Chronicle Of Blog Visitor Narrative....

WOW!!!

STAND ALONE NARRATIVE

A STORY TO LEARN FROM.....

The aim of the story is to make others who have a maid in their homes to think of the future of the maid. Thank you.

I'm from a remote village in Cross River state. Where no one can speak English at the time I left home, Its better now.

After my primary school education (which if you asked me is as good as not going to school) a lady came to my village and met my mum whom she thought was my sister because my mum was quite young,you won't know she is my mother, She told her she needed a young girl to stay with her brother's wife in Lagos.

I was leaving with my grandmother, I can remember the day I left village, me and my grandma were walking and she was advising me and we were both crying because I love her so so much ( I stayed with her since I was a baby) because I couldn't imagine life without her and vice versa.

On getting to Lagos, I was taking to this slim lady's house. The woman who brought me was talking to the woman, and I was just there, waiting for my real madam to come( I have this concept in my brain that madam is supposed to be fat and big). Only for the lady to greet me and I was told that will be my madam. That was how my 18 years stay in the house began, I was 11 years then.

Her husband is a strick military man so was not always around. Once he comes, everyone behave!!

She has 5 kids and the youngest was my mate. It's wasn't easy because having young people who wants to rule over you when the parents were not around wasn't easy. And seen someone who is your mate talked down on you or send you unnecessary message or beat you but because of who you are you can't beat back or talk back wasn't funny. But I kept my cool.

I wasn't being paid salary like they do now. My mum said she didn't want salary that they should just train me in what ever way. There was not really an agreement on what, when or how I should stay or be trained.

About 2 years after my stay, remember I couldn't speak or write English when I came so the teasing wasn't funny.At home, in church, outing and all. I'm always very embarrassed when they asked me to read Bible in children class in church and I will just be looking. At a point I stopped going to children class.
But I was doing something, the last born was my best friend although we fight alot, I will be doing spelling class with her. 

After 2 yrs, my boss enrolled me in a primary school lesson. I can remember first at the lesson, the only thing I could read on the text book was (I am). So I was put in primary one class with kids of 4-5 years. I didn't want to go because of the embarrassment but my madam told me I most.

I was promoted every 4 month. And funny enough I was smart, I catch up and with my age, I was doing well. I stayed at that lesson for 1year. I stopped going because they folded up. After the lesson, she enrolled me in a fashion school, I went there for 2years and she bought me a sewing machine.these was in 2004.
Something happened around 2014.she is a pharmacist, she has a shop and the person who was there started stealing so she chased him away and there was no one at the shop. I told her I will be going.remember I only did primary school lesson, I still couldn't read big words. 

She said OK, so me and the last born started going to the shop. I wrote down all the names of the drugs in a book, once someone comes I will go through the book look for there the drugs is. She saw my delegation and devotion at the shop and was impressed. I was enrolled again to a lesson for secondary school, I spent 1 year 3 month at the lesson and wrote junior waec, when I passed, Air Force gave me admission so I started SS1-SS3 with air Force secondary school.
I was still going to the shop. I was doing house work, shop work and school work together and none suffered.from school, I go to the shop, closed 8 and go home. The shop is in air Force Base and my house was at Omole phase 2.

I was really good in school.i passed my WAEC,NECO and JAMB in one seating and she agreed to sponsor my university education. I got admission the same year I finished secondary school. The first time I entered plane was when I was resuming school. And all these was sponsored by the woman, not the husband.it was when I got admission the husband volunteer to be giving me feeding money while the wife paid for every other thing. 

I graduated in 2014 with my mate, served in 2015-2016.And have been working since November 2016.

All of her kids are married now, I'm like a member of the family. If you didn't know me when I came, you will think I'm a member of the family.

 In 2009 when I was writing my WAEC, I brought my younger sister to stay because I was going to leave for university, she just finished her secondary school this year and I'm planning for her university next year. And in all this, this family never met my parents or know where my village is. 

It wasn't smooth, it wasn't fun always, it wasn't sweet always. But what kept me was the fact that I wanted to be something in life. There were days I cried, there days I felt I couldn't take it anymore. But I kept going.
There was no kind of work they asked me to do, that I didn't do with Joy. Looking back, I know that patients pays.

And on my madam part, she saw a future in me, she wasn't rich, profit from the shop won't be more than 200k but she was willing to help another person's child to become something in life.

There days I annoyed her, make her think my own is too much self, but she was set in blessing a life.

I can boldly say that the generation after me will never be poor by God's grace and hard work on my part. Thank you.