AMERICANA'S DIARY IIb: Debts Cleared
When I was young, I remember that my family was a low class one in our society, because we do not have everything handy. If we were in need of anything we would have told our parents for days and at times weeks before such would be provided for us. Our family is not like the family of my friend, Rotey, whose parents were on the high class in the society.
We were taught by our parents not to envy any family and we should not imitate anyone. We were taught of how to be contented with what we have.
This was the estate in which I have been brought up from.
During this time, one of my senior brother’s dreams on a daily basis was leaving our country, he can hardly utter three sentences before saying that, “I know I will not be around with you people for long”.
No one within my nuclear family has gotten to the nation’s international airport before let alone traveled out of our country. Thus, whenever he says this we will chorus “amen”, but we do not know if this could happen neither how this would happen, because of the stories we used to hear about people traveling out. We have been made to believe and of course when we grow up we know that traveling out is not for anyone who comes from low class family. The probability of this happening to him is infinitesimally low. However, if for any reason this comes to pass we know this would be a major break through for the family. This was how we lived, hoping for the best, but not too sure of how it would come to pass.
One day, my brother went and visit his friend and it was there he heard about visa lottery. He alongside with his friends decided to give it a trial. They ran around to source for money for the visa lottery. My brother cannot tell our parents this because they do not believe in something like that, anything lottery to them is a sin, it connotes unseriousness on our path, lazy ones they would say, adding that if these people are not monitored very well they will soon be stealing what do not belong to them. They strongly detest anything called lottery. Having felt their pulse on something like this, and have known their disposition to something like this, he could not raise such up with them, neither could any of us the children raise up such information with them.
We called ourselves together under a tree that is outside our church and sat down there to discuss how we could go about this issue. We couldn’t discuss this in the house, because we were living in a room and parlour and our parents rent a room for us when they see that we are growing up.
Discussing this in that room would not be safe, because “walls also have ears”, through which what we were secretly discussing could get to the ears of our parents and we would not want something like that to happen, we want what we are discussing to remain secret until we succeed there and if we could not succeed no one will blame us, because it is within us, but if our parents were let into it and it fails they would rain blames on us.
When we got to the place, our resolution is to raise money among ourselves to support his dream. Life is a risk, since he wants to take the risk let us support him by risking, our money to assist him in fulfilling this dream.
We all went out and started doing menial jobs, clearing gutters, being a service boy to bricklayers at different construction sites and so on. Because we know what we are after, we put our hearts and beings into this and soon enough the money for the registration got completed.
After getting the money, he with his friends went to the agent in charge of the program and applied for Visa Lottery with the agent in charge. Since we have not carried along our parents in this pursuit, we discipline ourselves not to talk about it near them neither letting them know it. We continued to leave our normal lives at home.
Some people do say they do have dreams before traveling out, but none of us dreamt of this becoming a reality, even one of us who is a regular dreamer did not have a dream about it.
Months after their application, we started hearing from friends that the lists of those who were successful in the visa lottery have been released. My brother was afraid to go to the place because he was thinking may be he would not be among the successful candidates.
One day we talk to him to go to his friend’s house and hear of what happened. On getting to his friend’s place he heard that their agent has not gotten the list. About 48 hours after this, his friend came to him to tell him that their agent has gotten the list that they should go to his place. On getting to their agent’s place the agent helped them to search through the list and it was discovered that it was only my brother that was successful in the bid. He was the only one among his friends who won the visa lottery.
His friends were happy for him, at least there is someone within the center who won it was not a hundred percent failure unlike in some other centers.
After parting with his friend, he came home and broke the news unto us. We were all happy for him. Since he has won the lottery now, we cannot hide his success from our parents. We took the news to them. My father received the news with mixed feelings while my mother received the news with joy.
We were all waiting for what our father would say on this, but our father did not utter a word on it until about 3 days later when he said outside the fact that he did not like playing lottery, but having found out from some people he has discovered that such visa lottery is a way of taking our people to another man’s land to go and suffer there, becoming a second citizen, “why can’t you stay here and make it here or do you think you cannot make it in this country?” he reasoned and asked. Because he felt his son would go and become a second class citizen in another man’s land, he did not want to support this move.
We were not all that surprised to hear that from him, after all we have been anticipating that before.
Our mother however keeps asking on what the next step will be so that she will know what she needs to do to support her son’s success. We were on this listening to our brother to know what it will be the next move.
One day, tides of things changed as our father after visiting one of his friends briefed him of what was happening in his family. His friend was happy for him, he was surprised that his friend could be that happy, because he thought that friend would discourage him, but that friend told him about some people whom he knew whose lives have been transformed because their children won visa lottery, he advised our father to render all the necessary support to his son’s traveling so that he would not lose it.
When our daddy got home and told us what his experience was with his friend, he then asked my brother to know when the time given my brother to leave the country would lapse. When my brother told him, he discovered that time is tight.
Since that day, our father started supporting my brother’s move, my father and my mother started selling everything that they could sell, went and took loans so that my brother would not miss this “golden opportunity”, according to him. This was how my brother’s move received a boost and he left the shores of the country.
After he left, our expectations were high on him, thinking he should be sending things home to us almost immediately, but things were not so. The world has not become a global village as it is today then. Whenever my brother wanted to contact us, he would contact us through the agent that he registered for the visa lottery. This continued for about 24 months. After the expiration of the second year that he has traveled out, what he did was ensuring that the family got a new apartment and telephone was installed into the apartment, for he said communication with the family is important.
It was through this means that he was able to explain to us at length, that for about 11 months there he has no job, but because he has become a citizen of the country through the lottery that he won he has access to free food always. Food is not their problem there he says. It was because of this that I was unable to contact you not that he forgot the family’s labor of love on him.
Our parents told him what they passed through in paying the loans, and that they are yet to balance the loans having worked round the clock all of us to see that we repaid the loans taken for him to leave, but due to meager income and or no income at all in some instances things were extremely difficult. The interest of the loan keeps accumulating, but we know that one day you will remember home, he was told on phone like that.
I never forgot home for once he said, but as you know that relocating to another town is not easy not to talk about relocating to another country he said. In a country where I do not have relatives, it has not been easy. But now that I have secured a small job, I want to assure you that the first thing we shall look into is settling this debt, after which we shall be talking on other aspects. He concluded on phone.
We talked for about three hours on the phone that day because he talked with each and everyone of us one by one asking us of how we were coping in the country.
True to his words, within space of 3 months, the money he sent home cleared all the loans with the interests and the family became free of debts.
After the clearing of the debts, the living standard of the family started changing….
Comments