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© 2018 Godwin Godson All Rights Reserved.


The Laborer

First of all, you have to understand how I came to be a laborer. The plan that year was to release my mixtape. I had composed a couple of great songs and all that remained was money for studio time. I was young, dumb, but ambitious. I didn't plan to be a labourer, no, it just happened. The hardship I was facing in sourcing the money threw me into manual labor, the most common job around and for which one didn't need a certificate. None at all! The only requirement I can say are just these two: tenacity and patience. Most outsiders(you 9-5 folks) assume you just have to be physically strong and that's all. I too used to until that fateful day when scarcity and my friend Sammy lured me to a site. I had no preparations for it. You just can't prepare as you don't even know what to imagine. The realm of laborers extended beyond my imagination and so I just got old clothes to be used as working clothes and showed up.
'If dey ask wether you don do the work before tell them say yes o!' Sammy said to me as we awaited the engineer. I nodded. I have always been a bookworm and not a particularly street-smart kind of guy and this my friend Sammy was helping me with that. He knew the streets and I was tagging along to learn from him. He's a funny dude, I tell you. This dude also cooks better than most women and in fact, I am not kidding, he can stay quite afar and will know what any given woman in the area is cooking and if she's cooking it well. He would raise his head up suddenly, nose going here and there like that of a rat and say 'who dey cook egusi, add oil because that oil no dey enough.' I used to think all these was just part of his showmanship until one day when he said a woman in a particular house was re-heating a three-day old soup. Just to prove him wrong and show the world our joblessness, we marched to that house and asked if it was true. The woman was jovial and confirmed it was. Her neighbours too were curious and each asked Sammy to work his trick on their food, which he did perfectly. Eveyone began hailing him and instantly, these people arranged plates of rice and stew with giant meat and akpu and egusi, okro and oha. Like they knew we had been hungry since that morning. God does work in mysterious ways.
Pee pee pee! Engineer arrived in a smooth Prado Jeep. He surveyed us as a general would do his army before war.
'You! Can you do this work?'
Was he talking to me? I looked left, and then right.
'Yes you! I am talking to you. Can you do this work?'
'Yes Sir, I can,' I said.
'Have you done it before?'
'Yes Sir, this is my work. All the houses in this area, I joined in building them.'
He walked away sternly, showing our conversation was over. As I looked around, I couldn't see why he had singled me out. I was taller than most and my chest was wider than most too. Infact, the person to my right was a short hausa boy that looked younger and smaller than my ten year old brother. I would later understand that these people can judge laborer-prowess from just a look. Just by how you stand, you can give away your true nature.
The Engineer chose nine of us by pointing with his index finger, like he was pointing at foodstuff at the market. The unfavored left and work began. It then hit me that I didn't know how much we were to be paid so I asked Sammy, 'O'boy na how much dey go give us?'
'Na one-five na!' Said Sammy.
My heart skipped a beat! One thousand and five hundred naira for just a day's work. I loved it! You have to understand that I had then not made any money in a long while and to be sure of such money everyday was just bliss for me. I began calculating. If I worked and saved one thousand everyday for one month, I will make thirty thousand or so. I could make my mixtape in just about two months' time. But I had to, first of all, prove to the engineer that I could do this job. Only then will I be sure of work everyday.
We were shared into groups. My group's job was to bring granite(stones) using buckets and pour it into the mixing machine. Easy job, I thought, no stress. 'Cement!' the head-mixer would shout. 'Stones!' 'Sand!' 'Water!' Then we would take the mixed product up a stairs to the masons who would pour it down a wooden construction. When it dries it would become a pillar. It was fun for me. I was learning new things and the commotion going around was amusing to me. The five cement bags I saw in the morning had been used so I thanked God that work would soon end.

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