DAYS OF HAWKING

One day, my friend, Inikpi (a.k.a. my mama) and I were going to church in Port Harcourt when we saw a boy hawking. She told me how she said to a child who was hawking one day that, 'You will be great' and the child was very happy. Then I exclaimed, 'I did hawk before too, I just remember now!' She was like, 'Really?! Who would ever think of that? And see where you are today.'

My parents were teachers. We all know teachers in Nigeria were not well paid at all before the advent of the minimum wage (nicknamed 'Gbemu Aremu' by westerners) in 1999. During a period of time before Gbemu Aremu, things were so tough at home. My mum who was entrepreneurial had a shop where she sold different things--detergent, sugar, salt, vegetable oil, elubo isu (yam flour), ikoko irin (cast aluminium pots from Saki), laundry soaps and provisions generally. At this time, it was difficult for us to eat at home if we didn't hawk because the area where our shop was located was not good for business. This era lasted between 1995 and 1999.

It was usually my older sister and I going on the hawking trips together, though occasionally my younger sister and/or my cousin who was living with us then would join us. I never liked it. But I never complained because I knew mum didn't like it too. I found myself always praying and hoping none of my classmates would see me. (I attended a posh and reputable public secondary school). There was a day I saw a boy that looked like a classmate. Oh, you needed to see how I ran into hiding. I told my sister that was a boy from my school. Fortunately there was a closed shop around. We hid behind a table in front of it and we didn't leave until we were sure the coast was clear. There was a friend who used to see me though, he was in my class, but he never told anybody in school and never made me feel bad about it. We had to pass by his house almost every trip.

We used to hawk every Saturday and during holidays. At times we would have great sales and at times low. Those times when we had low sales, we would return to our shop unhappy and mum would try to encourage us. We would peddle provisions in whole sales to retailers, surf (detergent), sugar and salt in the morning. In the evening, my sister would go around with kerosene (we were selling kerosene too). The evening I vended kerosene, I returned with less money than what I sold. I couldn't explained how it happened, so my mum did not allow me to hawk kerosene after that day. During school long vacations, we used to market stationaries because that's a season for parents to get them for their wards in preparation for the next session.

Thank God for keeping us through those days from every kind of predators. You can imagine two girls walking alone  and at times on lonely paths. We had our routes and we tried to avoid the main road as much as we could. I recall my mum always warning us not to enter anybody's room/house to sell. We kept to this but there were times we had to slightly breach her warning. We had a customer who usually bought a lot of things from us. One day we entered her house passage, we didn't see her. Then our eyes wandered into an open room, lo, we saw a big idol (a statue). We  took to our heels and never sold to the woman again.

In 1999, mum told us the long vacation of that year was going to be the last time we would hawk. We were so glad. No more fear of seeing my schoolmates.