A FLOWER ABOUT TO BLOOM

With the rains setting in, long-distance farming became a gamble. Eka Atim had a not-too-cheering outcome today.

The sun dimmed, trees reeled and the wind whooshed through leaves. Across the sky, sturdier birds glided leisurely.

The women called one another, carried their loads and hurried along the tracks to the village. Sad though Eka Atim was, a thrill ran through her body as she met a Jeep parked at the front of their mud-walled, iron-roofed house. She thought it could be Godsend.

Ete Atim, her husband, was hesitant about educating their teenage daughter. He'd said educating girls was a sheer waste as they would end up as other men's possession or come home with unwanted pregnancies. He reserved his finances for his four sons.

Though Eka Atim had great dreams for her only daughter, poverty worked against her. But she'd kept praying for that benevolent woman, who had been coming to pick children to train in the city, to find her way to her doorstep soon. The women she knew, who had farmed out their daughters, were always telling her of how well the children were doing, flaunting too gifts they sent them. But all Eka Atim would ask for was for her daughter to be given a little more education.

Ete Atim beckoned pensively to Eka Atim. She joined him and the elegant visitor adorning the wooden bench like a sweet-smelling flower. Eka Atim draped on it like a scorched leaf.

'Recently,' the visitor conversed, showing them pictures in publications, 'a refrigerated truck moved across several states with the men and women at the front telling police they had frozen fish at the back. Then in Lagos, a curious policeman insisted on inspecting the cooler. Guess what? Frozen fish became sixty-seven helpless children!'

Shock ran down spines.

'Whose children?' Eka Atim asked.

'Children from parents ignorant of the grim realities victims of trafficking face. Experience has shown these children would end up slaving away their young lives in hostile homes, factories and brothels.'

'Unthinkable!' Ete Atim exclaimed. 'Are you saying children taken from this village to cities are in similar situations?'

'Of course, yes!' the visitor replied. 'Who would best train a child – the parents or strangers?'

Ete Atim shook his head disbelievingly. 'But we hear of gifts the parents receive.'

'If a business is lucrative, can't I buy you gifts in the name of your child? When last did the child visit home?' There was silence. She resumed: 'For this reason, our organization tries getting across to parents to let them know a child would worth more at home than abroad and more so the girl child. Give them good education and they'd excel in their chosen fields. My father was wise to have sent me to school. With his sons far away and busy with their lives today; I'm the roof, the bread and medication sustaining him.'

Ete Atim nodded contemplatively, turning to look at his daughter leaning on the door frame – a flower about to bloom if given favourable conditions. 'But how do we stop her from becoming pregnant before she becomes an important woman too?'

'It's the self-worth you give her,' the visitor replied. 'Teach her right and she'd live right.'

The rain tapped the roof.

'In every child, girl or boy, is great potential locked within and there's just one key to unlock it,' the woman said as she gazed at the light drops of rain, got up and walked towards her Jeep.

'What's the key?' Ete Atim asked, escorting her.

'Education!' she answered smilingly, climbed into the driver's seat, waved goodbye and closed the door.

Ete Atim stood waving until the Jeep, reversing, reached the path and crawled away – sound and sight lost to the din and grains of the sudden downpour.

THE END