MEMOIRS OF A YOUNG NIGERIAN GIRL

A New Space.

Everyone's coming of age story at one point or the other took a different arc or turn. At that pristine age, we are bound to meet people who will either make us or mar us. We may make mistakes either knowingly or unknowingly, some of them which we can't be blamed for, solely because of too much or little or no exposure.

I'm in my twenty something years, and looking out the window of my room, I reminisced on how far I have come and challenges I have gone through. Sitting in my just newly acquired apartment with a pen and a note pad in hand, I decided to write about that part of myself with all nervousness and sweaty palms. Anyways ,I am willing to take you all on this jolly and not all so jolly ride, a life story of a young Nigerian teenage girl child and how she paved way for her adulthood. Y'all need to just sit and enjoy the ride.

I was fourteen and in the prime of my teenage years. An average Nigerian girl child should be in the early years of her senior secondary school and undergoing puberty.

It was the long holidays and I had just finished my junior secondary school. All the immature boy stories, the saga, the keeping of cliques, that got most of us into trouble countless times than we could remember. Nevertheless, those were the beautiful memories of those days.

I was an eager, immature, nonchalant and a deadbeat snob and "yeah", I had this psychotic feeling that the universe would be at my beck and call and everything must go as I planned without having the slightest idea that the universe always took interesting turns to teach everyone something important, more like a lesson which gives you profound experience.

I am fondly called mama at home. My name is Martha. On a very cool evening, my father came back and summoned me. Fully aware of the nature of my father, he rarely engages me or anyone or anything, unless it was a matter of urgency. I heeded to his call, and that was when I found out he was planning to send me to a boarding school, same one my younger brother was already attending. All the preparations have been done and everything was on set. Even my mother was not aware of this development, and I was given no chance to decline.

The news was not pleasant at all. Within me, I was enveloped with grief and I felt dysphoric. Furthering my life, I found out that was one of the best decisions my father ever made for me.
My younger brother, the *diokpara*( what the igbos in the eastern part of Nigeria call their first son), was glad I was coming to join him in boarding school. Y'all should meet my mother who was on the opposing side and vowed not to send me out of the house to a boarding school even when my father had made all the arrangements for me to leave the house.

It was becoming a major issue at home, until my father confronted my mother and asked her reasons why she wouldn't let me go. One of her reasons was because of my morality. You know the stories that often roam around girls who go to boarding schools and how they turn out, secondly, because there will be no one to assist her in the house chores.

On hearing this, my father took the initiative to laugh, a long one at that.

My mother retorted angrily, “Do I look like a joke to you?".

"No you don't". My father answered her politely. “It's just that I'm trying to relate with your reasons, but no matter how hard I try, they are still unreasonable to me".

"What do you mean, my mother asked. Are you trying to tell me that I don't have a say in the upbringing of my children. When this child begins to go out of the norms of her upbringing, don't you dare hold me responsible. Remember the decisions you took today, she shouted, almost running out of breath".

After a while, my father said, "you don't still get it, do you?".

“Let me tell you, he continued. You won't most definitely use your ideology of how you lived your life to determine another person's own, not even your child. The way your own life took it's course is way different from the way Martha's life will take it's course. We all need to be optimistic and pray for her earnestly so she will be able to harness her full potential. There are lot of people who went to boarding school and are doing very well for themselves. Let's take it easy woman, my father said".

"I have heard you , my mother said. But still, God knows in all my totality, I am against this", beating her breast in the process. “Martha you and your father can finalize this whole issue". She stood up and dusted her buttocks dramatically and left. I watched this drama unfold from one corner of the room where they had this discussion. My mother is truly a lucid definition of an in-depth African woman.