MORNING DEW

A

lot of teenagers were embarrassed of and by their parents but Priscilla bore this much more than any of her peers. Priscilla, on days the gods decided to smile upon her was a Queen bee in her own right. Part of this was due to the colour of her skin. She was what Nigerians beguilingly call half-caste. Her hair fell over her shoulders in a way African hair isn’t supposed to. And this wasn’t due to the ferocious heat and voluntary torture other African women who coveted straight, softer hair had to subject themselves to. No, it was her blood. The blood of her Italian father it seemed was in a winning streak against the Nigerian genes of her mother in terms of hair and lips. The hair flowed in her veins. And her lips were a carving of love from the moulder Himself. Her nose wasn’t African either. It was hers. Neither flat nor pointed. Hard to categorize. In short, it seemed like Priscilla got the best of both worlds in terms of looks.

The other part was, she was voluptuous in a way that was peculiar to African women or women of African descent. She had well-formed teenage breasts and hips perfectly curved giving the appearance of the figure eight. Lastly, and most importantly, she was intelligent. Not just book smart but also experienced in worldly affairs. She knew what sex was. She knew what drugs were. She knew what men were. She recognized folly her age mates were not naturally equipped to recognize. She knew what literature was. She understood the words of Buchi Emecheta, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Sefi Atta, she read them like scripture. She was immersed in the history of peoples, their struggles and would often quote James Baldwin in the most unexpected circumstances. She isn’t a know it all, it is just that she had read them so well and so often that they had become a part of her.

When a girl at school had gossiped about her and said to the boys in their class that Priscilla had had abortions and often did aristo for her mother who took her to get abortions all the time. Priscilla had confronted her and when the girl started crying she said: “People can cry much easier than they can change, you are a gossip, a busybody and I should have let your shame live with you”

Of course, James Baldwin had not used the statement ‘People can cry much easier than they can change’ to refer to teenage girls who after a pregnancy scare went to their ‘experienced’ friend who together with her ‘aristo’ mom took her to a planned parenthood clinic.

But it was the same in the end. People find it hard to change.

Which is why on days the gods were asleep, Priscilla had her rep dropped. She became the whore in embryo. Asides the fact that she was a stunning beauty at fifteen and was susceptible to envy of other women and unwanted attention of men who were older than her father, she was also the only daughter of a single mother in a big city who also happened to be an Italian returnee.

It was an open secret that Pricilla’s mother, Omotinne had been a lucciole - a firefly in Italy. How that came about Priscilla could never know. Omotinne and her daughter were close in a way that was not generally applauded in their community. They talked about everything except that part of Omotinne’s life. Of course, Omotinne should know that the fact that she doesn’t talk about it does not mean that other people wouldn’t and to her daughter’s hearing. And Priscilla often wondered if her mother was truly who she thought she was. If it was possible for her mother to have changed.

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Omotinne before her sojourn to ‘the abroad’ would have been rejected as an apprentice by any respectable hair stylist. If, however, she found someone who would take her, she would have been one of those people who never got their freedom from their bosses and simply stayed on for so many years and invariably become the boss’ consigliere and supervisor of some sorts. Earned some tips, got married and earned maintenance from their spouse or left work altogether. And in the case of one who is prone to disillusionment, opened shop somewhere close to the boss, blamed the boss for their woes, exaggerated their talent, made money more from gossip than good hair until customers got tired of a hairdresser who always was sure to spit in their hair and do some damage to it. Little burns here and there, skin bumps and traction alopecia from too tight braids that never lasted anyway.

But Omotinne went to the abroad, came back and became a hairstylist even though she wasn’t that talented. Omotinne was more of an entrepreneur than a hairstylist anyway. Omotinne ran a full scale beauty business. She sold hair, hair that shamed minimum wage. She sold hair treatment that didn’t really work, mostly organic because people no longer had faith in chemical mixtures after years of hair breakage, burns and increased Gofundme broadcasts for cancer treatments. She sold creams. Special organic creams that bore “Omotinne” labels. Priscilla was the face of her brand. Her baby pictures were on the products for children. Her current pictures were on the products for young adults. Photo-shopped pictures of her were on the products for older women who wanted to age slower and live wrinkle free till they died.

