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It was yesterday; yes yesterday that I had my eyes opened and I saw things in a new perspective. It was actually on a road I had walked several times, I was in the same bus I had taken several times, same bus route, same old, same old, but there was something different, I had my eyes opened.
So you’re asking me what this is all about, I’ll tell you in a moment, just ride with me and make sure I don’t lose you. I need your mind to follow this through. It happened this way…
I was the last passenger that my bus needed to get filled and so I was grateful because it meant I wouldn’t have to wait for thirteen other passengers to fill the next bus. The conductor says go and sit in front, I’d like to sit here. I’m not hanging, well isn’t that what bus conductors do in our part of the world; Nigeria to be precise and especially in Lagos. He was telling me to go and sit on bare wood with no cushion, no backrest…. You’re still wondering what I’m getting at right? Good, that probably means I have your attention and that’s what I need most because I want to speak to that part of you where most people probably never touch.
So I said no, why don’t you go sit there? The guy does not argue with me. I felt justified, I had made my point and that’s all that matters, right? I’m sure someone thinks ‘so what’s wrong with that’? Exactly my point, I saw nothing wrong with it. I was justified.
Then this bus conductor just hangs and starts to collect money, after all how many bus conductors sit in front of the bus? Then as he’s collecting money from the backseat, someone who obviously has traveled this bus route as much as I have and knows him says “so where have you been all these while, it’s been a long time?” And the conductor says “Oh, I went to school.”
“School?” I began to ask inside me, and then I was talking to myself. “If this guy is a conductor and he goes to school, it must mean that he has to do this to finance his education. He’s a struggling person trying to make ends meet.” Oftentimes I have looked at conductors and not seen the human in them, I have treated them like they’re dirt but my orientation was changed. I saw the young man that wants to be successful and is doing all in his power to get there. I began to see the school age children who are bus conductors? Is it their choice? For some of them maybe, but I think a lot of them are victims of circumstance.
Say, have you ever thought about that little boy or girl who hawks “Pure Water” on Eko Bridge when there’s traffic and you’re sitting in you car with Air Condition blowing all over you? And not to forget, you’re going home to your comfortable apartment where no one would disturb you, am I right? And even if you do not have a car now, you’re on your way home, aren’t you? You have a home, how blessed you are, though you’re full of complaints.
Have you every thought about the guy sleeping under the bridge. Maybe if you allow yourself to think deeply, you’ll feel something for them and if you are in a position to do something for them (I’m not telling you to give beggars money, I don’t), you’ll do it. I’m talking about teaching people to fish, not giving them a fish. And if you say I don’t have anything, what about some kindness, some understanding, some sympathy, some love, a smile? What about seeing the person behind that sad face, what about showing some love?
This, my dear friends is what I learnt yesterday!
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Tolulope
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