WHO SAYS WRITERS ARE NOT PREACHERS?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Source: Ted.com

I was hurrying as usual to get home, oblivious even of the sweet breeze swirling round me after enduring a cumulative one hour journey in three stuffy buses, when I heard one of those beckons, "Aunty, come and buy sweet oranges." My usual reaction to calls like this is to pretend as if I didn't hear them and continue on my way. But this one was different- it was a woman's voice, and it had a motherly undertone to it. Nevertheless, oranges are one of the last things I will use my time to eat and my money to buy. So I stopped to politely decline the offer but was met with the weary but smiling face of an elderly woman who hadn't let the hard knocks of life take away the shine off her face. I'd barely opened my mouth to say the words when she said, "My orange sweet. I go give you five for 100 Naira."

And in just that moment, a scene from Chimamanda's Americanah flashed through my mind- Ifemelu opting to buy some fried akara from a hawker who was encouraging her to add it to the food she had already bought and when Obinze asked her why she was buying stuff she didn't need, she said, "Because this is real enterprise.....She's simply selling what she makes." So I thought, why not buy the oranges the woman is offering and make her a little happier? Even if I wouldn't eat it, I'd give them to my little cousins at home.

I'm glad I bought the oranges the woman offered me because buying them increased her turnover for today and made her happy. My little cousins thoroughly enjoyed the oranges and even requested for more, which means the woman just got her business a new customer.

Thank you Chimamanda for that lesson tucked away in a little corner of your new book. And a million thanks to the many writers I have been privileged to read and who have taught me a lot of invaluable things. Daalu!