Lost Bag of Advice II

Settling into the hostel was difficult for Caleb who had never been outside the family house, but his roommate, Sylvester wanted to make things easy for Caleb. Sylvester was a 200 level student who carried over almost all the year one courses. That was the exact type of friend Caleb’s uncle had warned him about.

Caleb thought he had everything under control but he was losing an advice one after the other. He started chilling with the big boys. The more he chilled with big boys, the emptier the bag became. He started drinking, smoking and basically living large. He struggled to attend lectures, and when he did, he was bored of the lecturers.

Then he saw Nkechi. Nkechi was his classmate in secondary school. She was a good girl from home. Her father made sure she put on the type of skirts that can sweep the ground. Her mother told her she would get pregnant if a man saw her underwears. At home, no boy could even see her. She was a pastor’s daughter, and her dad was determined to make sure that the myth of pastor’s children being corrupt would not befall him. He doubled up discipline in his house.

But Nkechi, “pastor’s daughter” had become “queen of lamba.” Everything she had bottled up in her father’s house came to the fore in the university. All the outings and late-nights she couldn’t attend, she did all. All the male friends she couldn’t have, she had them all, including Caleb. She felt like an escapee who had to make up for lost time. During one of her nights with Caleb, her mother called and she told her she was at “tarry-night.”

After Nkechi got pregnant, they remembered their bags of advice. Nkechi thought of the shame she would finally bring to her father. She had indeed become the pastor’s daughter her father feared. Caleb, who could barely take care of himself, imagined the burden of providing for another. It seemed as if the world had stopped, but it kept moving.

No matter how turbulent the times are, the watch never stops. So we don’t. Caleb and Nkechi, just like anyone who has made mistakes in life, still have the chance of making something out of life. Keep moving like a PRODA wristwatch.