If only the women who spent so much money buying jars and bottles of these organic products knew they could never look like Priscilla. That it was blood and not aloe vera that made Priscilla look like she did. But it was a good thing. To live a dream. To work so hard like a dog and spend so much to keep looking like a human being. Mixtures of shea butter, honey, aloe vera, turmeric and garlic never harmed anyone. In fact they make you look better but never in the way you think and definitely never in the way you see since mirrors aren’t made for reflection but for remembrance - remembrance of who you were, of who you are, of who you could be.

So Omotinne lived like a queen on a dream - not hers, other people’s dreams. Her dreams had long been stolen.

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Ibadan was fast becoming a shadow of Lagos. The city of yellow and wine cabs was gradually giving way to neon green helmets of corporate sharks. The brown roofs of Ibadan were gradually giving way for more colours in gated estates. More people, more shopping malls, more booze, more taxi services, more corporate organizations and banks and in effect more single career ladies and definitely more stolen dreams. But most importantly, a bigger market for Omotinne’s products.

Omotinne walked into her shop, resplendent in an Ankara wrap top, jeans and Italian loafers. The atmosphere changed from one of languorous ease to a deferent unease. A sales girl with about a dozen faux gold studs on her person rushed forward to take her bag

“Good morning mah”

“Good morning, Kaosara”

Echoes of “Good morning mah” went round the shop.

“Haha fine Aunty Shally, you came to my shop today. I thought we were fighting”

The customer whose hair was being partitioned into tiny bits smiled ‘’Omo-tee I’ve been busy at work ni jare. So I just make my hair with one of those local salons in my neighbourhood. But it didn’t take me long to realise my mistake. Those girls have almost pulled out all the hair on my head with attachment.”

The room laughed.

It was a lie. An expected one. An overused one. The truth was that Aunty Shally was one of those customers Omotinne and her girls called ‘broke wannabes’. They were the women who considered a visit to Omotinne’s place a treat. Aunty Shally had not made her hair in three months. She just went about in wigs Omotinne would not be caught dead in and would never sell.

Hours of yelling at her girls, babysitting spoiled and offended customers, flattering returning customers, cajoling them into buying products they neither needed nor wanted, and at the close of day doing the one thing she truly enjoyed, calculating her profits. That was Omotinne’s life.

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“You are an inspiration to all young women” was the ultimate compliment anyone could pay Omotinne. Such compliments made her glow. It made her eyes smile and her lips see joy. It put a spring in her walk. It straightened her shoulders. These were the words the proprietress of the exclusive private school Priscilla went to had told Omotinne when she invited her to be a speaker at the school’s career day.

Omotinne had been overjoyed to be invited, it meant a lot of things that she had been chosen over other foreign degrees wielding parents. People who had so many letters after their names it was hard to keep up with their education.

“We want a true entrepreneur; an original success story” the principal had said

Omotinne should have known then since she did it so often that the principal was merely working her into accepting the invitation. She would soon regret accepting. Omotinne should have been offended that she was only invited after an Indian expatriate who made millions selling Indian food in Ibadan of all places had cancelled

“So after that yeye guy that sells curry and calls it food cancelled they remembered that they have a true entrepreneur in their school” Omotinne said when telling her friend Uju about the invite. I even heard some board members kicked against it because apparently the source of my money is ‘questionable’.’’ Omotinne did the air quotes.

“Questionable kwa? From those people that don’t know the true meaning of hustle”

“My sister, these people make Harvard degrees look like purewater. They all met money at home na. it’s easy for them to look down on others. If only they know what I have been through to get where I am today. My sister I am already regretting accepting this speech thing sef. The other day Priscilla came home and was doing strong face up and down the whole place. She said her classmates were saying that I did not deserve to speak to them. After all everyone knows that I am an aristo”

“What!!!”

