In 1990, we moved from our single room abode to two rooms along Aba/Owerri Road in Abayi, Aba, Nigeria. The size of each room was about 12-ft by 12-ft. We utilized one room as the living area, and the other as the bedroom. There was a connecting door between both rooms so we could easily access one room from the other. It was a welcomed upgrade in living standards for us but similar to the compound where we had our single room abode, the living facilities (kitchen, restrooms, bathrooms, etc.) were shared with other residents of the compound. It wasn’t that easy for us to get a place because most landlords didn’t want to have a nuclear family of seven (my mum with her six kids) move into two rooms. They felt we were too many and could easily put a strain on the shared living facilities.
At that time, we continued to live very frugally, as we were dependent on my mum’s monthly salary that was neither sufficient nor steady. I say it wasn’t sufficient because being a civil servant, a primary school teacher, didn’t pay enough to cover our rent and the school fees for myself and my five siblings.
Mother was strong and determined though; she sacrificed all that was necessary for us. She was focused on making sure we all got university degrees. As a matter of fact, her salary, as inconsistent as the government was in paying monthly, was spent or earmarked for someone’s school fees before it was received.
None of us had graduated from college yet, so we weren’t in a position to help my mother with raising money in any major way to pay for things. Everyone was at one stage of education or the other. As you’ll see, though, we did whatever we could.
We all contributed the best we could by doing simple jobs. Farming was another great way of raising money for us; we would frequently travel to the village and harvest cassava, sell some to raise money, and make garri (a staple food in Nigeria) and sell part of the garri to raise money to pay for other things like rent, our books and school fees. As long as we had our transportation money to go to the village, that was enough because we knew that selling cassava from the farm would generate money for our return trip. I never really looked forward to those trips to the village because I always considered them too exhausting and laborious for my liking, but remember, I was still very young and these were very long days for me. But we had to make the trip, every now and then, because it was how we raised money for school and it was how we made sure we had food on the table when mother’s salary hadn’t been paid in months, which often happened.
A few years later, a breakthrough came for us. It so happened that our neighbors were involved in a retail business that involved selling boiled eggs or bread to travellers at a nearby motor park. We watched them buy fresh crates of eggs, boil them and take them to the motor park each day to sell. Each person ends up selling close to four crates a day. Each crate contained about 30 eggs. I couldn’t stop asking myself, “Don’t these park people get fed up eating eggs every single day? Who are these people? “They must really like eggs, and they must have a lot of money too,” I said while chatting with Chinomso and Ugochi, my siblings. The profits were small but it added up to good money, especially for a 12 year old boy like me. I could do a lot with that much money. So my family asked about the business and how it worked and made a decision to get involved whenever we found the time.
However, mother wouldn’t let us stay away from school in order to make money. School activities always came first, even if it meant doing so on an empty stomach because there was nothing in the house to eat. But during weekends and holidays when people travel, the motor parks are usually packed, so those days made for good sales and we took advantage of those days to make money. At first, I did this with two of my siblings to supplement Mother’s income, and later on it was a great source of income for me to generate money to fund my education. It wasn’t easy at first. I felt kind of weird begging people to buy stuff. I was used to being the one purchasing bread from hawkers when we were travelling to the village. Now being one of them didn’t sit so well with me, so the first few times I sold things didn’t go so well. But being someone who always strives to be the best in whatever I do, I got the hang of it, and before long I was making good sales, positioning myself well and always finishing the sale of my produce in good time.
Because I was neat and presented my produce in the best possible way that I could, it helped me stand out from other hawkers, and being educated, I could easily communicate with anyone. I looked different; I carried myself differently. I had focus. Yes, I was one of the boiled-egg hawkers, but I knew I wasn’t there to make that my trade. It was a means to an end. I saw being successful at selling eggs as the only way for me to move ahead into the life I wanted and that my mother wanted for my siblings and I.
