“Mockery often reveals limitation, not superiority. When people laugh at what they do not understand, it says more about their world than about the person they are laughing at.” In 2022, I travelled back to my hometown for a wedding. While I was at the salon getting my hair done, the ladies attending to me suddenly began laughing loudly and making fun of someone outside. They kept pointing and laughing as if it was the most amusing thing they had seen all day. I usually do not involve myself in public mockery, but this time, curiosity got the better of me. I looked out the door to see what was happening. I saw a very beautiful woman of average build stepping down from a bike. She was wearing a lovely outfit, paired with a beautiful pair of mid-calf boots that matched perfectly. To my surprise, the ladies were laughing at her shoes. I tried to look again, wondering if there was something else they could possibly be laughing at. Then I heard one of them say in our native language, “Loo...
Service, friendship, growth They say life is in stages- I agree. But if I hadn’t passed through the challenges that came with NYSC and made it to this point, I’d probably still be in comatose, asking God “Why me?” Before graduation, my friends; Lucy, Kyen, Melody, and I, discussed where we’d love to be posted for service. We’d done the entire four (technically six) years of university together, so it only made sense to plan to do life after school together, or at least close enough. We compared dreams, and they basically aligned. Little did we know. You know, when you’re in a particular stage of life and preparing for its end, the only logical thing to do is to dream of better, to stay optimistic, because faith, among other things, teaches us to believe that there’s always better ahead. Camp was the experience. I’d attended boarding school and even gone to camp as a junior cadet back in secondary school. I remember an endurance trek we went on one morning that nearly rendered my legs i...