The Struggle Of An African Child

The Chief"s wife was about to go out when they drove in. There was no limit to her joy the moment she saw her husband; the joy of seeing him (because he had been away for days) was so immense that she did not notice the presence of Sam when she was hugging her husband, meanwhile Sam was exploring the compound, trying to catch the glorious vista that surrounded him. Sam looked and saw them pointing towards him. He could hear them talking, but it was not clear to him what they were discussing. Pointing at Sam, the wife asked,

"Honey, who is the young boy over there?"

Holding her hand they walked towards the young boy. Chief said,

"Oh! The young man…"

"Wait, the wife interrupted, looking thoughtful as she was trying to recollect the incident that happened a few weeks ago. "No, it"s him, he"s the one," the wife said, pointing at the young boy. Chief was surprised, throwing hands in the air with confusion, pulling a wry face, "Who?" he asked.

"He was the one I was telling you about," the wife said. The Chief was still confused. "Did what?" the Chief asked.

Sam was embarra.s.sed when the Chief"s wife walked closer to him. The Chief tried to protect him; with a wry smile he said,

"No! I don"t think you have seen him before. You must be mistaken him for someone else; if you go around the world you will see at least four people who resemble you."

"I"m pretty sure he was the one I told you about." The wife retorted still looking thoughtful.

"But you can see that the young boy is coming from the village." Chief replied.

"Did you just say village?" She asked.

Chief nodded in affirmation. "Then he must be the one. I told you he"s the one." She added. Sam was still trying to recollect where he met the woman but he could not remember. His good deed in the village seven weeks ago was about to pay him. "Can someone tell me what is happening here?" Chief asked. But when he saw his wife was looking excited, he was relieved because he was thinking of how he would handle the situation if what the wife wanted to unveil would lead to sending Sam back to the village.

"Honey, you remember the boy I told you about that saved me from the hand of the robbers who wanted to s.n.a.t.c.h my car weeks ago in the village?" the wife said; that was when it occurred to him that a little boy saved his wife sometimes ago. It happened that Chief"s wife travelled to village, she told her driver to take her to her grandmother"s house in the neighboring village where Sam and other laborers were working.

Being the custom of the laborers to eat bread with beans cake, they were working one day when Sam decided to go and buy bread and beans cake. After buying bread, he waited for the beans cake because it was not ready then. As he was waiting he heard some people speaking French.

They were the foreigners who came from one of the African countries to fix tiles in one of the buildings around. When one of those men saw the Chief"s wife he alerted the others. They believed that n.o.body understood French in that village; they started discussing how they would rob Chief"s wife.

While they were talking they did not know that Sam was listening to them because he understood French. He quickly ran after the woman and told her what he heard; he advised her to look for any available route to get out of that village because the hoodlum planned to wait for her at the lonely path of the village that even if one is crying for help no one would come out to help. Chief"s wife called her driver who parked some distance to come and pick her and that was how she escaped.

Sam did not wait as he was also running for his life because if those people had found out what he did, they might hurt him. Chief"s wife did not remember to give Sam money for appreciation; it was when they had gone out of the village that it dawned on her she did not give him anything. Sam had forgotten the incident; it was when Chief"s wife was saying it that he remembered.

"What a small world." Chief said.

The atmosphere was becoming lively and the story getting more interesting as the boy who saved the Chief"s wife in the faraway village of five hundred miles away was standing right in his house.

"How did you manage to understand French?" Chief asked. Filled with smiles that paved his way to the heart of any,

"I learned it when I was going to school, and my father lived in Cameroun for years before finally coming back. He speaks it fluently and it helped me a lot to master it."

Still looking amazed, his glamorous face was filled with the smile that gladdened the heart of everybody. His heart of gold with hard work did not only take him to the palace but to his world. Within some minutes, the gateman was done with unloading the luggage. Chief"s wife took Sam by the hand to show him his room. Sam grimaced when she showed him his room.

"Wow! What a cozy, s.p.a.cious room." Sam said to himself.

He needed someone to tell him he was not dreaming. Living in such a gigantic house, having his own room was an imagination yesterday when he was still hawking, but today he was no more living in the imagination but in the reality. He was very astonished to hear he would be sleeping in the room that was well furnished.

As far as he could understand, television were kept in the sitting room where all the members of the house gathered to watch, and as long as the father was present, everybody watched what the father was only interested in watching, even if the program was not an interesting one, one cannot protest; in fact one would be happy that he watched television regardless of the program.