“I kid you not my sister”

“So what did you tell her?”

“I told her to go to bed and think about the good life she has because of me”

“Don’t you think it’s time to have that conversation with your daughter, she is that age when everything leaves an impression.”

Pain enveloped the space between them

“Uju, how do I tell my fifteen-year-old daughter that I let myself walk into a situation like that with my two eyes wide open. That I have lost count of the number of men who have had their way with me. That I know what sex with an animal feels like. That only one kidney is left in me and I do not know what happened to the other. Uju tell me how”

“You can’t let other people tell your story Omoti”

Silence fell, darkness slept.

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The biggest failure of science has to be this: That it cannot tell us where our interactions with other people would lead. Science has given us a lot but that it cannot give us this gift is a shame. How something so far reaching, so powerful can do so many things and fail at this very core is painful. How it can collect our past and predict the future, tell us what we want hear, show us what we want to see, tell us what to buy and where to buy it, tell us when to go out with an umbrella and when to sit still at home in preparation of a disaster but still fail to tell us about the disasters closest to us -People.

If Science had not failed Omotinne, she would have known from the start that Jasper was bad news. Perhaps she knew. She should have known from his bulldog face and eerie presence. She should have known from the gaping holes in his stories but she chose to trust him. To believe him, because that is what all human beings regardless their makeup are good at. Doing something even if it is bad for them.

It is why Omotinne started going out with a man who was 17years older than she was. A man whose act of lovemaking left her sore for days. A man who never paid attention to her needs- at no point whether at the mama put close to his tepid flat where he just ordered whatever he wanted to eat for both of them or whether in bed where he just thrust and thrust until he came and left. A man who had no known blood relatives but so many ‘sisters’. Maybe Omotinne believed they were his sisters since they all looked the same even though they looked nothing like Jasper.

These sisters, they all used to be good looking, jasper was not and he had never been. You could tell when they laughed or smiled but never when they didn’t since something always masked their beauty. Not their makeup. Pain. It always clouded their faces. Especially when they came to Jasper for a favour as they always did and he once again shat on them before rendering whatever help it was they needed at the moment.

Omotinne often wondered why these sisters of his were so dependent on him. They never seemed to be able to do anything on their own. Full grown women they were. Omotinne in particular despised Clara, one of these sisters. She was the most demanding of them all yet the most ungrateful. Omotinne observed with disdain the haughty manner in which she made her demands and the way she never seemed to be able to say thank you. To cap it all the way she looked at Omotinne. With savage glee like Omotinne was going to come upon some misfortune and she would be there to gloat. She did this especially in the presence of other sisters when they cooed about how sexy and hot and pretty Omotinne was.

Omotinne had since lost count of many sisters it was Jasper had. The only thing Jasper seemed to have in common with his sisters was a sojourn abroad. Always somewhere in Europe. They never talked about this but bits of conversation here and there is how Omotinne found this connection. She dismissed it as a traumatic aspect of their lives they didn’t like to talk about because that was what Jasper had told her when she asked him about it. He gave a similarly dismissive response when she asked him how he made his money as well. Something about travel consultancy he had said.

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To be truly Nigerian is to have illusions about Nigeria. To say that Nigeria is a rich country with many poor people because of bad governance. To compare and contrast notes with United States when the only thing we can honestly boast of is a brilliant youth population. To go about the globe with a sense of entitlement and an infectious confidence. To study Nursing and practice as a doctor. To consider lawyers beautiful fixtures and never really a necessity. To want our children to want to study law but to pray against the need of a lawyer. To have a dream to ‘jand’ someday. To celebrate the grant of a visa. To guard the news from bad belles.

