The impoverished man

Have you ever imagined what it feels like to get cramped in a crowded room, a room full of agents that deliver malaria to potential recipients; a trouble home where the roof leaks each time it rains; a home which the peasant farmer inherited from his parents, a home his grandparents once lived in when it was still at its prime; have you ever thought of such possibilities as your home falling apart because it was built of mud and it's about a century old?

Have you ever imagined how deeply disturbed the peasant farmer gets, how deeply sad his state of existence makes him. Misery.

In concordance with the status quo in his little village, my farmer friend is rich when he has the staples (rice, beans, yam, and garri) in his detached kitchen, when he and his wife have a Lace to wear, and afford ankara for their four kids at Christmas and when he has a bike to take to the farm. But in the real sense of the 21th century how rich is this man? He tills and tend, seemingly the only kind of livelihood open to him, he grew into the business, he inherited it; a poor man's business, he thinks.

How bad for the tiller and tender...he prepares the food but he starves for good food, for hygiene, for a good school for his children, he starves for all the good things of life. He's devoted himself to service, to serve all, to grow food for the busy population, but the more he works the further he goes into oblivion. Nobody knows him, he is different, culled, has no image, no name, and no voice.

This humble farmer knows life, he does know life...he knows life is hard; looking on, as his children run after the fowls one evening, he reflected on his life from when he became a man to the present moment when he sits on an old recliner and watch his children play around; it hasn't been smooth, it has so far been a bumpy ride. He became more determined to strive to give his children a good education, because, just yesterday he had concluded "farming is for fools" and his children won't be having a taste.

Written by Cornelius Eniola