A Breath of Different Air

Photo credit:african hairstyles

When certain things happen in life, a few people tend to look for answers and even attempt to question God while some others accept the happenings as fate or destiny as the case may be. 

Why do the good girls get the bad men and the bad girls the good ones? This is one question people keep asking and reason many girls from good homes turn into bad girls. They ignorantly think that the bad girl image would land them good men for husbands. 

We often confuse good with naivety and a lot of men have fallen victims for this reason. 

When Audu first met Meso, it was like he had seen an angel, Meso had very bushy virgin hair and her eye brows were yet to be tampered with, they were so thick and wild. It was Meso's first time in the city and she looked nothing like the flashy city girls. She was a breath of different air. 

She had just completed her Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (SSCE) in the middle belt and her cousin who promised to take her to the city fulfilled his promise to her. Meso's cousin Innocent was newly wedded and his wife who was Meso's school mother in secondary school had no problem letting Meso into their home. Aida was Meso's school mother for a year before her parents moved to Abuja following the unrest in their hometown. She had just one year to complete her secondary education then while Meso just joined the school as a class one student. By the time Meso finished her secondary school education, Aida had become a qualified nurse from the School of Nursing in Abuja. 

Meso had the strength of a typical rural girl raised to work very hard physically and so, she worked tirelessly and was thorough in everything that she did. Aida her cousin's wife would often plead with her to rest sometimes but Meso grew up going to the farm and even having to run from intruders on their farmlands  sometimes to save her life and so walking to and fro the market and other errands when necessary was nothing to her. 

She made garri from scratch, also palm oil, coconut and palm kernel oil. She even started to sell the products she made in reasonable quantities to people in the neighbourhood and at a short time she was sending money back home to her mother. 

Meso made the best cassava fufu and whenever she had to prepare pounded yam for the house, she put away the electric yam pounder that Aida used and pounded the yam manually in the mortar instead. It would come out flawless and she usually served it with their traditional okoho soup or egusi soup with fresh pumpkin leaves. 

Whenever Meso cooked, the aroma penetrated the homes of those who shared the same compound and even the next compound. She fried garri processed from the cassava her mother sent from the village in the open space they shared with other residents and afterwards, she would fill up moderately sized plastic bags with garri which she gave to the three families that shared the same compound. Even though Audu was the only unmarried person who lived in the compound he still got his own share of Meso’s largesse. 

Before long, Meso became the toast of all the neighbourhood bachelors. She was beautiful, smart, bold, industrious and the local wildness of her appearance was a major sex appeal that most men could not resist. She made her hair by herself and so it was always different and attractive. Meso was spoiled for choice as different men tried to woo her in various ways. Even some lecherous married men tried their luck with her. Osy got her a brand new phone and Ejiofor the school boy often helped her do the laundry. 

Audu gave her money very often to add to her growing business while Justice once drove her in his car and took her on a tour of Abuja. 

Audu was the neighborhood playboy, known to have broken the hearts of a lot of ladies but he had an advantage over the other guys because he was Innocent’s friend and neighbor. He lived in one of the four three-bedroom bungalows in the compound and had often enjoyed Meso’s delicacies while visiting his friend Innocent. 

Meso also became a favourite of some of the women who were not intimidated by her growing popularity and some even paid her to cook for them or babysit their children; another skill she acquired from helping her mother take care of her younger siblings. The women also envied Aida for having such a relative who helped in keeping her home. 

Innocent encouraged Meso to give Audu a chance and gradually the pair became an item. Meso was only nineteen years old; and so although Audu was ready to make her his wife sooner, she still wanted to go to a tertiary school. She refused to be married until she continued her education. 

Audu worked with the civil service and was also a part-time lecturer in his alma mater, so he guided Meso to gaining admission into the same University. 

He went further by undertaking the responsibility of paying her tuition in school. He officially made his intention known to Meso's family and they were officially engaged while Meso began her academic journey in the school. 

Before Meso, Audu had a significant other but called off his relationship with Aisha his  girlfriend at that time to be with the rural girl from the middle belt.

~the story continues~