Who is Anisa Haque?

Chapter 27 - Sakina, Saki Naira!

Note: There are a few Hausa words in this chapter, so I've included translations at the end for non speakers.  Enjoy!

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Was it luck or hardwork? Sakina couldn't say. Some people toil day and night but don't ever make it. Others never had to work a day in their lives but have all the riches in the world handed to them on a silver platter. Perhaps in her case it was a bit of both. As wise people often say, luck does favour the brave. 

Sitting on a cushioned arm chair in one of two air conditioned living rooms of her luxurious four bedroom terrace by Jabi lake, she knew she had come a long way from her Grandmother's mouldy thatched hut by the murky stream in her village of Sankarau. 

The climb had been exhilarating, but Saki had remained focused. Poverty was not her portion. 

Every passing day in Sankarau was a new reminder of why she had to get out of that village.

The bleat of goats and sheep that stank up the neighbourhood; having to dodge cow dung with every step she took on roads that were no more than muddy paths to doom and the filthy, disgusting individuals she had to encounter daily as she hawked groundnuts and aya to motorists that traversed the village on their way to Kano and Damagaran.

Nothing about Sankarau satisfied her intrepid little mind.

Surely there was more to life than this?

She longed for a time and place where she would live in one of those white people houses she saw on Mai unguwa's tv. where she could sleep on beds way softer than her gadon kara and she could ease herself in a beautiful white dish that was so much fancier than the tarnished steel plate she ate out of. She wouldn't have to feed on dawa and gero, she'd eat those oddly shaped objects made out of sugar and flour and that soft yellow thing that looks like man shanu that they spread on bread.

One day she'd get to scrub every last trace of Sankarau from her skin and trade her lice-ridden afro for waist long hair. So what if its made out of dead horses? As long as she could look as doll-like as the Indian actresses on TV, She didnt care very much. Or at all.

All she ever cared about was leaving Sankarau and seeking a better life.

The only question that remained was how will she get out?

Her mother had passed away at birth, so she was raised by her father's mother, who was really old and grew more frail by the day. Between having to bathe and do pretty much everything for her grandmother, it was almost as if Sakina was the one was raising the 80-something year old, not the other way around.

One day when she was seven, her father, a brickila packed a bagco sack and headed to Lagos in search of a job.

That was the last time anyone had ever seen or heard from him.

He had promised a better life for all of them. He'd find menial jobs and send them money whenever he could. 

They still don't know what happened to him. 

Some say the J5 he boarded had an accident somewhere around the bridge in Jebba. Others say he'd simply abandoned them and fled the penurious provincial life.