I used to hawk with my mother here in Lagos. She sold puff puff and sometimes items from Okirika. I always remember her calling me in the evenings, after I must have returned from school and dropped my bags. We would walk the streets of Makoko, shouting with our voices on high pitch.

I felt proud, you know. Proud that I could do something with my mother. Something that gave me joy in the purest of forms. It didn’t bother me that sometimes we sold only a thousand five in a day and that those days were our happiest.

Have You Read This? THIS

It didn’t bother me that my clothes were torn in most parts and even more so my mother’s.
To me, I was doing something. My mother was happy. I was happy.

When I got into senior secondary school I began to lose interest in our hawking parade. My friends would see me and I would turn the other side, afraid to look into their eyes. When in school, I would evade questions and laugh them off.

My mother told me to stop going with her. I guess she felt my lack of interest.

I didn’t care. I wanted to have some of the things my friends had.. I didn’t want the torn clothes anymore.

My self esteem began to drop, little by little until there was none left.. It took five years to build it back. Sometimes I ask myself what changed.

The only answer I get is that I stopped letting those things bother me. I accepted positivity. Things are not where I want them to be yet, but in no time they will.. And when they do I will always remember I and my mother in our high pitched voices, calling on the young and old, men, women and children to have a taste of our precious puff puff, so we could put food on our table.
.
This is my story.
.
What is yours? How has experiences in your life turned you into a better person. Care to share?

#GirlInNaija

www.girlinnaija.