DEFEATED NOT - Episode 1

[3 min read]

By TOSINMILE OLA-AMUDA

Waiting was worse than I expected. I had expected it to be sooner and was really excited that I would be out of here by now. I threw out hopes of ever getting a family of my own ages ago and I was utterly shocked and anxious when Miss Bola told me a week before that a family wanted to adopt a girl and having seen the necessary documents especially my medical history, they thought me the best choice. I asked Miss Bola so many questions that she had to send me to the room to keep from questioning her further.

The best choice? What a nice way to frame adoption. I heard other girls talk about how impossible it was to get adopted in Nigeria because of the cultural beliefs. I thought it cruel that they made us watch movies of how children in other parts of the world living in orphanages get their happy endings usually by getting adopted into a nice family. But then, it was as if I was in a movie of my own.

Thinking was what I did best and Miss Bola just helped me delve into that. What would my new family be like? And of all the girls here, why pick me? It was not that I was super pretty or something. I considered myself an exceptionally plain girl with legs too thin to carry my body weight (not that I had a lot), arms too long, I had to always fold them or sometimes they just dangle aimlessly beside me, dark-brown eyes too big for my face, lips too wide and neck too long. The only thing I liked about my body was my hair. Miss Bola told me that I was beautiful in and out and that I would one day see that when I grew into my body. I pretended to take her seriously but I did not of course take her words to heart, she was always saying too many nice things even when it was not necessary. 

There was this time a girl named Bisola had catarrh and had to open her mouth to breathe because her nostrils were completely blocked, she was laughed at so she cried all the time, though I thought it was more from the catarrh than from what the girls said so Miss Bola told her that it was a good thing it happened then because she will not be able to perceive the farts we were all making because we ate beans the day before. I thought it funny because I would rather perceive the smell than let it go to my mouth. But Bisola seemed content and tend to open her mouth wider when we were all covering our noses from the fart produced by someone-usually me.

My mind once again wandered off to what my new family liked? Will they like me? Do they have a dog? I hated dogs based on the fact that most families in the movies I watched had dogs. I wanted a parrot I could train to chat with me. I had learned the hard way to keep to myself because the other girls considered me chatty. Was it wrong to tell them what I thought of all the time? They should have been very glad I shared my thoughts with them. 

My thoughts were focused on the little girls in the movies. Why were they of different skin colour, different hair colour and beautiful eyes of different colour? It is not fair they got all the colours while the dominant colour in my part of world is black or brown. I concluded a long time ago that God is especially mean to people with my skin colour and nothing was going to change my mind.

Watch out for the next part...

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