Tales from the Land of Sapa
I have made it a tradition to write about myself on my birthday, albeit in snippets, till I’m ready for a full autobiography.
I find it quite amusing these days when youths throw around the word ‘sapa’ a slang expression that loosely translates to poverty. Someone who has experienced penury in its full force won’t be on social media discussing it with a ‘Twitter for iPhone’ signature or via the data-consuming TikTok and Instagram platforms. You’re thinking about where your next data subscription will come from? Someone truly in the grasp of sapa won’t even know when their ongoing 3-day hunger-induced fast would end. Life is bleak. You are living the present hopelessly and helplessly, with the assurance that what the future holds is more pangs and further entrenchment in pennilessness.
Memories of the four members of my family sharing a piece of fish remain till this day. You know the middle part, right? We’d first halve it, then the two halves are divided into two again, to give a total of four (quarter fish). Not that we deliberately bought a single piece of fish but that was the irony of being in penury despite living with rich people.
For well over 6 months, I drank stream water with joy despite residing with the commander of water resources for a whole state! The days of hawking kunu and zobo nko? Knowing full well that your family’s livelihood was the business. No sale, no food.
Your classmates would go out during break to buy N10 yoghurt, N10 choki choki, or N30 rice and N10 fish apart from the food they brought from home. Even the students that didn’t come from not-so-well-to-do families could afford yoghurt and choki choki. And then there’s you who only brings food flask to school. In fact, there were days Iya Kola would not cook early in the morning but promise to drop it off with the school gateman later in the morning. Midday, my mama never bring food. Even the gateman would have been waving in the negative from afar after what must have been the 50th time of asking for an update.
When I became the senior boy, my pocket money was N5. Some of my classmates collected up to N200. The average then, though, was about N40-N50. Weekends then for secondary school students were to flaunt expensive wardrobes but then there’s me who would still wear the trousers of the uniform along with a shirt that had been used by two generations before it was passed down to me.
And when it came to the payment of school fees, my name was permanent on the list of defaulters. In fact, before my name was called, I was already out on the queue. Let me shame myself before you shame me.
But then, those were younger years, right? I lost count of how many times it would be either Segun Adebayo or Seyi Sokoya during my time at the Nigerian Tribune that would give me transport fare. Sleeping over at the office became a norm. Not that I loved sleeping in the mosquito-infested newsroom but trekking from work to home would have taken my Leg-edes Benz nothing less than 3 hours!
But then, Gen Z that never runs out of data, uses an attractive smartphone and has enough strength to design memes will still say ‘sapa, you no try oh.’ No let the real sapa hear you oh, cos if you encounter the real one, no be ‘Twitter for iPhone’ you go use talk am.
As I mark another year, may sapa continue to be far away from me. As I don upgrade from quarter fish to four meats on top amala, make e continue to dey increase and not decrease.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, K!
