AMINA

Chapter Three:

The year Amina finished secondary school, the world seemed to stretch wider and colder all at once.

Her classmates spoke of city dreams — “Lagos will change my life,” one said; “I’ll marry rich,” another boasted. But dreams, Amina learned, also had prices.

Her father said there was no money for further schooling. Her mother said a girl’s education ends in the kitchen. And the neighbors whispered that girls like her never went far — that they always ended up with swollen feet and swollen bellies.

Amina smiled through it all. Not because she agreed, but because silence had become her shield.

Every morning, she carried a basin of oranges to the market. The road was long and dusty; sometimes she’d hum softly to herself, songs she remembered from school assemblies. The same voice that once read poems now called out prices:

> “Sweet orange! Three for fifty!”

Sometimes the men at the stalls would laugh.

> “Fine girl like you, what are you doing hawking? You should be in a man’s house!”

She’d force a smile and walk past. There was always that edge of mockery in their voices — as if her value ended with her beauty.

By evening, when the market emptied, she would sit by the stream behind the stalls, dip her feet into the cool water, and whisper to herself:

> “You are not a mistake. You are a seed waiting for rain.”

Those words had become her quiet promise — a thread she held onto each time the world tried to unravel her.

One evening, Aisha, her old friend from school, found her at the market.

> “Amina! Is this what you’re doing now?”

Amina smiled faintly.

> “For now. Until I can do more.”

Aisha’s eyes softened. She was wearing a neat uniform — a trainee nurse.

> “Come with me to the city. There’s a small school there. Maybe you can work and study at the same time.”

Amina looked away. The idea sounded like sunrise — too bright to trust.

But that night, as she lay on her raffia mat, the crickets singing outside her window, she thought about it. The village had given her nothing but scars and lessons. Maybe it was time to go where no one knew her name or her story — where she could choose who she wanted to become.

She whispered her name in the dark.

> “Amina — the one who is cherished.”

Maybe, this time, she would make the meaning come true.

to be continued......

WRITTEN BY UMORU DANIELA JOHN