Mum's voice echoes in my ears and that's what I am doing, focussing on the light. I shall not give room to fear, to my enemies who seek to destroy me.
I push harder, my steps seeming like baby steps. I refuse to look back for fear that I might fear...
"You all have been divided into seven groups commonly known as the seven mountains of influence. These are infrastructural columns of our societies. They are media, government, education, economy, religion, arts and entertainments and lastly, family and social services. These are key aspects of our society that moulds it into what it is. As Christians we have the duty of making large impact positively and great influence in whatever mountain you find yourselves. The logic is simple, capture these mountains and you will capture the nation. It's not all about preaching the gospel here and there." Sophia explains walking from one group to another. By the time she is done, she is standing in front of Mary and I. She looks at us sternly though I can see the glee dancing in her eyes. I flash a smile making sure my thirty two is full blown. Her straight face drops and is replaced with an amused one. She doesn't say anything, just shakes her head then goes to stand in the middle of the room. "So as most of you could have guessed by now, this session is more like a lecturing session." Everyone begins to murmur at this. "Don't worry, I can assure you it will be very interactive and lively and at the end of the day you all we get to work in your groups to complete a task." Great! How is Mary and I going to handle that since we are just two? "Any question before we start?" Her voice booms in the hall. A dark-skinned guy raises his hand. She nods in his direction to acknowledge him. "You didn't tell us which mountains we represent as a group." "Oh, thanks for the reminder." She walks to the chair she placed her notepad . Taking her notepad in her hand, she begins to call out names stating the mountain they belong to. By the time she is done, Mary and I belong to the mountain of arts and entertainment, cool. A girl on glasses at the right side of the hall steps forward. "Sorry, I think I am meant to be in that group." Her timid voice says. Sophia looks up from her notepad at her scrunching her eyebrows. "Which group exactly?" She points a finger towards the direction of Mary and I. "That group, mountain of arts and entertainment." Sophia looks at her questioningly, "what's your name?" "Diana" "According to what I have here, you're meant to be in media. You said you have passion for photography and want to be a cinematographer am I correct?" Sophia asks going through her notepad. "Yes, but is more of arts and entertainment. I don't really know how to explain it." Sophia looks at her in contemplation for a moment before finally giving in, "okay then. Join them over there." The girl smiles grateful and skips over to Mary and I. "Anyone else having problem with the group they are in?" Sophia asks. No one answers. She closes her notepad then drops it on the chair beside her. "Very well then, let's begin. I need you all to take your seats according to your groups. Leave at least a row between groups as you do so. I will give you all two minutes to agree within yourself who is going to be the leader of your group then we will kick off." Everyone scrambles to take their seat according to our groups as she instructed. "So who is going to be our group leader?" Diana asks as soon as we are all seated and by all, I am referring to my group; Mary, Diana and I. I shrug, turning to look at Mary. There is no way I can be group leader especially not with my religious background. "Why are you both looking at me?" Mary questions. "Come on, be the group leader." I give her my best puppy eye which I must tell you is one of the worst you can ever see but it does the trick anyway. "Fine" she sighs. "Yah!" I pull her into a hug. She feigns despair wiggling to get out of my grip. " eewww! Get your body of me!" We both laugh. I let go of her then turn to Diana who just sits smiling at us. "Not sure if you know me but my name is Clara." I introduce myself though I am not sure if it's really needed. "Mary" "I know you both know my name, so nice grouping with you." She replies. "Plus, I am pretty sure everyone knows the name of the girl who causes more drama than the full camp can in one week." Diana smirks at me. I place a hand on my chest falsely hurt. "Oh my, I don't cause drama." "Sure, tell me that next ten years, I will believe." She laughs. I look at Mary with a sense of déjà vu. She gets it too and we both burst out laughing. Sophia laughs along even though I am pretty sure, she has no clue the real reason behind our laugh. "Okay, everyone tone it down, let's begin." Sophia's voice pulls us out of our laughing