Even though I would be struggling to breathe, I wouldn’t miss witnessing the heartwarming crooked smiles from my old lady as she rolled her tobacco boxer mix on a piece of paper from one of the old newspaper articles I usually got from my mother whenever she visited from the city. Nicely gelling her zol with her saliva and holding on one hand, her green and yellow snuff box covered with her once-was white handkerchief that would be struggling to breathe from the dark brown mucus she occasionally deposited at every blow of her nose.

The snuff did not even affect her much, she had gotten used to it and would not sneeze when smoking it anymore but would order me around with a voice that would be struggling to come out as if she was suffering from sinusitis. She would hold her zol with her lips and try to reach for her snuff-filled handkerchief that would be struggling through her burnt brown fingernails from zol burns, her hands shaking from old age instability and her Alzheimer’s slowly taking over her sight. So she would pin pocket herself till she found it, as though playing with putty, would wonder her hands around it while mushing around the mucus in between her fingers, pieces of snuff peeping through its holes from one side of the handkerchief to the other as if looking for greener pastures, looking for any ‘clean’ space to occupy, later polluting the whole handkerchief, the golden rule for human migration? Leaving familiar environments in a quest to find greener pastures, something different from your situation, freedom?

I had left home looking for further education after I finished high school and things were looking positive for me, for once I felt like my purpose in life was much more than just serving everywhere I went; like cleaning the church, collecting offering or fetching water from the river, doing the dishes, cleaning the house, all because I had to learn chores so I could take care of my husband. All that would be if I worked my back off enough to be taken for a hand in marriage. I already had mixed emotions about going to the city and pursuing my education and nothing else or finding love and bringing a fitted groom home to cut more merit on my grandmother’s scrapbook.

Nonetheless I was filled with joy of leaving the dusty streets of my village to a bigger city so much that I started preparing for it three months in advance. I believed I had to fit in the city life, move with the rhythm of the city and lock the real me away so that no one could tell I was a village girl. I started straightening my curls, practiced walking on high heels, put make up on and learnt the city twang. Not knowing what I was inviting into my life, I felt excited and ready to take on the world. The morning to leave for the city found me wide awake, already dressed, holding my bags and ready to leave, I kissed my granny’s dark lips good bye and quickly reached for a gum I had bought in town and hide it away from my grandmother because she believed ladies should not eat bubble gum. Truth is, I was tired of being a lady, I was tired of the beliefs and I was tired of being told what and what not to do. After all, I was an adult now – or at least I believed I was.

Tell us: How do you think the writer will find life in the city?