Everyone wants to leave home to seek greener pastures, abandoning the old life behind, abandoning loved ones, friends, and family. Just for a better life. But I ask. "Have you found the land filled with milk and honey?"
Growing up as a child in a place where everyone was happy, the morning sweet breeze, the early crow of a cock, and the bright blue sky, even though we were poor that didn't stop our happiness.
My name is Jide and I'm 23 years old living with my parents in an old inherited hut in the Village. As a young man with so many dreams, but I was limited to achieving them. My environment couldn't offer them to me. I was worried about my future, my little sister's future as well. How will I enroll her into a higher institution? Since I couldn't fully receive Western Education, although I had little education training, but someone in my family have to be educated and bring the good feeling of Western Education home.
Every night, I mulled about these issues. But help wasn't coming. I was helpless, more helpless as my sweet mother fell sick. A sickness our little money couldn't treat, because we didn't have. We kept treating her with local herbs. Still the situation was getting worse.
So one night I remembered a place my friend once told me. A place where he made money. A place out of the village. Out of this predicament. A place called The City. I didn't give a second thought about it, I took my old big black leather bag and packed my clothes, ready to change my problem, ready to leave, ready to face what's out there and to rewrite my story.
The next morning, I took my bag, stepped out of the hut with determination, then approached my parents and little sister. As I broke the news to them. "I'm leaving."
"Son, where to with the bag?" He asked with a curious look.
"Daddy, I'm leaving home, I'm going to find my greener pastures, I'm going to find a place flowing with milk and honey. Father, I'm going to the city."
He shouted furiously and said to me,
"Son, don't be stupid. Life in the city is unpredictable and unbelievable. You don't know anyone there, you could get broken and you are just too young, and you may never find your way."
Then I said to him, "I know why I could get broken, I know why I could get hurt and I know why I could get lost." With tears dropping out of my eyes. I walked towards him, holding his hands alongside my mother's. Then I said to him, "Forgive me, father, but I have to take a chance because I'm already gone so long. So Daddy pray for me, Pray I find my way, pray I never get broken. Forgive me Daddy, but I've to go." Then he prayed for me.
As I was leaving, they wept bitterly but it was for the best.
Five years now and I've not called home, or hear my sweet mother's voice to know how they are coping. So I picked up a paper and my pen to write home because I've found greener pastures.
"Hello, Daddy, how are you doing? I hope my mother is okay. It has been five years and six months now, and I know my little sister is a full-grown woman now.
Daddy, it was true what you said to me, that life in the city is a different world, isn't easy and unbelievable. But I've to struggle to get by every day and could barely find my way. I know life is tough and it takes a lot of determination and hard work to make it. Daddy, it's clear to me now. Forgive me Daddy, but I've to go take a chance, and now I made it. Please tell mother and Sade, I'll come home to take you all. Take care Daddy."
Then I dropped my pen, as I sent the letter to the post office. The thought of home made me smile. Yes, I made it. I said to myself.