In the poor homes where a family managed to buy television, there was no room for watching cartoon because children would not expect an elderly man to be watching cartoon with them; the only television Sam"s father could afford was 14 inches, but in the Chief"s house, Sam had television in his room; he could wash what he wanted to wash. It was not the old model one, but plasma TV.

Sam was back again in township, not as a street boy or one raised in the ghetto, but as a boy who came to fulfill destiny. What life robbed him in the street, G.o.d gave him back in the palace. Sam"s room was big and airy, it also had a fitted wardrobe. All the rooms in the building had their separate toilet and bathroom; Sam did not need to go outside his room before taking his bathe, neither did he shared it with anybody as they used to do in the village or line-up to use a toilet in the ghetto where almost twenty people used one toilet. Sam was still admiring the beauty of the room when he had a knock on his door,

"A minute please" he said,

Sam quickly dressed up and when he opened the door he saw a young lady standing who introduced herself as the Chef. "Just to let you know that your food is…"

When the Chef noticed that Sam was still putting on the same clothes he wore when they arrived she believed he had not showered.

"…oh, I can see you have not taken your bathe…" the Chef said.

Sam nodded in confirmation to her guess,

"…it"s all right, just take your time to do that and when you are through, come to the dinning room."

The Chef said and left. Sam quietly closed the door and went straight to the bathroom. Carefully examining the Jacuzzi, he wasn"t sure if it was what he would handle because he had not seen such before, he quickly left to call the Chef for a.s.sistance. She put him through.

"Any other thing?" She said.

"No, for now" Sam grinned and replied.

"Ok, should you need my help, don"t hesitate to let me know." She added. "Ok, aunty, I will." Sam said and started taking his bathe when the Chef left.

Sometimes Sam would be wondering if he was dreaming because he never believed life would later be fair to him. When he finished bathing, he went to the kitchen when he noticed the Chef was there.

Sighting him, she asked, "Are you through?" "Yes," Sam replied. The Chef was washing plates by then, she collected the white ap.r.o.n that was hanging on the door to dry her wet hands; she told Sam to follow her to the dinning room. She served him and Sam was so happy the way the Chef treated him.

He was still eating when the Chief"s wife went to the refrigerator to take an apple, she noticed that Sam was wearing shabby cloth; she told Sam that the Chef would take him shopping the next day. They later went and when they came back, he was ordered to get rid of the shabby clothes since they had been replaced with the new ones.

Seeing how brilliant Sam was, they took him to one of the best school so that he would have a good education. Chief and his wife were not the type that believed that since one was not their biological child he would be taken to public school whereas they send their own children to the best school. When Sam finished secondary school, his intelligence earned him a scholarship to study abroad.
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Sam was still in contact with Chief when he was studying abroad. Sam never believed there would be light at the end of the tunnel when he was hawking, but he kept going. When life gave him thousand reasons to quit trying, he did not give up and that was when life decided to hold candle for him to walk in the darkness.

When he graduated, he came back to the country and was offered a job in the multinational company; a driver was a.s.signed to him. He lived at the best city of his choice. All his bills were taken care of by the company. As someone who had experienced poverty, Sam knew what it meant to be hungry, thirsty and homeless because he had been there before, he decided to run a foundation that helped and supported the less privileged.

There was one secret he learned from the Chief, Sam discovered that the secret of Chief"s greatness was helping the poor and the less privileged and so he adopted it. He understood that it gave Chief joy helping people and so Sam saw the att.i.tude worthy of emulation.

Sam knew if not because of Chief and his wife, he would not attain to the level he found himself in life. Sam wondered if Chief"s parents were poor before he later made it because it takes one who has pa.s.sed through a difficult situation to know the pain. Chief was the kind of person who saw people"s problems as his personal problem. Sam learned a lot of good things from him.

Sam was a selfless person from his childhood and staying with Chief made him to be more sacrificial. He believed if the rich men could help the poor that a lot of destinies would be saved. Sam knew that a lot of destinies were wasting in the streets because they had no helper; he extended a hand of fellowship to anyone who came across him.

Sam later became a wealthy man who delivered his family from poverty. He was a hand that wiped people"s tears, an eraser that cleaned other"s mistake, and the pencil that drew people"s joy. He believed that no matter what one is pa.s.sing through in life, he will still make it if he did not give up.