HER GROWING OCCUPATIONS

The first time I met Asake, she seemed interesting enough – geeky and shy, but fascinating to watch and talk to. It started with a “chance meeting” and one discussion led to another until it doodled on the educational hazards we encountered while growing up. I had expected a tale of pop stars and actresses and wives and mothers but I was treated to a rude awakening that this was no ordinary girl or lady or woman (what’s the deal, by the way, with unmarried females not wanting to be called girls?). So, the following can be called an aspect of her biography penned down by a stenographer (me!).

            According to her, her first would-be job was to be a pastor (or pastress). Shock, I must say was my expression as she doesn’t look like someone bent on going that road to me. She said it was when she was around the age of five or six. Her aunty living with the family at the time was usually with her during the holidays. The aunty made fried sugar coated peanuts which she sold. Asake loved being with her partly because she loved tasting the peanuts for an acceptable level of “sweetness”. The aunty also taught her the times table from two to twelve that was at the back of her notebook. She owed her multiplicative skills to her aunty (and I must confess, she is a genius at anything with numbers and the letters A, B, C, X, Y, Z). Her love for pastoring came alive when every evening she was entertained by this relative with stories from the bible that fascinated her. Infact she still remembered her aunt’s classic line after she had been interrupted and she’s back to resume her story: “so, as I was saying …” Asake smiled a smile of sadness, of missing the old days. Praying and hoping that I was not too forward, I asked her where are aunty was. The distant smile turned to face me, “she is now married with two daughters in her mansion, the last time I checked.” So much for selling peanuts, I didn’t say. Asake said when the aunty (I think her name is Wunmi or Bunmi) or anyone asked what she wanted to be, “pastor” was her petite and short response.

Was I in anticipation of her second growing occupation? Of course I was and my face mask did a pretty good job of not betraying me. My disguised enthusiasm turned to apparent alarm when she recalled that next; she wanted to be a soldier. Okay! I didn’t see that coming. When I asked her why, she indicated that after that aunty had left to marry, the next set of family members to live in her house were her uncles, three of them. At different times, they each bought a gun for her (what about Barbie dolls and tea party parties. I wanted to scream at her uncles, “Men, she’s a girl!”). During a particular holiday, she said, there were four toy guns in her house – the fourth being the one her dad bought with her first video game, the FamilyCom. I knew it was the FamilyCom because she called the console ‘terminator’, and I am a console freak. Her best games on the ‘terminator’ were duck hunt and another – the game gun was used in both. Using her uncles’ guns as bases, she decided she could either be a cowgirl, a policewoman, or a soldier and she opted for the latter. The cowgirl was a no-no because she didn’t have the complete attire (she had only the gun, belt and hat. In my silent opinion, that was enough) and the policewoman story was gone the second that every evening, her extended family would always have complaints and rain abuses on the policemen shown during the news. I just had to ask how many people lived in her house. She counted thirteen and her dad, uncles, and younger twin brothers constituted the male gender in the house. Her dad worked out of town and was home only on weekends; so, during the week, there were 7 females (mom + aunties + cousin + maid) and 5 males. Once at a time, her uncles brought their fiancées to live with them until they were married, beyond which they stayed a few more weeks before disappearing. I could only imagine the size of the house.

What happened to the army dream? It was squashed, literally. The uncle who bought her the toy submachine gun visited them one day and without looking down, crushed the gun she had put at the door entrance while she was playacting one of those her Rambo tales. The other guns also got damaged one way or the other. She later had a Tommy gun and a water gun but the weapon carrying saviour of the defenseless was gone.

            In secondary school, she was a whiz kid and it was automatically imperative for her to go to the science senior class and become a doctor in the future. And so, she decided she wanted to be a practicing pediatrician. Her mom was a nurse – she had lots of support and enough colourful books showing the biology of humans and the chemistry of chemicals. She loved the books and dreamt the dream until she started taking biology in her senior secondary school. Although she had no problems with chemistry, biology was too essay-oriented and notes and notes were written. She even found that physics was more stimulating than boring biology but that could be aided by the fact that she was not a good drawer. The medical doctor vision stayed a reverie as a new one took over – engineering. Her fascination with chemistry, physics, mathematics and technical drawing relegated to the background any liking she had for the human body or life. Aeronautical engineering was the coolest engineering occupation around that time and that was her preference. It was aeronautic love all the way till she wanted to write her JAMB/ UME. There and then, she had second thoughts. Physics was no longer interesting and being called Engineer Asake (husband’s last name) didn’t look so attractive after all. Her father had always hammered that he would love to see one of his children studying economics. Through the exam brochure, she saw that she could do math and geography (relatively simple subjects to her) with economics. Her dad didn’t hesitate to give his blessings and she started yet another career path as an economist. She told me she missed her chemistry and technical drawing but economics still provided her an opportunity to continue her fixation with arithmetic problems.

            And that was how I met her – we were both studying economics in the university. Though it was unsurprising, I was still amazed when she told me her best aspect of economics was the immense and colossal econometrics. Being an econometrician was not completely out of sight for her but it is in parallel with her entrepreneurial ambition. I could only wish her good luck. I hoped she has lots of it. The conversation shifted and it was my turn to begin my chronicle of growing occupations.

Wow! From a pastor to a soldier to a medical doctor to an aeronautic engineer to an economist to an econometrician to an entrepreneur is really a long career path. But it was more than sweet relief for me that a genius like Asake would have problems deciding what to do in the future. So much for my parents’ and teachers’ brain-piercing shouts and ear-splitting screams that I should have already known what I wanted to be at the age of ten! Infact, for their information, I still don’t know what I want to be in the future.