MEN ARE NATURAL LABOURERS

Adiguuuuuuuuuun!!!!’ Adigun’s mother screamed from within the room she slept with her family. ‘Haaa this child will kill me’

Adigun rushed out from within a mass of unused concrete blocks initially intended for building but has over the years metamorphosed into different things. For Mama Adigun, it was a good place for drying and spreading. Fish, onions, pepper, clothes, shoes. For Baba Adigun, it was a place to sit with his friends and drink away the frustrations of his life after a long day of labour, occasionally with friends but mostly alone. For Amoo, Adigun’s little brother, it was a place to play hide and seek with his friends. For Adigun it was a place of solitude. A hiding spot. A place where he could sit and disappear within the pages of books he borrowed from friends in school who issued strict return conditions and orders. So Adigun would hide away right in the middle of these blocks and try to read as fast as he could just to beat his deadlines.

But it wasn’t much of a hiding spot since everyone knew where it was and would inevitably come to call him for some mind numbing task or the other. He didn’t have a choice though because their uncompleted mesh of tarpaulin, fired clay and cement blocks didn’t offer that many options. His mother always ‘found’ him.

‘kílònṣe’ ? what are you doing?

‘Mo ń kàwé’. Reading

‘Adigun, your mates are out there hustling and trying to make money for their families, you say you are reading. When do you want to become a responsible man, Adigun? You’re not getting any younger fa.’

‘Maaami, I will become a lawyer that is why I’m reading’

‘Lawyer, Lawyer’ Mama Adigun repeated in a sing song voice.

‘You want to be wearing coat and tie. Adigun, men don’t become lawyers, men are natural labourers’.