Omotinne was no exception. Like many Nigerian youths she merely wanted to get her “useless microbiology degree’’ and travel to abroad. To the United states, or Canada but if not possible anywhere would do. Omotinne was in her third year at the university when she met Jasper. Jasper had told her that she didn’t even need to wait to get her degree as he could easily get her job regardless and even enroll her in school to study Medicine like she always wanted on a full scholarship. She was going to be paid per week about #100 000 for taking care of a rich old woman. Omotinne needn’t worry about the travel expenses, he was going to cover it all as she was his girl. He was even going to travel with her so she needn’t worry about settling in and accommodation as he had a place in the abroad. However, here comes the caveat, she had to go to Italy. Europe was more welcoming of immigrants, Italy even more so.

It was a perfect plan.

In hindsight, Omotinne should have been less trusting of a man like Jasper but she was not in control of her faculties at that period. Love had taken over. To be in love was to be selectively mad. She should not have handed over her papers to him when they got to Italy. She should never have handed over her phone and severed all ties with her friends and relations.

Omotinne sometimes thought she deserved all that happened to her. She had handed her phone over to Jasper because she thought it was a good idea to leave relatives out of her life as they were prone to start making demands. Relatives who never made any meaningful contribution to her life anyway. She was self-made.

‘’Yes, I totally agree with you. You know how our people can be. The moment you land like this they are sending you a list of things you should send home to them. Like as if money grows on tree here.’’

‘’You know you should at least stand on your two feet before you start doing charity. Your travelling was very easy. It doesn’t now mean you should squander the opportunity’’.

‘’Yes o. I don’t know how I would have done all these without you.’’

Then, he fucked her.

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Sometimes reality seems too much like a movie. It is more difficult to live through life when the reality of your existence begins to look like a badly acted movie. A week after their arrival in Italy, Jasper had introduced her to his ‘godmother’. A woman who looked like she fell out of a Lagos pepper soup joint. Bleached skin, gold jewelry all over, fat arms and legs, a sated existence. He had called her Mama Venice and then nothing more had been said about her.

It was not until Jasper left like a thief in the night that Omotinne realized the significance of that meeting. Jasper had left her. Left her to Mama Venice.

“Who do you think you are? So you think your stupid boyfriend paid all that money for you to come here. My dear I paid all the money and it wasn’t for nothing, you are my girl now and you would do as I say. And look at me very well, I will rather destroy an investment than not reap out of it. You can try me.” Mama Venice’s voice was surprisingly thin. That was all Omotinne could think about at the moment.

But that was not her moment of rude awakening. It would come later that week when some men came around to forcefully eject her from the apartment Jasper had put her. And there she was in the middle of a street. Homeless, cold and hopeless. Omotinne realized finally what had happened to her. She had been trafficked. Trafficking was something that happened to the less exposed, the less educated. It was something that happened to desperate people. Not her. Definitely not her type. She was alone in a country five thousand kilometers away from home, had no papers, could not speak the language no money to her name. She had become a statistic. A victim. A deserving victim in some minds.

Omotinne thought about how her Uncle’s wife, Aunty Ijeoma would gloat if she ever found out what happened to Omotinne. The woman she had lived with since her parents died in the middle of a pandemic has never been happy for her. She was the only one in the whole world who thought Omotinne’s travelling was too easy to be true. Her village people had finally caught up with her - until then Omotinne didn’t realise she believed in their efficacy.

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A wise man once said the only constant thing in life is change. But that man forgot about another constant – Pain. Pain is constant but varied. There is a hierarchy of suffering. However, whoever is in charge of the rankings is yet to publish it. So every man carries his pain assuming it’s the worst kind and in the case of a conceited fellow, the best kind. Omotinne arrived at Madam Venice’s doorstep with a lot of baggage and luggage. She arrived with a righteous indignation inflated by educated lower middle class experiences in Nigeria. Her bubble would soon be burst.

The first few weeks of Omotinne’s stay at Madam Venice’s was hell. It didn’t take long for Omotinne to realise that there was no league of the oppressed. Every man was for himself. The other girls had already established a system. There were seven of them in this house. Omotinne observed as the other girls deferred to Amaka.

