Have you ever asked yourself what would have become of you if you were the son/daughter of a pauper? What if you weren’t privileged to be educated? What if you were born in some slum and you had to work on the farm with your parents to have food on your table. What if your dad didn’t accept you and your mum had to abandon you in a refuse dump because she couldn’t cater for you? What if…I could go on and on. Its kinda weird, I know but these and many more are the questions I kept on asking myself when I went to the market with my mum yesterday. If you are a kaduna boy or gal, or you live in Kaduna, you should know kawo market. Its usually very messy. Whenever I go there -yeah, *rme* I go to the market, ask JOSH, I’m more than 100 yards of wife material - I try to get all I need without going inside the market. I can’t even imagine going inside. Unfortunately for me, today, momma wanted to get stuff in bulk so we had to go inside. The walk inside was annoying initially but then a lot of things caught my attention. The whole buying and selling, negotiation et al. I saw little kids selling stuff, I was mesmerized. These kids should be in school! I said to myself but they are here trying to earn a living. I saw people buying boiled corn in the market and eating it in that messy environment, they didn’t seem to be disturbed by the condition of the market. Okay this one was rather annoying, people were buying food from a certain woman who was hawking and she was selling the food in nylons. And this particular lady was really eating with so much enthusiasm from the nylon with her bare hands! The same hands she’d have used to touch her goods, money and all. Okay, I’m not preaching neatness here but what I realized is, they’ve lived all their life this way and its not such a big deal to them anymore. Some men, what they do is grind dried yam to flour (elubo) for amala. Their entire body was white. That thing must have an adverse effect on their respiratory system. Yet,they collect very little for so much hard work and risk. I saw some women and children walking on bare foot! I couldn’t scream. In Kawo market?! In the rain! That place is terrible, yet they felt so comfortable walking without foot wears. My mum kept taking me inside, then I saw an old women begging for money, mum gave her #100 and she was so glad. She prayed and prayed, mum was tired sef. I couldn’t help but watch the woman. Doesn’t she have kids? I asked myself. Why could she be begging? She’s old. Then I saw those who help people carry their goods. You buy stuffs, they help you carry it, they go along with you to get all you need in the market and at the end of the day they’ll ask you to give them whatever you desire, and I’m like… Seriously?!!! Whatever you desire?! After the whole stress I’d charge a fortune. I know you would too. I don’t want to bore you on the other stuffs I saw. But the truth is, they dint offend God, neither are you perfect but God in his infinite mercies chose to bring you to this world through your parents, it could have been any of us. And the annoying part of this is that if proper care isn’t taken, the poverty trend will continue from one generation to another; when the pepper seller’s daughter has a baby for the meat seller’s apprentice what is expected of the future of those kids? What if you’re in one of the boko haram infested states? People lose friends, families, loved ones properties and all on daily basis. Have you ever sat down to think about any of this? Ever thanked God for the grace to be able to go places without fear of losing your life or coming back to a burnt down house. You think relocating could be that easy? In the market, we were told that some people went to get pepper from Borno and were killed! Yeah, its none of your business, you don’t know them but they died for your course, if they dint go, how’ll you get pepper, fine, you pay them, how can that be compared to the lives that have been lost. I’m not preaching religion but we’ll be doing people enough good if we remember to pray for certain people that lay down their lives. If we leave with the consciousness that people are living in hardship and it could have been anyone we’ll appreciate what we’ve got. If we can appreciate God for the grace that is abundant in our lives and be generous to the needy, our moral parts will question us with smiles. I hope I dint bore you, thanks for reading through :* be nice 4 every1 u meet is fighting a hard battle!!
Posted on: Mon, 26 Aug 2013 22:32:19 +0000
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