19/04/2024
I still remember vividly how a tear dropped from my eye that Friday evening when I entered the kitchen and all that was in the cupboard was an onion with a match box.
It was a trying period for me and my family. Our school had just been knocked down by the bulldozers to pave a way for the railway construction. It was a downturn era filled with lack and tears. No one to call and none to turn to for help! I left the bleeding kitchen wondering what to do; at least how to put food on the table for my kids that evening, the next day and the days to follow. With an empty pocket and a heavy debt profile hanging like a noose on my neck, there was just nothing I could do to salvage the situation. It was a phase filled with hunger, frustration and despair.
My wife was watching television in the sitting room. An empty cup sat on the table in front of her. Beside the cup was a black nylon bag. Both of us had just returned from school and even though we had managed to feed the kids with the leftover of the previous day’s rice, we ourselves had had nothing throughout the day.
“I was calling you to come and manage this garri with me but you did not hear me,” she pointed at the black nylon on the table.
I shook my head. “You can have it. I am okay,” I said in a way a father would to show that he is not as vulnerable to hunger as the rest of the household.
“But you haven’t eaten anything today,” she protested. “Please come and let’s manage it. You must have something in your stomach.”
I faked a smile. “Honey, I am okay. Just eat.”
In no time I was out of the house wondering what to do next. Aimlessly, I walked in the street. My lips were dry and my stomach burned. I was famished but I thought more about my children. They were asleep when I walked out of the house. If they woke up, they would ask of food and that bulb of onion in the kitchen was never going to feed them. It felt like I had just been knifed in the chest as I thought about them and about my hungry wife who was just taking her first meal for the day – soaked garri!
My feet brought me to a vulcanizer’s shop. He had told me that he had interest in starting the adult class. Miserably, I brought out my cell phone from my pocket and shoved it at him.
“You want to buy?”
I really didn’t know when I did that. My phone had always been my most prized possession. A parent could just call saying he or she wanted to pay school fee or make enquiries. Disposing off the phone was a not too good idea. But what could I do when my kids were hungry? What use was a cell phone compared to putting food on the table as well as putting smiles on the faces of my kids?
The young man took the phone and looked at it as if it was a piece of s**t.
“Two thousand naira,” he said sounding like he was doing me a favour.
If I sold the phone at that amount, I had lost greatly. If I didn’t, I was still the loser! My children must feed.
“Please pay five,”
“No,” he shook his head. “If you gree for di price, come around nine make I give you your money.”
I didn’t want to sell the phone to him at that amount and it also felt like a bomb had just been detonated in my stomach when he said 9 o’clock. My kids would cry their eyes out before then. The worst of it was the fact that I was no longer credit-worthy. Everybody already knew the misfortune that had befallen us and it seemed as if I was indebted to all already.
“You know what,” I told the young man, “give me what you have now and keep the phone. I will come by 9pm to take it back and pay you with interest.”
He took the phone from me and passed me the sum of five hundred naira. The money felt like a million naira when it touched my palm.
“You go pay me seven hundred naira,” he said.
I agreed. At that moment I could agree to do anything. My legs ferried me to a food vendor where I bought four cups of beans with palm oil, seasoning and pepper.
“Cook this for the kids,” I told my wife and off I went to the bus stop where I boarded a shuttle to the house of a friend with the last one hundred naira note left with me. If I could find my friend at home, I was sure of getting some money from him. I had done a lot for him in the past and trusted that he would not disappoint me if I told him my story. With whatever he could afford to give me I would be able to retrieve my phone and also stock the house with foodstuff.
However, there was a problem. If I went to the house of this friend and didn’t meet him at home, I would be thrown into misery because I had no money left to return home with.
My fears heightened by the time I arrived.
“He’s not been home since morning,” his neighbour told me. “Maybe you should give him a call.”
“I didn’t come out with my phone,” I said despondently. “Can I call him with yours?”
Even if I had come with my phone, I still would have not been able to call him because I had no airtime left in it.
The neighbour called my friend and gave me the phone to talk to him.
“I don’t know if I will be coming home today but first thing tomorrow morning you will see me.” He assured me on the phone. “Please spend the night at my place until I come if you don’t mind.”
It was a Friday night. I must wait because my kids must eat the next day. I must wait because my phone was still with the vulcanizer. I must wait. I had no choice.
I found a loaf of bread with some butter in his fridge. That was what I ate that night. Never before had I relished the taste of bread and butter as I had done that night. It had tasted better and more nourishing in my tongue than all the bread and butter I had ever eaten.
With the neighbour’s phone, I tried to call my wife but she was not reachable. I knew she would be worried. She would be very worried since I never mentioned that I was going to spend the night outside. I seldom did.
It was a few minutes past six at dawn that all my expectations were dashed. My friend called through the neighbour to say that he’d been drafted for a special duty.
“I don’t think I will be back until 4 o’ clock. Is there anything you really want us to talk about?”
I quickly told him that I needed money badly for domestic use.
“I don’t have money Bro but if you can wait until I return, I will be able to help with a thousand naira.”
As I listened to him say those words, I felt as if my legs had been tied to boulders. The saliva in my mouth dried up completely. It was a hopeless situation for me. If I waited for him, I was doomed. If I didn’t wait for him, I was still doomed.
“Can you wait?” he echoed.
“No,” I shook my head. “I will go.”
Something in my head told me that he was not God. We should only wait for God’s divine help not men’s. Why should I put all my expectations in him? If I waited until he returned, what would my kids eat? What would they think of my absence?
I gave his neighbour the phone and the house key and went into the street like a wild dog. Miserably, I walked and mumbled a silent prayer. Heavenly Father, You are now my last hope. I put all my trust in You. My mother used to say that there are angels out there. Please connect me with one.
It was one of the most solemn prayers I had ever prayed in all my entire life. Although I walked amongst people that day, it seemed as if I was all alone in the world; a hopeless world.
I was at the bus stop in no time and no sooner had I arrived there than an SUV pulled up in front of me. I was going to open my mouth to beg the driver for a lift when he wound down and quickly asked;
“Please I am going to the airport but the road has suddenly become long and rather confusing. Can you give me a direction please?”
My house was not far from the airport. Immediately he asked me the question, I knew that my God had sent him; the angel that my mother had always talked about.
“I can take you there,” I offered promptly.
Pronto, I was in the passenger’s seat beside him.
For the next fifteen minutes drive to the airport, we chatted as if we had both known each other all our lives. He was new in Abuja on transfer. His girlfriend sent him some very important documents along with a few luggage from his former base in Calabar. He could not go to the airport to pick them up the previous day. This was why he left very early with hope to pick them and make it back to work on time.
Meeting him was one of the quickest instant responses I had ever got from God. As we parted at the airport after I’d helped him carry his things into the boot of his car, he counted a few one thousand naira bills from his wallet and passed them to me.
“Thanks a lot my brother,” he said and drove off leaving me speechless and dumbfounded. I was the one who should be thanking him, but it was he who was thanking me.
A tear fell off my left eye when I counted ten thousand naira and heaved a long sigh.
The way our Creator operates will continue to amaze us at all times. The earth is His and its fullness thereof. He alone decides whom He wishes to show mercy and favour to. Sometimes when we share these stories people think we make them up. I am not inhibited in any way to share these things because I will be unfair to the One who had shown me love and come to my rescue promptly when I had no one to rely on.
THE MAKING OF THE MAN by Japheth Prosper