Amaka was a victim of abuse. Her batterer was life itself. Amaka had been born with a hole in her heart. A condition that would send her parents tumbling down the stairs of poverty. A fact they constantly reminded her of. Amaka had been working as a sales girl at a bar one of Mama Venice’s boys constantly patronized. He didn’t have to work her for too long. She was almost a willing victim. What was she picking in Nigeria anyway? It seemed that the fact that Amaka had had a difficult life prepared her for all the indignities of prostitution, she did her job with a vigour none of the other girls possessed. Coupled with her devil-may-care attitude, she came prepared.

Mama Venice the ever astute business woman recognized the established hierarchy and used it to her advantage. Amaka was her eyes and her ears in the ring. She was the one who knew when a girl was getting tipped extra by clients. She knew when a girl was talking too much to anyone. She knew when a girl was no longer prostituting but now making love.

It also didn’t take long for Omotinne to realise she had had an easy ride in. The other girls initially tried to help her settle in but soon grew impatient when she wouldn’t accept her new life

“You are here crying like a bush baby. No be aeroplane carry you come Italy? What of those of us that crossed the sea and almost died to get here only to start another sufferhead. Do you know how hot a desert is? Have you had to survive on your own urine. How many times were you raped before entering this land. How many people did you watch die of thirst and hunger?”

“My boyfriend tell me say he don help me find house girl work for here. Say the people wey employ me go pay for my visa and everything. I get here na prostitute he dey make me do. Until I pay Madam Venice every kobo wey in use carry me con here with interest.”

“My sister don’t come here and be thinking your own is the worst. Wait till another person opens their mouth. My own brother use me as collateral for moni wey him borrow. When im no pay back, Mama Venice bring me con here to work for the money wey my brother collect. After she don sell my kidney for Libya.”

“Na different way them take carry everybody. Shebi them tell me say with 50k they fit help me arrange travel for Europe and job na in I follow them come”

The other girls laugh

“Na stupidity and greed kill una. How you sef go wan take 50k travel come obodo oyinbo”

“My sister na ignorance”

“Abegi you no dey hear about all these scams for radio and tv. No be ignorance, na greed kill una.”

“We hear the jingles my sister but we hoped that wouldn’t be our portion”

“You that you are here didn’t you hear the jingle abeg madam I-too-know no start today.” Amaka said with a sneer, sending every one of them tumbling down their momentary high horses.

“My own is different.” Omotinne wanted to say to them all. But she didn’t know how it would seem to the other girls who had almost perished on the Mediterranean.

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To be a good Nigerian wife is to expect that you would never fully have your home to yourself. To expect to mother someone you didn’t conceive at some point. To accept that those whom you foster would never appreciate you enough no matter what you do. Aunty Ijeoma was not a good Nigerian wife. She did not expect to start sharing her home with Omotinne within the first year of her marriage to Nosakhare. She definitely wasn’t excited about it. But she took the responsibility up and did it to the best of her ability expecting to be appreciated at some point.

She loved Omotinne as limits of affinity would allow. But it seemed they would never get along. Omotinne resented Ijeoma. Not because of anything Ijeoma ever did but because the whole of Nosakhare’s family was expected to hate her. She was Igbo. She was too educated. She always spoke her mind and out of turn. She made their kinsman wash his own clothes like some wretched bachelor. She made him go pick his own kids from school. She made him clean his children and take care of their needs even after providing money. So they hated her.

The impressionable child that was to be Omotinne was their spy within the household. She gave them all the necessary intel so they knew what to gossip about at the exact time it was relevant. It took a while for Ijeoma to figure it out but when she did whatever affection she had for Omotinne vanished and they lived like strangers ever after. Nosakhare’s family knew when Nosakhare bought a car and gave it up for his wife and children to use only to be jumping buses after Ijeoma ‘bewitched’ him as usual. It did not occur to them that it was only intelligent that the wife and four children used the car while Nosakhare jumped buses. Nosakhare’s family knew Ijeoma put something in her private part to prevent her from getting pregnant again and keeping Nosakhare forever trapped. They knew Nosakhare took care of Ijeoma’s sick mother’s surgery. They always knew. Omotinne always told.

