The Struggle Of An African Child 3 Chapter Three

Sam could not continue going to school when his parents could not afford the school fees.

He dropped out for his sister to continue.

But Sam did not speak like somebody who went to public school. He was very intelligent but had no one to train him.

He joined forces together with the parents to fight poverty. Sam had to sacrifice his study for his little sister Kamsi. Since the parents could not afford to continue sponsoring both of them in school, Sam started hawking.

When their house rent was overdue and Joe could not pay, the landlord evicted them. They had no other place to live than in the ghetto where they believed the house rent was cheaper.

It seemed that almost all the responsibility fell on little Sam. His father was getting too old and he could hardly work.

An African child believed that responsibility is not a respecter of anyone regardless of age, gender or position of one in the family. Sam took the heavy cross upon himself.

Young Sam stood tall where others were weary.

He suffered sunstroke in the angry heat. He hawked in the streets, roads and market to make ends meet. He nearly froze in the cold rain in the streets trying to keep his family happy. He thought he might drown in the floods as he ran every day from corner to corner looking for people that would ease his pain.

To put a smile on the face of his family, he had to wake up early to hustle. Everyday he watched the night bid farewell to the moon. To keep the smiling face constant, he had to wake up before the sunrise and sacrifice sleep for his family. To keep the family happy, Sam sacrificed his life, education and whatever gave him joy.

His daily struggle meant the happiness of his family.

The joy of his family was at the expense of his life. He bought their happiness with his tears. Sam's every day suffering was the hope of survival of the family.

If little Sam wanted his family to eat, he had to keep struggling every day.

For him to succeed the following day, he had to wake-up in the night to plan for it.

Suffering became his world. It was a world he didn't create, but determination was his key to unlock the gateway of success.

Sam lived where death dwells. He faced his day with the broken hopes of yesterday believing that tomorrow would be fair to him. He strived daily to write his name in the book of the achievers. Sam's friends forgot about his friends.h.i.+p after he dropped out of school.

But Sam was determined to leave his footprints on the sands of time.

His aspirations mocked him when he dropped out of school to carry the cross that was waiting for him but his dream kept his hope alive. Though very intelligent, poverty tried to rob him of his future but Sam stayed awake all the night to guard his dream while the moon was guiding his path to the road of success.

If he was ever going to fulfill his destiny, he had to keep working when others were sleeping, keep walking when others were tired and keep trying when others quit. If he gave up, he would dance to the tune of poverty all the days of his life.

When he dropped out of school and it seemed his hope had been shattered, little Sam found strength in his weakness. If he was going to make it in life, he could never blame anyone or his parents for being poor. He couldn't jump to conclusions that his world had come to an end. He couldn't pay attention to any excuse life brought to him and he couldn't allow the situation of things to decide his fate.

Little Sam was born without a silver spoon but he determined to pave his way with gold. He was not born great but he decided to die great.

Dropping out of school was never an excuse to stop feeding his brain. In order to keep his mind sound and his brain growing, he made sure he read any good books he could get his hands on. Though life robbed him of an opportunity to continue schooling, he never let his age, or laziness stop him from reading life transforming books.

Little Sam did not allow bad people around him; he never a.s.sociated himself with any. He knew where to be at the wrong time and also where to be at the right time.

If Sam was not hawking, then you could be sure to find him either in the church on fellows.h.i.+p day or in the little kiosk his mother was managing.

Sam had many reasons to join bad gangs, but he knew the type of family he came from and the sacrifice he was making to put smile on the face of his parents and his little sister. Sam was a consolation child to his family.

Life taught him what n.o.body could teach him in school. Sam was very cheerful and friendly and that never gave bad people access to his life. Friends did not choose him; but rather, he chose the good ones.

His good sense of humor and his friendly nature became his ticket to anywhere he went and that made everyone patronize him all the time. Even if one did not need what he was hawking at that moment, they would still buy it from Sam as soon as he approached.

Choosing where we are born is not in our power. n.o.body prays to be born in a poor family.

One will often keep blaming G.o.d and asking why he was born into a particular family until one day they understand there is a reason why each and every one of us were born where we are destined to.

Like Sam or any other child, he did not wish to be born into a poverty stricken home but he did not spend all the day blaming G.o.d, but rather, he took the bull by the horns.

