CHOICES

The pitiful sight of a dirty young woman who hawked oranges and bananas in the urban town’s motor park was eye catching. A peep into her life showed that her school mother who pretended she loved her misled her into the act in which she ended up off would discover that she is a girl in her late teens but her plight had made her look like a thirty year old woman. Chidinma was her secondary school mate in urban high school but now a student in the University of Nigeria Nsukka made the pitiable revelations to other passengers in a vehicle. After spending the long vacation holiday with her parents where she had been staying and helping her mother in their stall in the market. Chidinma curdled her luggage at the urban car park where she would board a taxi, and as she waited for the taxi to arrive. She saw her former secondary school mate looking tattered. On a second look at the woman hawking oranges and banana in the car park Chidinma screamed aloud oh! Why did she have to end up this way? What park, well, she was too much in a hurry and ended up destroying herself Chidinma told her fellow passengers. Rita was a nice and a respectful girl that doesn’t disobey instructions, in her primary school days, she was very brilliant and keen on her studies and always listens attentively whenever the teacher was teaching or addressing the class. Her parents noticed this good behavior and qualities in her and promised to train her to the university level. In her choice of career then, Rita had said she would like to become a lawyer or a medical doctor. Besides her brilliance her obedience and loyalty, endeared her more of her teacher and parents. After school hours, she would help her mother to do some house hold chores. Thereafter she went to the market to carry home the article which her mother traded on while in primary six, she wrote the entrance examination in to the secondary school like her classmate. At the age of thirteen the following year, Rita entered into class one in the mixed secondary school called urban high school. Not long after, veronica awuzie who was in class three choose Rita as her school daughter. Rita loved and obeyed her school mother and at times visited her in school and at home. The class one student did not discover that his school mother was a bad girl who loved going out with male students. One quiet Saturday afternoon. Veronica’s parents had gone to the market; other neighbors in the compound had gone to their different business. Rita decided to visit her school mother walking down to veronica” house, Rita pushed open the unlocked door of the sitting room and was surprised at what she saw. She saw veronica lying down with a boy on top of her on the sofa and rushed back saying am sorry. Quickly veronica stumbled out of the sitting room and scolded her school daughter saying. What’s wrong with you, Rita?... I taught you to knock on the door before you open it. “I am very sorry mother”, Rita pleaded, veronica stared at her for some time as Rita continued to apologize, at last veronica managed to pet her and said, don’t worry my dear”. A while later, Rita went home but kept thinking of what she saw and thought it was wise to ask her school mother about it . she had been taught by her biological mother and Sunday school teacher that lying down with a man was not only a sin but would negatively affect her future her mother had also told her the first time she saw her menstrual period to keep away from boys and men because a touch of the hand could make her pregnant. Her mother counsel had, lingered in her mind and scared her away from boys and men until she saw her school mother that afternoon. One day she decided to ask veronica why she kept seeing her in the company of boys. He is my friend. How mother? Yes he is my boyfriend. But I was told that it is not good to do such things it is one of the joys of secondary school Rita my dear, I won’t cheat you or can I deceive you” unknown to Rita, this was how some bad mothers deceived their daughters luring them into doing bad things. She ignored her teachers counseling that everything has it right time and that the relationship between male and female students at the stage in their life should only be to learn and study together. This was how Rita took veronica’s story and began to go out with one of the boys in her school. It was not long after this; veronica was driven out of the school for bad behavior. At the beginning of the third term, Rita the brilliant fourteen years old class two student was seen one day crying aloud “oh I am dead ooo my mother told me ooo” what will I do? Rita had become pregnant and when it came to the knowledge of the principal of the school, she and the boy responsible for her pregnancy were driven out of the school and that was the end of their secondary education. The boy became a tout and a wheel barrow boy while Rita was now hawking fruits.” Oh! Rita, you did not make good use of your ears. It is said that if the refuse to hear when it is told when the head would be cutoff, the ear would also follow”