Living In The Ghetto - Episode 25

Chimaobim had always noticed Iyawo staring at him in an uncomfortable manner. Their eyes would always lock together while Chimaobim would remove his face. When he tries to stare again, her eyes would still be fixed at him.

Chimaobim had stood at the backyard using a bowl to scoop water from the drum, then into the bucket he kept on the ground. He was helping his father to fill the bucket with water, before he would take him to the bathroom to bath him. His health had deteriorated to the extent he couldn't walk again without someone aiding him, while he hold a walking stick. The burden had been too much on Mama Chimaobim. She solely provided for them and took care of their father - she would bath, clean him up and did other personal stuffs for him. His body had weakened and it took many seconds to move. Chimaobim had been a great help in assisting his mother, since he finished secondary school and was waiting on the resumption of the university he was admitted into.

As Chimaobim kept scooping the water into the bucket, a hand tapped him. He turned swiftly and it was Iyawo. His eyes rotated in a surprise manner. Apart from daily greetings and other times, he doesn't talk to Iyawo.

Iyawo grinned. "How are you, Chimaobim?" she asked.

Chimaobim gave a weak and slow nod and made to turn back

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. "You dey write jamb next year abi?" she queried.

Chimaobim turned to notice if he was being asked the question by the person he thought it was. He never knew Iyawo cared about him. It felt like the world transformed to a paper and floated in the air, while he sat on it. He smiled baring his dimples. "Yes, I have written," he said.

Iyawo eyes bulged out. She forced a smile. "Err--" she stuttered as she wanted to utter some words.

She scratched her head slowly, while she tried to get a grip of herself. Chimaobim flashed a smile and she returned hers too. "Congrats. How was it?" she asked.

"I passed. I have been admitted to the university. University of Lagos," he said all at once. 

He had never been free with anybody in the compound before. They all spoke pidgin and he doesn't know how to flow well with them. Growing up in the ghetto had made him to perfect his understanding of pidgin, but he still never knew how to speak it. Adanne spoke it on rare occasions with women who didn't understand her spoken English. When Adanne was trying to explain something to a woman that sold something at the heart of the ghetto, she had to gesture to Adanne to tone it down, "omoge, I no fit lie to you, me I no understand wetin you dey yarn as you dey so. Me I no go school like you, I dey manage." 

Adanne laughed and switched to Pidgin. The kids around laughed at her pidgin intonation. She spoke it slowly trying not trip with words at every intervals. 

Chimaobim felt that Iyawo talking to him made him free. He had overheard Iyawo speaking in English sometimes and guessed she was educated unlike all the erdely people he had heard speak.

Read " The Thorny Path " by the same author ( Obinna Tony )

. He felt free talking to her, and would want to relate with her more. He had come to accept the people in the ghetto but as a matured teenage boy, he wasn't free to relate with them unlike when he was a naive teenage boy who would run up to play with anybody.

Iyawo's rage boiled and she exhaled immediately. What I wanted my child to achieve first in this compound and brag with, someone had done it, she thought in her mind. 

Her child attended a secondary school outside the ghetto and she would always brag about it. The school bus driver told her to be bringing her child at the heart of the ghetto every morning to make it easier for him to carry but she rejected. The bumpy narrow road that led to the main ghetto always galloped his car making the students to scream in a fear.

"I'm paying for the transport and you must do what I want? Or should I withdraw my child from the school?" she asked in a full rage.

The bus driver calmed her down and respected her wish. If she reports him to the school authority, he would be sacked and the job gave him his monthly stipends. Only in the afternoon Iyawo would allow the bus driver to drop Emma at the heart of the ghetto. The bus driver would call her first before he arrived there. Iyawo wanted everybody in the ghetto to know that her child was enrolled in a private school and a bus came to pick him everyday. That's what they all wish their children can have, she bragged in her mind. She would feel too proud and fufilled whenever the little ghetto kids smiled and gawked at her and Emma whenever he stepped out of the school bus.

"What course?" Iyawo asked.

"Law," Chimaobim answered.