BATOYI

CHAPTER 1

Rubina is in every way a charming, beautiful lady,now in her mid-twenties. She is friendly and cheerfuland naturally, liked by all.

Her beauty endears people to like herpersonality. She smiles wryly to herself, as shedances to music from her headphone and takes selfiesin front of the mirror, making faces and changingposes in the room she shares with her two youngersisters, Sabrina and Janan

Rubina selects the best pictures from hergallery and assesses how beautiful she looks. 'Justperfect,' she admits, as her mind flashes back to herjunior secondary school days when she participatedin a beauty pageant and won. She remembered howshe charmed the judges and students who keptshouting her name out of the ten contestants in thecompetition. 

She was young and a novice then, obliviousof what was meant to be beautiful. Now grown,Rubina cherishes the beautiful qualities shepossesses. She is slender with long dark hair; sheinherited it from her Kanuri maternal grandmother.She also has an oval, and well defined facial features;a long nose, thick lips, bulging eyes and2long lashes that flickered like the wings of abutterfly, an amazing curvy figure that every womanlonged for, and straight legs that strike for onelooking more like a model, tall and elegant. Manypeople mistake her for a Caucasian because of herfair skin.

She smiles delightfully at the thought of notneeding to bleach as most girls do these days. Onething she is happy with herself about is that while atthe University, she did not allow her beauty to getinto her head, unlike some of her course mates. Sheignored all advances from her lecturers and malestudents. Hard work helped her graduate with flyingcolours, automatically enabling her to quickly jointhe labour market.

"I am finally a graduate."She muttered toherself, smiling, as she recollects receiving herNYSC certificate after the passing out parade atMurtala Mohammed Square, Kaduna that left herexhausted. "If not that I was naughty at school, Iwould have graduated a year before now. But thankGod, I realised my mistake on time and rectified it. Ihope no one at home gets to hear about my littlesecret," Rubina thought to herself

She was deep in thought. "All I need now isa job that will keep me busy and focused rather thanrush into marriage like some of my relatives. I can'tmarry now," she thought. She had seen how some ofher friends' marriages failed because they were3jobless and their husbands' salaries as beginnerscould not keep a family. The clever ones amongstthem went back to their parents for almost everythingwhile the unfortunate ones ended up in a divorce,after barely a year or two of marriage.

This and other reasons, made Rubina believethat women should be empowered before settlinginto marriage.

A mindset that had caused a seriousmisunderstanding between herself and her mother,Hajiya Luba.

Hajiya Luba, a conservative woman fromBodinga in Sokoto State, and a full-time homemakerheld a contrary opinion to that of her daughter. Shedid not agree with Rubina's idea of working beforemarriage and as such, she often scolded and naggedher over the subject of early marriage. She would citeinstances of Rubina's friends who were luckyenough to be married and coping well in theirmarriages without jobs.

Nevertheless, Rubina was never convinced,for she believed in herself and was adamant abouthaving a job before any other thing. Out of respect,laced with a bit of fear of talking back, she oftenreplied by murmuring to herself, "Mommy, your lifeand time are different from mine, there are morechallenges now. I will not marry till I have a job."She desperately wished her mother wouldunderstand.

Rubina's father, on the other hand, was calmand more understanding. Alhaji Dauda SaniDangijiware was a successful contractor in his early50s, who pampered her and her two siblings. Hebacked her idea and was ever willing to sponsor hereducation up to the Doctorate level. He was neverworried that she was not married or inclined to herage.