THE ROOT OF A CYNOSURE

Chapter nineteen

Halima

I hurriedly put six wraps of tuwon dawa ( guinea corn meal) into the food flask, poured miyan kube'wa ( okra stew) stashed with fish and well cooked meat into a flask. I put everything in a polythene bag then placed it by the door. I looked round my rounded hut in search of my earpiece.

The hut was built with mud and the roof was thatched. At a corner was a bamboo bed which I put a small flat mattress on, a pillow and bed cover. In a small metal box was my few clothes, and my three pairs of shoes juxtaposition on the floor.

I hated the bare mud wall, so I used white plain sheets of paper with pap serving as adhesive to make a wallpaper. The same paper served as ceiling, giving the room a beautiful white color . The bare floor was covered with straw mat which I made myself and made sure it was colourful.

I looked at the small mirror again, satisfied,I broght out my phone. Yphone7, oops! Iphone7 and gave myself a snap. Fahad called it selfie. I took another shot, this time pushing my lips forward to form a 'o'. For a moment it looked like the mouth of a pig. Well, that was how I saw most of my new friends on Facebook and Instagram snapping.

I quickly posted it and before I left the room, I started getting my barrages of likes and comments. Meeting Fahad was like goung through a door to land of honey.

Fahad was sweet. So sweet I feared it was not real. He was caring, loving,
romantic, humorous, and everything good. I used to hate grazing,being alone in the hummocks, under harsh conditions, having no one to talk to, just cows as companions and what did I get for it? Food and clothes during festive peroiods.

My uncles were wicked. They wasted my father's wealth, lavished the money and made me a slave. I was treated diffently from other children. Joro once asked me to run away, but I refused. Run to where? Many girls had done this and ended in prostitution and drugs.

I kept praying, hoping that someday something will pop up and give my life a lift. I think Fahad was an answered prayer. He treated me like a queen. We reared cattle together but it was more of fun than work. He would come with delicious cuisines, snacks, drinks and we will eat, drink and enjoy. But he always insisted of having fura da nono which I always prepared for him.

In the past, I used to go into my hut after Ishaa prayers and lay on the bed brooding for hours before I slept. It was so boring and dolorous.

Sometimes my socalled fiancé came to visit. I would be forced to attend to him. He would bore me to death then leave me in a fit of pique. But now, I would lock myself and bring out my phone and chat with the love of my life ,or go on Facebook ,Twitter,Instagram and other social media.

I saw the world from my bed. And it was a world indeed. The social media had it all: the men of God, the idiosyncratic users, girls that go unclad and post nude pictures, people out there just to do business, name it-it was there. So the choice was yours. I nearly fainted the day my brother, who happened to be my only biological brother, saw my iphone. He screamed and told me how expensive it was. I told him everything about Fahad ,and showed him all the three phones. He went raptures about it. Fahad had employed someone to make sure I never lacked charge because we had no electric power. When I told Fahad about my elder brother, who happened to be some minutes older than me, he got him an iphone too.It seemed Fahad was richer than he claimed.

I carried the polythene bag and left my hut ,locked the door then walked out of the large compound. Our compound had over sixty huts . It was our family hamlet. My grandfather had twenty two children out of which eleven were male. Two died, including my father, four left the village, while the remaining lived in the hamlet with their wives.

Immidiately I got out of the compound, I felt amy hackles rise as I saw Hande waiting for me. Subahanllah !Why now?
Hande was twenty three years old, four years older than I .He was lanky, and good looking with brown eyes and very curly dark hair. His father was a local chief and had a big ranch. This was the guy I was betrothed to since I was four. He wore tight light green shirt over purple slim pants and had a big chain round his neck. His eyes were behind dark sun glasses . A radio hung over his shoulder. He spent three years in Lagos after I left my job as a maid. He said his mission was to go and learn how to speak English because I now spoke good English.