04/05/2022
Ugalo
So you are a young person, hardworking, a hustler, energetic and full of hope. Despite the so many challenges, you manage to secure a small piece of land and save up with utmost frugality, so as to venture into agriculture. You do your research, you need more money. With the way things are going, it will take you another 10 plus years to start what you want. But you’ve waited for over 20 years to do this. So you venture out looking for a loan. Well wishers will probably get you enough to transport you back home that day and wish you well - “because things as you know are tight”... the capital investment needed is huge, but to gain anything substantially meaningful, there’s a threshold below which you can not go so as not to “waste” time, effort and money. The so called agricultural loans - as you learn now - are practically nonexistent... they want your land as security for an offer that’s less than a quarter of the required capital. “They too reason, it’s agriculture, it’s risky”... neither do they trust the same reason they offer the loans, intact some even offer the said loan knowing they are assured to take your security- your land. So after lots of thinking, pitching, lengthy talks and issuing out of business plans to several several several entities and groups, you soon discover that the offered help is actually an impediment for starters... but you won’t give up. You look around and hey there is the hungry bank... they can offer you a loan at a hefty interest rate that never significantly changed even after the COVID pandemic hit up things in the world... it can only be a salary loan, eating up all possible profit from your venture even before it begins... but you need to start. So you swallow the pin and take it. They are happy, you will be happy-you hope.
Then begins the journey. Everyone you meet is hungry for a piece of that money. Everyone wants to take it all or as much as can be drained from you. The grey hairs aren’t a sign of compassion anymore but of the skill level in taking with impunity. So you reach out... get service providers, many whose work you discover was never worth it after they run off “for humanitarian reasons elsewhere” leaving your paid for work unfinished. The new guy rubbishes the work done by the previous guy and wants the total fee to undo the damage and lead you to the path of a fruitful forever thereafter. It’s
taking a toll on your pockets and you know it. This time you sacrifice a little more work time supervising ratios of cement to sand, soil to manure, water to w**d spray... but you can’t be so away from the loan servicing work that is literally chained to you for the next 5 or so years. Time comes, time goes, but the money flies off faster. Today you are called boss, followed by a demand for more than the planned cement, tomorrow you are told the planned logs of wood were not enough, the following day, the wall that was half way through gave way because of a poor foundation, 2 days later, boss give me some money the workers need to send to their families for the weekend. As soon as you send it, they disappear from work. The person you put in charge of supervising the project became the deal maker of the village. Intact a week later you are told they now want to go back to business, which is the new found deal of being a broker. Time comes, time goes... by hook or crook, you are now set to begin... but wait, the money is over. How? You have a book of all expenses. There are still things undone. The targeted season is going by so fast. Where did it go? Meanwhile you are still servicing the loan for the next five years, and only receive half of the salary to that effect. Rent was hiked, people at home are sick, 2 siblings and a cousin need to go to school. You shift to a cheaper rental- you know- to save some money. Lo and behold on the very night you get into the new residence, some people come to welcome you and rob you clean, leave you in your little vest and boxer tied up in a corner, with a black eye that was meant to stop you from looking in their direction.
You had saved up for the past 5 years just to get to where you were and its all gone. They only left the little stove and two TShirts that were thrown on the bed before you slept off, hoping to unpack the following day. It’s a police case. You need to introduce yourself to your neighbors with a swollen eye and dressed up only in a TShirt and a boxer. You aren’t an indecent person, and you are surely cuter than you look now. Out of pity, one of the female neighbors gives you a wrapper (lesu) to cover your shame. You prance around like a freshly circumcised boy, looking for the police station. The landlord isn’t around today. You find it, you are hungry and wounded both physically and emotionally. You should have known cheaper rent probably meant a trade off with security. At the police station, the afande who walks in almost cuffs you up because you look like a thief. You explain yourself but you no longer look respectable and it’s breakfast time, afande yawns out loud, he needs to go eat, you obviously look like you won’t have a shekel falling off of you, so you are stopped at the beginning of your explanation as afande mumbles through the yawns as he asks to be excused... you wait. Two hours, five hours... you need to borrow a phone because you had made an afternoon appointment for the weekend with the man that probably has the key to your career advancement. Sell him your company product and it’s a stream of business for the company and ideally a much needed promotion for you. You’ve waited for 8months for his response and 3 more for him to find a suitable time to fit you in his busy schedule and this Saturday is the day. He told you he only has less than 30minutes from midday- for the brief meetup just before he heads to the airport for business. This is your chance, you knew it was your chance. It’s coming to the agreed 10am time, you still look unclean and surely smell more from the sweating you endured in the long night. The plan was to be moving by 9am and to come back home by 2pm to reorganize yourself in your new place with your new dreams.
