05/05/2022
I learnt something from my mother years ago.
One day, a market day, my father went out promising to go get some money from a friend so we could feed with. Hours went by without a word from him. Hoping on my father became hopeless. My nursing mother as well as my siblings and me was hungry. The baby was barely a month old and there was nothing she could do. Earlier on she had sent me to a friend of hers to lend us some money but that had proved abortive.
“What do we do Mother?” I had asked worriedly.
She had already thought of a solution to the problem but I didn’t know. She breastfed the baby quickly, placed him on her back, grabbed her hand bag and off we went to the market.
“Mama Ada, you are taking a baby of less than a month to the market, why?” one woman quipped.
In my place, it was taboo in those days. People got fined for that.
Of course my mother did not give a hoot. There was no food in the house and she had decided to move on with a baby or no baby.
Nothing anybody said mattered.
My heart was beating like the drums of war. What was she planning to do? She had nothing to sell; where on earth would the money come from? My siblings were expectant because she had promised to buy something and send me with it to them. How she was going to get the money was what I didn’t know.
We met my father on our way. He was playing a game of drought with some idle men and the noise in their midst was high-pitched. My heart bled. Was this where he hoped to get the money for our feeding from? I showed my mother what I had seen and she told me something that will forever remain glued to my heart.
“My son, if you don’t like what your father has just done; please don’t do it to your wife when you grow up.” She grabbed my hand and we trekked on. I could sense what was going on in her mind. She must be wondering why my father could be so insensitive to our plights.
Long before then, Mother had learnt how to endure pain without complaining. She had decided to let go of the things that used to bother her so as to concentrate on us. Totally, she had chosen instead to surrender her attention to her children.
At the market, God came to our rescue. Mother found some women with bags of ‘ogbono’ on their heads. They were coming from the remotest part of the village to the market. My mother knew how very priceless theses seeds were. Again, she could speak many tongues. She spoke to the women in their language. She was a die-hard Igbo business woman.
“I am interested in buying your wares,” she told them, helping to bring down the bags from their heads.
I watched with keen interest as the negotiation began.
Both parties reached an agreement. The women were willing to sell the two bags for six hundred naira.
My heart pounded. Where on earth was she going to get such money from to pay for the stuff? The market was howling and the sun scorching but my mum found a porter almost immediately.
“Please wait here with my son while I go fetch you the money,” she told the women.
“But, where are you taking it to?” one of the women queried.
“To the other side,” Mother replied. The baby had begun to cry on her back now.
“Please make it snappy,” the women urged as Mum disappeared with the wheel barrow boy to the other side of the market.
Minutes later she returned as promised and paid the women the money! She gave them some salt as appreciation and gave them direction to our house. From that day, the women became her very good friends selling their wares only to her.
“How did you get the money?” I echoed curiously when the women had left.
Simple! She had taken the bags to the other side of the market having removed some for our consumption and the Igbo women there had scrambled for the 'ogbono' like mad dogs. The seeds were sold for a thousand nine hundred naira! A whooping sum of one thousand three hundred naira was realized as profit!
That money kept us going for a very long time.
If Mum hadn’t got up and made a move, we would have starved. God is prepared to help as He always does, but we must be ready to make a move first. I think God only helps someone who is prepared to get up and move in spite of all odds.
Mum had made the desired move and God came at once to our rescue.
Years later, my mother told me that angels are always out there waiting for us to meet with them. We should not sit and wait for them like Abraham did in the bible days. This is why we must always go out in search of them.
I have met a lot of these angels in my wilderness journey and I have been richly blessed by them. And they are still out there waiting for us like the ones my mother bought seeds from.
THE WILDERNESS EXPERIENCE by Japheth Prosper
