I walked towards her a
little, close enough for her to realise that she did not have to shout to
communicate with me; Then I said “Really”, in a very low voice, “But I love to write sister”, I said the words bit by bit because I feared she might slap me as soon as she heard what I had to say….
“You like to what? Oh
Becky”, she began, junking her words together and moving her hands up and down
as she said each word, in the usual manner she does whenever she needed you to
understand how silly your point is,
“We are in Lagos, Nigeria”,
she dragged the word “Nigeria”, as though I had forgotten the name of my
country, “there is only one Linda Ikeji, okay, well and Bella
Naija, that is if that one is making anything at all. In this part
of the world, honey”, she paused and moved closer to me, her voice got low as
she made her point, as though she wanted to talk directly to my soul,
“real people make it doing regular jobs my dear, Regular jobs’’,
she emphasized once again.
“You studied Business
Administration and graduated with a second class upper. Not just any second
class upper, the highest I have seen so far. You made a 4.43 CGPA; even I with
a 3.72 CGPA, work and earn honourably”. She gestured that I got closer to her,
her hand slid behind my neck, resting on my right shoulder,
“sit with me, let’s
get this straight”, we slowly sat down on the brown leather couch that rested
on the wall of the living room which made a perfect blend with the cream
painting of the room. With her hand still on my shoulder, she went, “and hopefully, this
would be the last time we would have to talk about this”.
At this point, I was
fighting the tears I could feel bubbling up my chest really fast, reaching my
throat and giving it that somewhat numb feeling.
“Daddy is dead and Mummy
has just the both of us to assist her in training Nnamdi for the two years he
has left to complete his University education”, point one, my head went, same
point she had been ramming on for the two weeks I had been in her house.
“I clothe and feed you”,
she went on, “and I am not complaining or regretting this, I am only telling
you that I would not, okay, might not be able to do this for long. People with
your kind of brains get just about any job they apply for, with a good pay”, as
she said this, her eyes lit up like that of a child walking into a candy store for he first time.
“Imagine what you can do
with that: Say you get a job and start to earn about a hundred thousand Naira
now, you can buy anything you want and not have to live with the stress of
borrowing my outfit every time you have an occasion to attend; then, you grow and
start to earn more. Becky honey, don’t do anything you would end up regretting
years from now”, she said, looking at me soberly as though she felt pity for
me.
“But Sister… I… I will…
I just might”, I stuttered, then tears rolled down my checks. I fought myself
hard to complete my statement, I heard myself say “Happy”. I called up all the
strength I had in me then went for it, “I might not be happy working for just
any organization”.
I looked at her, looked
into her eyes, hoping that she would see me, see my mind, see that my heart was
bleeding, see that she was hurting me, that I was just a 22 year old girl who
was happy to have found her calling and was looking for just one person to
believe in her. One person she trusted, one person she looked up to, her
sister, and her mentor.
“Oh Becky, don’t be
silly!” she snapped, slapping the couch with her hands, this movement made her
Christian mother arm jiggle in an angry way. “Nobody is truly happy in life,
better still, no writer in Nigeria is happy, so stop this nonsense about
happiness. In fact, I have had enough of this. Tomorrow morning, I will give
you N2,000, you have to comb through Victoria Island. Take a bus going to
Obalende from Ajah roundabout, stop at Civic centre, cross to the 1004 Estate
side and walk round and round that area, it is the most commercial part of the
Lekki axis. When it is noon, look for somewhere to eat something and then
continue the hunt for a job. Just make sure you come home with a positive news
madam. Goodnight”.
She got up, leaving me
feeling stranded on the couch and made her way towards the bedroom we shared,
when she got to the door of the room, she placed her hand on the knob then looked back at me and said, “Switch off the light when you are done, I am
4 years older than you, I know better than you do. Goodnight”. And then I
couldn’t tell what happened next as my eyes got blinded by tears…..
*************
4 months after my last
altercation with my sister, Chioma, I had been moving up and down Victoria
Island looking for a job and had never mentioned anything about my writing to
anyone since that day. Finally, on the 3rd of November 2014, I
got an email from K&U Foods Limited informing me that I had been scheduled
for an interview for the role of an Executive Assistant with the HR for the 5th of
November, 2014. I truly couldn’t remember applying for a job there, but I knew
I had dropped my resume in a lot of offices in the past months so this could
just have been one of them.
I looked up K&U
Foods Limited in the internet and found out that it was a Food and Beverage
company. A Food and Beverage company didn’t seem like what I wanted to start up
my career with because, even if I wanted to work for an Organization, I'd rather a Finance company than any other. I knew that I needed to seek sister Chioma's opinion first before I rejected the offer.
That evening, when Chioma got back from work, I told her about the email I got from the
company. As I began tell her how I felt it was not a good place to start off my
career, I noticed that she had this really wide smile plastered on her face. I was not sure if I was
to go on or ask why she was smiling then she placed her index finger
on my lip hushing me up and said:
“I knew you would get a
job really fast because you are a smart individual. In fact, this is the
fastest I have seen. People graduate and wait years before they get their first
job, but it took you just 5 months. Oh honey, I am excited and ecstatic and
every other word in that light”, she said this with a beam on her face. “I am
even sure that after they saw that your GP, they knew that it would be a stupid
thing to ask you to write a test before an interview. You know what? Get
dressed, we are having dinner out today, we have to celebrate your victory in
advance.”
At this point, it became
obvious to me that my dear sister did not care what kind of job it was; all she
wanted was for me to leave the house in the morning, get back in the evening
and end the month receiving a pay cheque. So I made it a mission to go for the
interview and get the job afterwards.
Two weeks later, I got a
second email from the company informing me that I had been selected for the
role, attached to the mail was my letter of employment which encompassed a
breakdown of my duties and salary.
The next weekend, I went
to the very popular Balogun market –the one place you are sure to get good
dresses for wholesale prices- with sister Chioma to buy some corporate wears
for my new job, all-expense paid by her. While we were shopping, she kept on
saying, “You have to give them an impression”, almost like I was at war with
the colleagues I had not even met. I replied the mail on Sunday morning and
resumed work on Wednesday, the 26th of November, 2014.
******To
be continued******
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