You only need a few minutes to talk with afande, but it’s already 10:30am and he is no where to be seen. The line of complainants and suspects is growing. One suspect is as naked as you are and you try to hold together yourself as you walk past hoping you won’t be mistaken for him.
You run back and find the door to your new rental locked, you dropped the key somewhere while you frantically pranced for help. You are hungrier and the sun is starting to hurt the drying wound and hurting your vision. You need a painkiller, you need some food. You rest a little on the verandah of your new home/ base of atrocities on you. You need to make a call to someone who can alert others that you were robbed so as to ensure that no one else is fleeced of their money using your phone because you clearly can’t add another debt on your troubles.
It’s been a long 18 hours already and the meeting time is passed. You feel unserious. The unseen missed calls and messages on your stolen phone all rule you out as a person not fit for business. You screwed up your chance. The big man waited for 10minutes for you before he stormed off in disgust of your utter misconduct, poor communication and lack of time management skills “ surely youths of these days are unserious, no wonder they are poor” a judgement was made in your absence and guilty was the verdict so your contact was blocked with instructions to the secretary to avoid unserious people like you.
You finally get a phone- from a Good Samaritan, with a warning that there isn’t much airtime for you to chitchat. You wonder if the first person you call will pick up an unknown number, recognize your voice and agree to call you back. You only know 3 numbers by head. You can’t call your mom, she’ll be too worried to make reasonable decisions. It was Friday yesterday, one of your best buddies is probably nursing a hangover and is asleep somewhere you don’t want to know. Perhaps your brother will pick up after months without contact because you were still setting up your life and wanted to surprise everyone with the progress. One of those numbers or you are stuck. You avoided that girl Rita that was trying to get close to you at work because you wanted to first concentrate on your future. Perhaps she would be the one to mend your beat up soul now but that path was closed with your last conversation asking her to keep out of your way “stalker “, you remember you called her that.
Too much for sadness, by luck, by grace, your brother picks up... but network is poor, you never found out that he moved to the village a few weeks back to try his odds at farming on hired land close to kojja’s home. He is afraid of bafere so when he takes a while to catch your repeated words in the poor network, he concludes you are one of those people that want to fleece him of his money and switches you off. You request your impatient Samaritan for a short moment as you beep back which in turn makes your brother to switch off his phone in disgust of the persistent con.
You ultimately brave up yourself and call your best buddies and voila, he’s sober today. His event was cancelled yesterday and he spent the boring night alone at his place and ended up sleeping at the awkward hour of 9pm strange... he wants to go on but you ask him to call back ASAP. He does. And you briefly narrate that you shifted (without his notice) and were mugged seriously... you need him to come ASAP to your place with your crude directions and to make it easy, he will identify you from the figure of a slender man in a wrapper standing by the side of the road. You ask him to come with a set of his clothes for your dignity and pick up a Rolex for you. He’s concerned and you are relieved to finally be getting some help soon. You vehemently thank the tired helpful stranger Samaritan that is relieved you weren’t trying to forge calls so as to run off with her phone. You declare blessings upon her life as it’s all you can offer now.
Soon enough, your hero in shining duplicate amarni garments arrives on a motorcycle and your day is saved. By the time he leaves at 6pm, you have atleast arranged to have the padlock broken so as to access what remains of your abode and property and you’ve had a small painful laughter about your terrible sufferings. He lends you some money to set you off, atleast your life was saved, you are more hopeful for the future and you dream of the day you’ll leave this hell hole to your mansion, if, only, you, will.