It was Aunty Ijeoma who sounded the alarm. She was the one who kept saying something was fishy about Jasper, about Omotinne’s travelling. She was the one who was labelled a witch who doesn’t want anyone to progress in life. Of course, no one listened to her. Yet her bosom was to be Omotinne’s solace yet again.

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The act of giving oneself for money is just like fine wine. It gets better with time. And like fine wine, more expensive with time. Omotinne soon reached the peak of her career. To be reserved for rich and exclusive clients with strange but manageable fetishes. There was the spoilt rich kid who insisted she shouldn’t take a bath before seeing him and liked to lick her armpit before sex. Omotinne didn’t mind as long as she wasn’t the one doing the licking. There was the college dropout who always wanted her to sing him native songs before they got to it. There was the man who could not get it up without his dog present. Omotinne didn’t have to do with the dog, she no longer did that since she had been promoted. In her early days, Omotinne had seen it all. She had done it all. Diaper bondages, the cuckolding, Omorashi and Coprophilia.

Omotinne had only known one type of sex. One without pleasure. The kind that left a bitter taste in her vagina and shrank her further in a world where she wasn’t that visible. She hated it but she would come to know more, come to endure it and learn to enjoy it because it was the only way to get better. The only way to satisfy clients, the only way to get promoted to the illusion of a better entrapment.

Omotinne now had a room to herself in Mama Venice’s house. Freedom came knocking on the door of this room just when Omotinne was about to resign to fate. If Carlo had visited Mama Venice’s house one month later than he did, Omotinne would never have been free again. Because she would have been completely broken. But as fate would have it he came in when the last thread of her soul was still hanging. Barely holding her up.

Carlo was not a knight in shining armour. He was a broken man, a drunk who liked to talk about how much life has betrayed him. Perhaps that was their connection, that special bond lovers like to talk about - their shared brokenness. Carlo and Omotinne didn’t just have sex. They made love. Strange that her first true act of lovemaking would come from this drunk man who visited brothels too frequently.

He started bringing her little presents because she made him feel excited in a way no one ever does. She made him feel like there was life to be lived until the end came. He also made her feel the same way. He gave her something she lost at the door of Mama Venice’s house – Hope.

That Omotinne would fall pregnant was not surprising, that Omotinne would decide to pick up the phone to call Aunty Ijeoma and damn all the consequences was.

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Freedom has to be the most expensive commodity ever peddled to mankind. In the purchase of freedom something must give. In Omotinne’s case, it was her late parent's property that was sold to raise the money to pay off Madam Venice to buy her freedom or more accurately a semblance of it. One would think that after being paid off, Mama Venice would simply let Omotinne go. But she didn’t just a day before Omotinne was set to leave Mama Venice's house in search of a life outside prostitution, in a series of suspiciously coordinated events, Omotinne was arrested. Her visa had long expired and she was now an illegal immigrant. Omotinne has planned to seek out Carlo, to get a job, possibly marry Carlo, have their baby and start out life again. She was going to start over but not like that, not that easily.

There is something about Nigeria. It always shocks you. No matter how long you've been around or how long you've been away. After 10 years in Italy, Omotinne was back home and what shocked her was not the dirt or noise, ahe expected that, it was the people. Everyone seemed aware, looked aware and full of life. She was beginning to question why she ever felt the need to leave desperately. She was beginning to think life in Nigeria wasn't going to be so bad after all. Hope is always a beautiful thing and a dangerous gift.

No one seemed to take notice of this line of returnees who had no lugggage and were all handcuffed even though they were now in their motherland. Perhaps it was motherland's way of punishing them for leaving her in the first place. After all their details had been taken and they had been "processed" they were free to go.

But to go where?

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National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP)

Omotinne looked up to the signpost almost reverringly. Trying to keep the remainder of the hope Carlos had gifted her. Omotinne had been visiting the agency for the past one month since she arrived. Aunty Ijeoma had told her about a program for people like herself. She had said it with so much pity in her voice that Omotinne resented her for being so concerned. She would not have gone if Aunty Ijeoma had not left money for her on the kitchen counter with a note that said 'please try'. If she had not seen the shame shine in her Uncle's eyes when his friends who usually came over to play draft had seen her and asked whether that was his niece who had been in Obodo Oyinbo for years. So she went.