fit. "All the group leaders please stand." Mary along with other group leaders rise to their feet. Sophia moves around handing each of them a file. "That contains all you need to know about your mountain. You have about ten minutes to run through it with your group members then we go into the discussion session then of course your task" "How many pages is ours?" I ask as Mary takes her seat. She opens it, turning over to the last page. " "Twenty." She answers. I mentally groan, forcing myself to look interested. "Okay let's start." "I need to find me a pillow to place my sleepy head." I stretch letting out a yawn I don't even try to stifle as we exit the hall. Sophia concluded her session with us ten minutes ago leaving us to work on our various tasks she left us with. It is more of an initiative task. She asked us to compile at least four or five ways we can influence our various mountains positively hence edifying the kingdom of God which is funny to me since I don't believe in this 'God'. The least I can do for my group is to help type all we could come up with and mail it to the mail address she gave us. Don't get me wrong, I merely 'hmmnn'd' when I felt a suggestion was in line with what Sophia will like to see and shook my head when it didn't sound like a good idea. "Don't forget to type and mail it before lunch tomorrow." Diana reminds me. "Sure," I collect the sheet of paper we wrote down our suggestions and ideas as a group earlier on from Mary. "See you guys around." Diana bids us farewell walking off to join a group of girls huddled in a corner. Must be her clique. "Where to?" "My bed" I reply grinning. Mary shakes her head. I turn to look at her, "what, a girl needs her beauty sleep." "Clara!!" I hear someone call my name. I turn back to see who it is but everyone seems to be minding their business, maybe I heard wrong. "Looking for someone?" Mary asks "I heard someone call my name." I turn to continue my walk to my room but bump into someone "Watch where you are going!" The person snaps. Is she serious right now!? She freaking bumped into me. The girl in front of me is light skinned and unarguably shorter than me. Her eyes looks teary but whatever shit happened to her doesn't give her the right to treat others like shit and certainly not me. "The fact that you're short should help you have a better view of feet moving on the ground, I fail to see why it's otherwise for you." I retort angrily. Her gaze zeroes in on me in undeniable rage. "How dare you!" She spits at me. What is she going to do, throw a fist at me? Joke of the year. "The truth is bitter, don't make a show out of it." I taunt crossing my arms. "Clara" my name rolls out of Mary's tongue in a warning. "What? She bumped into me and went ahead to insult me for it!" "Are you kidding me right now! You were the one to bump into me and I didn't insult you." The girl argues. I am about to reply but Diana shows up to the scene. "Jane, are you alright? What's going on?" She looks at the girl I know to be Jane now then at me questioningly. "Clara?" She says when neither of us speak. She sighs coming in front of Jane and breaking the glaring contest we had going on. "Jane, what happened? Your eyes are teary." "I was looking for you, I wanted to know if you've heard from mum but she bumped into me on the way and then insulted me for it." They are sisters!? Didn't see that coming. Diana looks at me disapprovingly. "Clara, please apologize to Jane and Jane please do the same." Mary says coming in between Jane and I. "What?" I blurt out "I don't need her apology." Jane declares storming off. Diana sighs, "our father is in the hospital Clara. Mum sent us here to help take our mind off things. We are not sure what his fate will be. Between Jane and I she is the closest to him so the blow is harder on her. That's what was probably on her mind when she was looking for me. You might not think all these story is necessary but I just want you to know she is going through a tough time, we are but I am better at keeping my emotions at bay. She might say she doesn't need your apology but trust me, it will mean a lot if you do. I don't know what you said to her but she is my sister and I can tell she is hurting." With that she walks off. I feel really bad now hearing all that she said. "Is it fair to blame it on my sleepy head?" I mutter. "What you did was wrong Clara. I am not saying she was totally in the right either after all she did snap at you first. Both of you need to apologize to each other and settle things." "Fine but later. She needs to calm her head first otherwise we might both pick up another quarrel."
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(For more understanding on the seven mountains of influence, I greatly recommend you read this book.)
