spirit again. I glanced at my watch. I had forty minutes before my child closed from crèche. I had intended to spend twenty minutes with the Alhaji, do a crazy James Bond car race to my baby’s school, twenty-five minutes’ normal drive away.
‘Go and see that young man.’
I turned reluctantly and began to go. He had vanished. I looked around. He was nowhere to be found. Then I laughed at myself, openly. Christianity had made me mad. My mother often said to me, ‘You hear voices in your head, Jenny, because you’re too busy, hyperactive. Your brain developed a salvaging stimulus to help you do important things – many of them, things you programmed into it.’
An idea hit me. I would go to pick my baby early, return with him to the market to see the Alhaji then dash back to pick my older child, stop by the roadside market to buy some groceries and dash home to make the point and kill pepper soup I promised to make for my husband if he would watch the football match tonight at home.
Now, walking back through the narrow path in a happier mood, I saw the young man sprawled on the ground near a heap of dirt. He was half sitting, half lying, supported by the rubbish. My heart stopped beating for a second. I rushed to him. Obviously, everyone was of my disposition, that he would find a helper in one of the multitude passing his way, but certainly, not me, not you… may be an angel.
I rushed to him, bending down, I said, ‘Can you hear me?’
He nodded with an effort. Up close, I saw he was gaunt and all bones.
‘Can you stand up? Let’s go and get the food.’
I didn’t know what I was saying, but I was out of my mind with worry. What if God was relying on me to save this fellow? How much is food? Jesus, have mercy, I muttered under my breath. He made no move. I looked around in panic.
‘Don’t die,’ I said. To my chagrin, he nodded. I mean, it wasn’t as if I knew what I was saying or it was in his power not to breathe his last if he was wasted.
‘Water.’
People were in a hurry, moving, glancing at us, moving, obviously wondering what I was doing, not wanting to be part of it. How could I be this crazy? These beggars are everywhere with one story or the other. I saw a vendor carrying water on her head with some bottles of soft drinks. I beckoned to her and bought a bottle of 75ml water and 33cl can of malt drink. I opened the water and put a straw in it, as I made to give it to him, I heard a voice cry, ‘No!’ I turned. It was a young girl in a Nursing uniform.
‘He’s dehydrated, madam. He’ll die. He needs a drip.’
This is how I entered.
Twenty-four hours later, I was sitting across from him, on a chair while he lay on a narrow bed in one of those clinics that you doubted the doctor’s certificate and his sense of hygiene. It was a clinic cum maternity home near Iddo market. His name was Alex, a native of Enugu state. He was a drug seller’s boy at Ochanja market Onitsha. His master was wicked and never settled anyone when they finished learning the trade. He came from a very poor family and a distant relation getting him a place to learn trade in Onitsha was the best thing that ever happened to his father’s house.
However, being in constant need of cash to send to his parents, when a customer told him of an opening to travel to Spain by road to work and make foreign currency, it was a dream come true. The man helped him to hatch a plan to steal his Master’s money and gave to him to help pay his way to Niger Republic and from there, through the dessert, he’d take him to Spain.
The man was true. He brought him to Lagos where they boarded the lorry with the inscription, Allah Dey. It was the happiest ride he ever took, although the road was long, the sun getting harsher as they moved far north, crossed an unguarded Nigerien/Nigerian border, the air getting dryer and the road getting rougher. A few days later, they were in the Tenere Desert. His eyes half-blinded by desert dust-like sand, saw marvels, the sand shifting, reshaping, changing the horizon. At first, he thought the long journey was beginning to affect his brains. But, other passengers said they saw it too.
‘My benefactor had all my money. N400, 000 I stole from my Master when he told me to go and deposit it in the bank near the market. He always sent me to the bank when there’s huge money to deposit because he trusted me. He knew my parents. We are good people.
‘I had only N20, 000 of personal cash which I didn’t show him, though he asked me pointedly if I had any cash, I said no. I cannot leave myself naked on a journey without cash. We were on the road for three days. Finally, we reached a town, where the people I used to see on TV live – the Tuaregs. They live in mud-brick moulded buildings. And they live wide apart because of the heat.
Their clothing is big baloony kind of agbada with rolls and rolls of head gear, rolled around their head to cover their faces because of the desert sand. They are the most wicked people I have ever seen. My benefactor deposited me into a house where I slept with tens of miserable-looking young men. In the morning, he returned and sold me to a Tuareg, telling me that he has paid them, that the new man would help me continue my journey to Libya or Egypt, which ever one I choose, and from there to either Spain or Italy according to my fancy.
‘I asked if I could have some of my money. He looked shocked, telling me that he had spent everything on the journey to Niger and to pay for my accommodation and the next leg of my journey. He wished me well and disappeared.’
- To be continued next week
