I open my eyes slowly, wondering why it is so dark.

I check the time on my phone, squinting as the light proves too bright for my still sleepy eyes. I see it’s about twelve minutes past six. I smile, feeling like a just beat a world record. I can’t remember the last time I woke up that early, probably when I was serving as a youth corps member.

Feeling positive about my achievement, I kneel down to pray; an improvement from my normal murmured prayers.

After my prayer, I think about going for a brisk walk as exercise but decide against it almost immediately. I acknowledging to myself that I’m not that positive or energetic.

Wondering what to do for the day to retain the feeling of positivity, I decide to write. I dust up my laptop and put it on. I see my cursor going to Zuma and decide against it, reminding myself that the plan is to be productive, and not to have fun.

I click on the word processor and I wonder what to write, staring at the screen. I am empty, my head and mind are blank.

I feel the fear of the threatening depression gnaw at my mind and I pray silently, closing my eyes tightly to keep away the depression.

“God I don’t want. Please,” I begin. “Give me inspiration so I can write something sensible. I don’t ...”

My ringing phone interrupts my spirit-filled, heartfelt, prayer, and I wonder whether to open my eyes and pick up the call.

That thought invites the opinions of the voices.

“It could be an answer to your prayer,” one voice says.

“A prayer you are yet to conclude?” another asks.

“Doesn’t the Bible say something about answering our prayers while we are yet speaking?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t give the right to end a prayer halfway, does it?

I end the argument by opening my eyes. It is my hairdresser calling. I remember she said she’d look around for me. Could it be she has gotten something?

I pick.

“You fit come shop?” she asks, getting straight to the point.

“Now?” I ask, checking for the time on my laptop, and I am shocked to discover that I have spent over three hours
staring at my screen.

“Yes na. You just dey wake?” She asks, tempting me to tell her of my recent achievement of waking by past six this morning.

“No o,” I reply, overcoming the temptation. She wouldn’t understand. I wonder how to tell her I am yet to have my bath when she ends the conversation.

“I dey wait you,”

“No wahala,” I reply, shutting down my laptop immediately.

I rush my bath and wear just powder and lip gloss. I am going down the staircase when I remember that I didn’t get back to my prayer.

I pause and close my eyes. I ask for forgiveness and say ‘Amen’.

---

“You fit teach my children?” My hairdresser finally asks, three hours after I arrive her shop.

“I no understand,” I reply, trying to rein in my anger. I understand that she’s been busy since I came, but I also feel she didn’t care. If I had remained home, who knows, I might have written something, or at worst had a nap, I reason with myself.

Since my arrival, hunger has been a constant companion, but knowing I have no cash on me, and the kitchen back home was empty, I manage to keep my cool.

“I need person wey go put them through for their work.”

“Private tutor, which subjects?” I ask, acknowledging that something good could come out of this. I enjoy teaching, but not in a strictly formal environment. Maybe private tutoring was it for me; I will have some time for my writing and still earn from it.

“Na you go check which subject dem need help,” she replies, breaking into my thought.

“Okay which of your children?” I ask this question because she has four children. I doubt she wants me to tutor all four of them, but I need to know what exactly I’m working with.

“Kindness and Favour,” she replies. Kindness and Favour are the youngest of the four, and are still malleable.

“Okay. When I go start?”

“Na you go talk,” she says, turning to attend to a customer, in the process, losing interest in the discussion.

“I fit start on Monday,” I say, dragging back her attention.

Asking for a minute from the customer, she turns back to me. “We never even talk price, how much you go charge me?”

I am ready, as I had spent my time contacting Google to check out the price range for tutors while she spoke. I acknowledge that she could use the friendship factor to beat down the normal charge, so I am ready to acquiesce to a lesser charge, though I have my boundary.

“How many hours I go spend with them, and how many times a week?” I ask trying to make it as formal as possible, so she’d know I knew what I was doing.

“Which kain hours? Dem be your children, just put dem through. You fit come four times a week.”

“I no fit come four times. I go come three times, and na one hour I go spend,” I announce, feeling slightly annoyed that she wanted me to spend my whole time with her children. “Normally na 2000 naira per hour for one pikin, but I fit do am for the two of them at once.” I am aware that I am speaking a mixture of broken and correct English, but I can’t care less.

“I no understand, no dey do one hour calculation for me. How much you go collect?” She snaps.

“Twenty four thousand,”

“Wetin happen? Na just dis small children o! How much last?”

“Twenty,” I reply, telling myself that fifteen was the lowest I would go. I am that desperate.

I’m hoping she’d bargain a little higher than fifteen thousand, when her next words cause me to freeze.

“If you no gree five thousand dey go,” she tells me, turning to face her customer.

“Five thousand for two children, three times a week, for a whole month?” I ask, not to bargain, but to be sure I understand correctly what she is offering.

“Na me dey pay, no be my husband,” she explains.

I don’t care.

I feel insulted and disrespected. First, she sees my services as mediocre, and she obviously attaches no value to my worth for her to ask that I leave if I disagreed with her offer.

Shaking my head, I am about to leave when she makes it worse. “The girl wey dey teach dem just go back school. Na five thousand I dey give am.”

I walk away. I am a graduate, who have served, and she compares me with someone still in school.

As I walk home, I wonder whether to cry or laugh, but I do neither.

“You shouldn’t have paused the prayer to answer her call,” one of the voices pipes into my thought, and that triggers my anger, and my philosophical thoughts.

She had no respect for me, or she wouldn’t have spoken to me in that manner. She must think I’m too desperate, or why else would she ask me to leave if I was not interested, after offering me five thousand for my services.

I get home and the anger drives me to my laptop. I am temporarily immune to hunger pangs as I write, pouring out the anger on my keyboard.

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I write about how one should respect one’s self-worth and avoid sharing problems with just anyone. I realise that if she didn’t know I was job hunting, she wouldn’t have seen me as cheap. She obviously knew I was desperate and took advantage.

I post the write up on my blog, and then the hunger returns.
I take off my balance of the withdrawn 2000 naira and buy myself fries. Though reduced, the anger remains.

After eating, I bath and switch off my phone. I am thinking of my life, asking myself what I did wrong to deserve such disrespect.

I must have slept off because the next thing I know, it is morning.

---

Written by me, previously published here