Her Rise from The Slums

Could this be the worst for me?

Waking up in a room which made me nauseous was one thing. Walking to bathroom which was down the face me I slap you house like a pregnant woman with morning sickness caused by the disgusting smell of old wood and other stuff was another thing.

I had to to join the queue of four women and a man before I got the chance to enter the bathroom. I had barely used my sponge to scrub my body when the woman who was to enter after me began shouting from the other end of the door for me to come out.

Luckily for me this particular face me I slap you bathroom had a door unlike others I have seen and I had no use of the second wrapper I took from the corner of the sitting room which was where I slept.

Compared to this life I did say the life my family lived was luxurious. I left the house with nothing in my stomach and had to walk with Aunty Lara to the bus stop under the rain with no umbrella to take cover from the rain not even a partly damaged one.

She gave me directions on how to get to my school. It was just directions and nothing more anyone seeing us together will think she had escorted me to the bus stop to pay for my fare and go back but it was the other way around because she had asked me for a hundred Naira note that she can use to board a bus to Isolo which she was planning to trek to but can not do that because of the rain.

I came down from the bus and boarded a campus shuttle to school. Luckily for me on half way into the journey the train reduced.

As I approached the school gate the memory of what happened with my cousins came flowing back. I longed to see them but I couldn't risk getting embarrassed.

I already was a bit familiar with my school campus. Coming down at the new hall bus stop I moved to Fagunwa which was the hostel allocated to me and began processing my stay.

It was around 4pm I was able to finish up with everything.

Looking around I saw many Students having fun hardly was anyone standing alone except me. I couldn't approach anybody and no one approached me. I decided to return back to Aunty Lara's Place since there was nothing left to do.

As I walked up to where the campus shuttles were parked I decided to buy something to eat which will be the first thing I did be putting in my stomach that day. I contemplated on getting gala and water but only God knows what I did meet when I go back to Aunty Lara's place I decided to eat good food at most one of 150.

I had walked for about three minutes with no restaurant in sight when I decided to ask a meek looking girl who was coming from the other direction.

"Good evening please do you know where any restaurant is located around here?"

"Hi my name is Winifred and you?"

"Bisola" I said still shocked at the character change of the girl not like I knew her before but she looked like someone who couldn't say hello to more than three people in a day

"Anyways at the back of Jaja hall there are lots of choices you can pick from but I did pick Marvinse if I were you there food is the best"

She said without taking a break

"Owh wow okay thank you"

I said still shocked

"You are welcome by the way I am heading to Marvinse also you can join me if you decide to go to Marvinse but if not that's fine by me"

"Okay thank you I think I will try this infamous Marvinse"

I said more confused at the fact that she said she was also heading to Marvinse because at this point we were going the way I was going.

We got to Marvinse and we met the place filled up unlike other restaurants around them. Winifred offered to pay for my food and I ended up eating twice the amount of food I intended to eat.

Throughout our stay in the small but mighty restaurant we got to know each other I discovered that she was also a law student but in year two. She also told me that she was actually not planning to go to Marvinse but felt the urge to know more about me. We finally parted ways after exchanging contacts.

The ride back to mushin was longer than I expected. Being inside the bus for more then 1 hour I was grateful to God that he sent Winifred to me because by the time I got to Aunty Lara's Place there was nothing for me to feed on except the scene of two women rolling over each other on the floor and dragging each other's clothes. One of the women have lost almost every thing on her which showed that she was the weaker one the presence of an adult like them was not felt because the two women were left there for a long time before they were separated from each other. After watching the two women disgrace themselves I decided to go inside and surprisingly met Aunty Lara inside the house sitting with big bowls of raw egusi and seperating the inside from the outside.

"Good evening ma didn't know you were around"

" how was your day hope you were able to finish with your clearance"

"Fine ma yes ma"

" thank God that means you will be leaving to the hostel tomorrow"

" ma ? I thought I will be going by the end of the week"

" if you are done why are you still waiting for the week to end is it until your space is given to another person?"

" alright ma"
I said to close the topic knowing there was more to my urgent resumption in the hostel.
I decided to let the matter rest and excused myself from asking why she was not outside with the other adults around when the two women I found out later to be mama Elo and Efe who were Two women of the same ethnicity.

"Welcome" I heard Aunty Lara say in Yoruba from where I was seated helping her to remove the egusi from its shell which happens to be for mama Chinonzo the woman who sells foodstuff around them who usually pays her to help with egusi she sells to customers.

" welcome sir" I also greeted in Yoruba but got no response from him as he walked inside angrily ignoring my greetings which finally gave me the answer I needed.

Are things about to go from worse to worst for Abisola?