Getting Stronger II

Okay, so I have to officially apologize to the entire universe for using that ‘bush girl’ picture of mine, never meant to distort the gorgeous picture of me y’all have in your heads *winks*. Also, let me officially apologize to my ‘madams at the top’ who almost whipped my buttocks for jumping from my story to discussing crafts, ema binu si mi, omode lo n se mi (do not be angry at me, it’s a sign of childishness). Before I end this my epistle, let me thank everyone for the ‘plenri’ support, God bless you all.

Now, back to business! I was talking about my ‘oga at the top’. Like I said, he made me sink deeper into not believing in myself. I remember telling him one day that I wanted to write JAMB immediately after leaving Secondary school and his first words were: “you can’t pass it now, do you think it’s for kids, wait till next year.”

That’s how I went home to tell my gorgeous mother that I didn’t want to take the JAMB exam yet as I was sure I would just be wasting money. She immediately reported me to my brothers, and trust those four heavily-muscled, grammatically-inclined, high- intelligence quotient brothers of mine, they quickly sat round me reminding me that I was a full fleshed and original ALONGE and nothing was impossible for me. Well, that helped and I took the JAMB exam and guess what, I scored a whole 265 *blushing*.

Anyway, like I told you, the breakthrough came. It came in Obafemi Awolowo University! As God would have it, I got in the same year I left Secondary school to study my dream course, ‘English Language’. I remember the Saturday before school resumed, my wonderful sister had taken me down to Yaba to get some very ‘gorgeous’ cloths, if you know what I mean. I bought plenri of these cloths, took them home, washed, ‘dettoled’, dried, ironed and ta da, they were as good as new! Well, I had one new shirt too. The shirt had cost my sis a whooping sum of N2500 and she had bought it for me to wear on the day of my matriculation. Unfortunately, I resumed school and had to hide all my Yaba-bought cloths. The girls I saw were always expensively dressed and that sent me back into my shell to hide; secondary school was happening all over again. So, I started wearing the only expensive shirt I had (that was to be worn on the day of matriculation). As it was pink, it got dirty after I had worn it twice, so I had no choice than to wear one of my ‘eerrmm’… That single choice to wear one of those bend-down select tops (there, I said it!) began the change in my life.

It was a white shirt with the illusion of a belt at the waist line. I wore that shirt with sadness in my heart. The truth is, no matter how washed and dettoled those cloths were, their signature smell never actually disappeared until a very long time so I knew people were bound to know where I got them from and that alone gave me every reason to scream. I wore it reluctantly and planned to wear it just in the morning and change it as soon as my expensive breed was dry. So, I wore the shirt with one of the skirts I had gotten from ‘there’ as well. I was about stepping out when one of those expensively dressed girls I talked about came up to me and said:

“Wow! Your shirt is sooo beautiful, where did you get it? Do you have another one like it? I don’t mind buying it from you.”

I’m not exaggerating, but I couldn’t shut my mouth for about 3 minutes. I didn’t even know what to say, I just took her to my bag (a big bag I had gotten from 'there'), opened it and told her to take whatever she wanted. She was so excited, she was taking almost everything I had, and she kept screaming that I had such unique fashion sense. She immediately called two of her friends and they kept wearing and changing cloths excitedly. I just stood with my arms akimbo. I had tears in my eyes. They eventually went away with 3 tops each. I told them not to worry about payments as I had enough. You can only imagine what that day did to my self-esteem.

That day commenced the beginning of a new chapter in my life. The journey to transformation began that day, but oga at the top was still powerfully in the picture. However, you’ll have to wait to get the full gist in my next post (that’s me trying to keep you under suspense) *winks*. Okay, so time to give you small gist about the work I did over the weekend. I did some make-up practicals and a few bags for some very sweet and instantly-paying customers. Enjoy...