I recall some days, raising money to buy the books I needed for school, that were painful for me. Even as a senior in high school, some junior students that saw me, called me names. Some called me “Nwa-akwa” (meaning egg seller or egg boy), which is a name that customers normally call people that sell boiled eggs at the motor park. It was fine to be called “Nwa-akwa” when someone was calling you to buy eggs, and it even makes you happy. I would get excited that I was about to sell my produce. In fact, if I didn’t respond in a timely manner, there were five or more “Nwa-akwa” traders, just like me, who would come running towards “my” customer to convince him to buy their eggs instead of my eggs.
Some of the egg sellers would bring out their biggest eggs to lure the customers to them, and some would say that their eggs were still hot. There were all kinds of patter thrown at the person that called out the name Nwa-akwa. So you’d better be quick and have the biggest eggs or have a customer that was focused on buying from you or they’d buy from the other person selling eggs. Soon, I learned to respond to the name gladly and with joy and happiness when selling in the motor park. The egg sales meant a better future for me.
But that same name became derogatory and offensive, when I was dressed for school and someone, who knew I retailed eggs during the weekends or during the holidays, began to call me Nwa-akwa. Calling to me with this name then meant it was mockery and meant to be painful and meant to hurt my feelings. So when I was dressed-up and looking good and strolling on the road, and I was feeling good about myself, to hear a voice come out from the buildings or when I was walking by children playing on the streets, who would call out to me, Nwa-akwa, I was hurt. But I also knew that they just wanted to make fun of me. And I knew if they could make me more concerned about what they thought of me than I was about my future, then I would lose my focus on my goal. This too would be a way of “associating” with those that can’t inspire you to be successful, and the kind of people my mother warned us about.
As you can see, those were difficult times for me, but I didn’t let them stop me. I sold boiled eggs at the motor park whenever the need was there for me to raise money for the family’s greater good. I didn’t see selling eggs as an end or something that I would be doing in five or ten years’ time. Rather I was using this as an opportunity to work towards the future that I had always dreamt about and that my mother so wanted for her children. I was working towards a future, and selling eggs was just a godly means to an end. Hawking was Plan B to help make Plan A work. But don’t think this didn’t hurt at the time. It felt very shameful to me even though I knew why I was doing it. I didn’t take it personally, or let it control my choices, because I knew I wasn’t going to be an egg seller forever. I knew it was just for the “now,” and was a temporary situation that I would move past. It was my means to my end.
I felt that they could say whatever they liked, call me names that hurt but I didn’t care. I kept telling myself that I would not always be there with them. Very soon, I would be driving my own luxurious car, and they would be rushing to sell their goods to me. I hoped that they would be able to recognize me then, and know that my means had brought me my successful end.
Even as the best student in my class in college, I still looked out for opportunities to raise money during the holidays, be it teaching at private elementary schools or selling bread during Christmas or any holiday. These were all decisions that I made in the past, which looking back on, I can’t help but thank God for his great provisions and guidance for us and for my mom. Like all small children, on occasion, I would complain to mum that I couldn’t do this any longer, as it wasn’t easy to do, but mother always encouraged me. She never failed to let me know that if I don’t feel like going that day that I could take the day off. Take a moment out and gather my strength. Eventually, I stopped hating poverty, knowing that it was just a temporary position. Things were going to turn around for me and be better if only I could stay the course, do the do’s, and let situations and circumstances unfold from the work I was putting in.
On a trip back to Aba, Nigeria, during the summer of 2013, after eight years of being away, our car drove past the motor park area where I used to hawk boiled eggs and bread. I saw new faces there selling eggs and bread, and I also saw old faces, people that I once fought with over getting the customers. They are still there, selling eggs and bread from different bakeries, and some now have small stores on the road side. Call them an upgrade, an expansion even, these small roadside stores. But just as I predicted, here I am 10 years later, and I’m driving on the road when I pull over and they are rushing to our car to sell their produce to me. Oh, and if you are wondering if I talked to the young ones among them? Yes, I did. “Make sure you take school seriously. Let this, selling eggs, be your means to an end. Please don’t see it as the end point. I was once like you but I never gave up on school, today I hold a doctorate degree in engineering. When you get home, you may be tired but pick up your books and read. Study to be the best in your class,” I urged them.
This advice I offered them, just as my mother had offered it to me. And as I now offer it to you.
