Ice pops — a commodity that changed my life!
After a hectic day at school, I always rushed home with a spirit of preparedness to hastily change and turn to the second major phase of my daily weekday routine. Having taken off my uniform and put on casual clothes, I would rush straight to the kitchen to pack the ice pops that were made the previous day by my mum and stored in the fridge; then set off to hawk the ice pops at the local market. The latter was part of my daily endeavors from Monday to Saturday.
My house was just twenty minutes walk away from the local market in my community. From Monday to Saturday the market is busy as ever. Everyone was in a hurry. It always seemed the population of the whole country clustered in that one market. From all the four corners of the market, there is the hustle and bustle; every trader was hustling to make a living. You can hear the sporadic outburst of market women calling customers. Most distinctively I would always hear Mammy Mbalu constantly screaming “me padi cam buy me fish nor” and a random kid repeatedly shouting “pure water two for 500.” With this marketing strategy, every hawker drew the attention of customers to their merchandise. I was no different from the kid with the pure water.
Selling foodstuffs and other commodities at the market was not an easy thing. There were days when business was booming whereas; there were days wherein I had to motivate myself by saying “tomorrow will be better than today.” In spite of the rise and fall trend of sales traders experienced, they always returned the next day energized with optimism and belief that God will make the dark day seem bright. While senior women and teenagers were all over the place inviting customers to their merchandise, there was I, a ten-year-old, selling ice pops at one of the busiest markets in Freetown, the capital of West Africa’s coastal nation — Sierra Leone. At that time, most kids my age would be at home studying or playing. Especially for the boys, they would be all around the neighborhood playing football while the girls help their mothers to cook. What a patriarchal society I found myself in. Had I not been selling at the market, I would have been home studying and cooking rice for the house so that when my mother returned from the market, she would cook the sauce which we would eat in the evening as a family.
Notwithstanding that, I had to be in the marketplace hawking ice pops to give my little contribution for my mum to take care of my siblings and me. I had the seed of servant leadership cultivated in me, and I became responsible at a very tender age. Moreover, I got the opportunity to explore my innovative and entrepreneurial potential from a very young age.
Unlike other kids who had to only worry about playing with dolls and hanging out with friends, I had to worry about staying in school and having enough food to last us the night. These experiences of my childhood slowly transitioned my personality from a stage of childish thinking and behavior to maturity. From all this, I learned and concluded that the definition of adulthood is responsibility. When you are responsible, you can challenge every obstacle that comes your way because once you accept the fact that you have to take responsibility to change the circumstances around you, it comes with a sense of determination and internal motivation.
The universe responds to the man or woman who refuses to be denied.
As a result of the latter belief, coupled with the experiences I gained from ice pop hawking, I have grown to be a self-reliant and independent woman. God will indeed make a dull day seem bright with faith, hard work, and responsibility.
