Today in zaga-a short story
My placenta is buried here,this is where I have lived from cradle till date-Zaga knows me as much as I know her.

People here live simple lives,the pathway from cradle to grave for most inhabitants is etched in stone,lack is a daily companion,it is bound to the air they take into their lungs like inseparable twins.

Mr Ama sits under the Neem tree in front of his house daily since retiring from civil service after thirty five years-it has become a daily ritual."Kai kai" he lets out a scream at a group of boys hunting lizards in the adjoining shack, only then does it become clear that he has just fixed new glass windows and doors on his  two room face-me-I-face-you house and must therefore keep watch to fend off thieves and rascals.For company, he has a transistor radio that has seen better days.In Zaga,he was considered fortunate and a man of means.

As I make my way to the secondary school where I have been volunteering as a physics teacher,I hear the familiar voice of Mr Ama;"Good morning Ibro",Morning sir I reply as I walk pass another group of bare footed boys playing football improvised from used polythene material on a sandy patch of earth,completely oblivious of the consequences of a life of perpetual intellectual gloom."Olamide,Olamide,pass the ball to me",they all chorus at the lanky brown haired boy with the ball.I look through the sea of dust that clothes the playground,I recognize the boy to be Ayuba,the seventh child of Bulus,the security man at our only secondary school.It has become the trend in Zaga that young lads take on the names and in some cases mannerisms of celebrities,everyone of them is doing it.They have  all substituted their names for those of celebrities so that at every corner of zaga you turned you hear names like Olamide,Phyno Phyno, Terry G,M.I and many more.They all want to be musicians and footballers.Society has turned value system on its head.Graduates such  as myself are stars performing to an imaginary audience in the current scheme of things.This is not how a sane society should be.If before, we were sitting on a keg of gun powder, now we are jumping on it.But who cares?.

As my 20 minute trek to work winds down,a lorry carrying furniture and kitchen utensils drives by,belching thick dark fumes that masks protesting tyres as the driver fires at breakneck speed oblivious of the toxic cocktail he serves our lungs.A wedding has just folded up.Men here hire and fire women at will,it is nothing.Firing and hiring refreshes the appetites of the loins of the malefolk here.It is normal.

As I walk into the school premises,I am reminded of the fact that Sevilla had just humiliated My favorite club the night before,my gloom deepens.

By Randolph Samba,

A medical doctor,writer,blogger and motivational speaker .

Cc Lalasticlacla