Sam understood why he had been born into a poor home. He decided not to take life at face value, so he had no excuse to join the ghetto boys.

Sam witnessed one incident that happened in the ghetto. A pastor was visiting one of his church members who was sick. As the pastor drove across the street, he saw a little boy made a hand gesture at him; the kind male prost.i.tutes make. The pastor looked around to see who the boy had made the sign at. When it was obvious that the boy had made the sign at him, he wondered, "Does he actually understand what he's doing?" Thinking that the little boy did not, the pastor got out of the car to correct him, but was very surprised to hear the boy defending himself.

The little boy looked straight at the pastor and told him, "I'm just taking care of business. I live here in the ghetto. My parents are poor, we hardly eat. I used to be a schoolboy but we are five in number and my parents are unable to send us to school. We had to drop out and my older brother taught me the trade. It's a cool business, you know."

The pastor was very shocked to hear the boy say such things. "How old are you?" he asked.
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"I'm nine," the boy replied.

"Nine?" the pastor questioned in confirmation.

"Yes," the little boy answered, stroking his chin with his index finger and thumb.

The pastor continued, "I'm pretty sure you won't be having many customers?"

The little boy laughed and said, "The younger you are, the more money you make. In fact, I make two thousand five hundred naira every day and I am okay with it. My brother, who taught me the trade, only makes a thousand, because of his health condition."

"And what about your other siblings?" the pastor asked.

"Oh, my younger siblings? They are at home. They are too little for this kind of trade, but I will definitely teach them when they reach my age," the little boy said.

"And what about your parents?" the pastor continued.

"My father is a drunkard. He's no longer living with our mother. He only comes once in a while and each time he comes, my mother fights with him," he said.

When the pastor realized that it was because of the quarrels that the boy's father had left them, he decided to help the little boy start a new life.

One day, when the pastor went to check on him, he saw the little boy looking pale. Ever since he had been going there to speak to him, he had not seen him like this. Astonished to see the boy in a sad mood, he said, "Boy, you are not looking happy today. No customers, I guess?"

The little boy shook his head in sorrow and sighed. "Not at all: business has been good," he said.

"Then why are you not looking cheerful today?" the pastor asked.

Cracking his knuckles, the boy said, "Well, it's my mother."

The pastor became more inquisitive and wanted to know what had happened. "Did she tell you to stop the trade?" he asked.

The boy took a sharp look at him. "No, she flogged me. There is a public swimming pool..." he pointed in the right direction "… three streets away. People go there to swim, especially now the weather is getting hot. I always go there with my friends. They know how to swim but I'm trying to learn. Each time we go there, I have an urge to swim and my mother has been warning me not to. Some hours ago, I went there again with my friends and I ended up swimming.

When I reached home, my mother flogged me. I had told her that whenever I go there I hear a voice whispering to me to swim and she advised me to confront the voice by saying, 'Satan go behind me.'

As I was there today, the same voice started telling me to swim. Immediately, I told Satan to go behind me. He actually went behind me and pushed me into the pool and before I knew it, I started swimming like never before."

Taking a deep breath, the pastor said, "Can you now see what I have been telling you? That is the same voice telling you to continue doing this dangerous trade. You need Jesus in your life or else the devil will keep pus.h.i.+ng you into sin and before you know it, it will lead you to h.e.l.l."

Adjusting his s.h.i.+rt, the boy said, "Well, I will think about it."

The pastor kept trying to reach him but the boy was not willing to change. The pastor did not give up on him; he kept checking on the boy, until one day, the police found his mutilated body in a dumpster, murdered by unknown person.

In the ghetto, not every story has a happy ending, but Sam's would be different. Sam did not know when his struggle would end and so he kept hawking. When hawking, one never knew where he might find himself in the next minute.

As Sam had been walking for miles, he felt tired and needed to rest awhile before continuing his daily tasks. He was leaning on a car parked by the roadside when the owner came out and saw him. He became infuriated and abused Sam. He did not only insult Sam, but his family, too.

The man asked Sam if his father had a car, then told Sam that even if his entire family were to be sold, the money would not be enough to buy the car. Sam wondered why the man was insulting his father, who was at home, simply because Sam was leaning on his car.

The a.s.sault weakened Sam and he sought a place to relax. He was still thinking about it when he fell asleep…