SNOWFLAKE

very little to experience and you get all your excitement in 'imagination

was playing in the red mud on cold evenings, swimming at the villa

the music, the crowds they pulled, the dancing and several artistic performances, and most especially, the free food! Events lik

ey bored me easily. I always wanted more. Some more excitement. Something that lasted longer and didn't just en

little more enthusiasm. This was because then, the city people filled these events and I liked to meet the city people. I liked to watch them, imagine their life out there in the city, outside these red soils, away from this routine way of li

ry now and then, a new face every time. Unlike here in the village where we were stuck with the same old people, no new addit

s. Those classmates who moved away, when they came visiting always appeared to be better than us. Their English language got better, and they spoke to us in English even though they knew most of us could barely understand or speak any English. Their attitudes annoyed me, b

ned could barely feed us, not to talk about buying new clothes or even paying our school fees. One time, we owed school fees for almost two school years. The school principal had to stop my sister and I from attending school. Luckily, some city man was visiting the village during that period. He came

the stories I had heard, it would be i

and one of the many classmates, who had moved to the city had told me when she came visiting. "Plus, you have to buy a lot of books. For

mostly out of school than in school. How could I survive with eleven subjects, eleven different book

that they paid

room, one parlor. We share toilet with ot

ilet with everybody?"

" She

y of you are t

most of the rooms have families of

d, and you all share one toilet?"

unds, but they never tell you. Look at you oh! If you want to live big in the city, you will just starve. It's not all milk and honey there oh. Life is hard too

they did not even have their own toilet? Here in the village, we lived in our grandparents house which dad had inherited when his parents passed away. The house was

o troop in, Uju's story slowly faded. No, these people could not be sharing one toilet with one million other people. They looked too hallowed to fit into that story. Maybe, the c