Omotinne met Uju there. When Omotinne saw Uju she thought of a phrase she has read in a book when reading for pleasure was possible. Ka udo di Ka Ndu di. She rhought Uju personified that phrase. She simply let life be. She did not have the same resigned look all other participants had. She definitely didn't look like she had been through the things that she had been through. She breathed love at every turn. She seemed to be the only one who had actually learnt from the counselling sessions. Uju was the only one of those in her hairdressing training class the government had put in place for "victims of trafficking" to reintegrate them, who wore make up. She was the only one who brought a mannequin to class showing off beautiful styles she had done at home unsupervised. She impressed the trainers and annoyed her classmates. In spite of the fact that the whole class detested her, she went out of her way to be friendly.

At first Uju's friendly overtures irritated Omotinne greatly, but Uju's good spirit was infectious and Omotinne realised she could forget her troubles whenever she was with Uju. They started spending time together and from there what would blossom into a life long friendship emanated.

After weeks of "re-orientation" and "empowerment", pictures were taken, interviews granted and the Nigerian government washed itself off their matter.

"They have been equipped with the necessary skills to make something out of their lives. They would be monitored closely to ensure their progress and development. To prevent them from slipping back into their former lives." The fat man in an undersized shirt and an ugly tie, representing the Governor had said.

But that was exactly what would happen in Omotinne's instance. As well as Uju's.

It is true that the government with the assistance of private individuals and Non governmental Organizations white envelops were given to the "victims". It is true that these envelopes held money. It is true that five thousand Nigerian Naira was given to the over Six hundred members of Omotinne's rehabilitation program cohort. It is true that what was given could not have been capital for any business. Transport fare perhaps?

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"So he gave you 500k just like that?"

"My dear, I kid you not. Today is my last day on the roadside. That was my last aristo"

"Abeg, so because of 500k you will quit your job"

"Uju, I am done with this life. I want to create a better future for my daughter. I will start a business with this money. Uju we have to start thinking of moving forward. We can no longer make excuses. We have to take our lives in our hands"

"Osheyyyyy! Brian Tracy, aspire to perspire"

"Uju, you have started again. I am being serious right now."

"Hm, I hear you my sister".

Everything you need is inside of you

This top the list of the words we hear so often and so much that they do not mean anything at crucial points of our lives. No one could have convinced Omotinne that she could be reborn. That she could edit her story and insert her bits but here she was. She had to see it herself. And until she did, she was just a victim. She could not make that transition to become something different, something less jarring - a survivor.

That she would still have to sleep with men for a living for five years to make that transition after she came to what was supposed to be home was not surprising. That her people and her government shamed her for it was. That she could not get a job was expected after all, twenty percent of Nigerian youths were unemployed and an even greater percentage is underemployed. That she would build a business empire from all this was surprising. That she would live to tell her story was beautiful.

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The room was all ears. Soaking it all up. So she gently pulled it out. She let it all drip like mucus and saliva. Exhausting. But at least she would not bleed to death. She would not die of shame. She had shared that part of her she had buried in her veins and she did not bleed to death.

The audience was as shocked as they were captivated. They had never been this close to the reality of over eleven thousand Nigerians. Trafficking was something they heard about and forgot about. It was something that happened to grredy Nigerians, to them it was something that could never happen to any sane himan being. Omotinne was their mirror. She showed them what they could not see. She let them bleed with the shame of their indifference.

Priscilla continued to weep long after Omotinne had told her their story. The story of their being. The story of how her mother had become made not by herself but because of herself. She was expected to feel pain and shame but she felt joy, relief and pride in her hero. A survivor.

The morning dew had fallen and Omotinne was ready to minister not to be ministered to.

Et ut ministrum non esse ministeree.