The Changeover

life all the way

A month later, it was Ramat 24th Birthday. Her husband threw her a grand party, Friends were invited and there was so much to wine and dine on. a live musical band was performing on the stage while Jubril sprays new notes of money on his wife as she dances in so much joy and anxiety. she never had a big birthday celebration in the whole of her life.

Ramat lost her parents at a tender age. Her father, while she was 4 and and her mother when she turned 9. Her father had died after a brief illness and there has been a rumour spreading round the village Ramat grew up in, that her mother got possessed by some evil spirits making her to see things in delusions after the death of her father. so many times she would faint at the market place or streets, mumbles gibberish to herself, claims to see someone walking on the roof of houses, houses catching fire or water flooded in her room. Her mental health got greatly destabilized after she lost her husband to the icy hands of death. She mismanaged all the properties her husband left behind and was left to live in abject poverty until she eventually died in her sleep one night. Ramat being the only child of her late parents was taken welfare of by her grandmother.

The old woman had to start a trade because they had nothing to survive on. Ramat would follow her to the river market at dawn to buy fishes from the fishermen. They would wash the fishes, and force them to form in a circular shape by hanging their tails into their mouths, using sticks such as skewers to pin the parts to each other. Some of the fishes were roasted and some were fried in local tuntu palm oil. Her grandmother takes some to the market to sell and leaves some at home for Ramat to hawk once she returns from the village grammar school. This little business puts food on their table but could not run other races of good living for them.

At 13, Ramat was taken to Kada by her neighbor's sister who visits the village every three months. The neighbor had grown sympathy for Ramat, and begged her sister to take ramat to the city of Kada to work and earn a good living. on getting to Kada, Ramat was hired by a woman who owns a restaurant in the heart of Kada. This woman Ramat had worked with, for 10 years before she eventually got married to Jubril.

She never had a fair childhood experience, just like her husband Jubril.