Grandma wasn't financially buoyant enough to provide for my educational needs. Things weren't rosy, she engages in a daily cooking business to make ends meet. She educated me on how life can be with different people and the need to always seek good solutions to survive. I supported her business so much because I know that it was the source of our daily meals and other basic needs. It was only she to cater for all expenses at home, her husband died many years ago when she was pregnant with her last child. So the major thing my grandma is always concerned about was my tuition fee and my exercise books. Every other thing I need like textbooks and other academic materials is a secondary need due to insufficient funds even when it's necessary.
Of course, I understood the situation with my grandma, but as a senior secondary student then, so dedicated to her academics, and who was eager to succeed, I saw the need to purchase the English and Maths textbooks recommended by my teacher and also a Scientific calculator. I told my grandma about my plans on getting these items for my schooling, she wished she could just purchase that for me to save me the stress but there was not even enough money to feed the family well then. So I came up with the plan of going to the forest to get a kind of firewood some people buy in the market. Grandma didn't like this idea of going to the forest, not a tick forest anyway but she wasn't just comfortable with that, however, I promised her that I would be very careful and that she has nothing to worry about.
On the quest for making this money, I left very early in the morning for the forest. I had my cutlass and some local ropes to tie the firewood. Lucky enough for me, I got a good kind of firewood that people loved to buy. I sold it and made #200. I was so much excited. I returned the second day and the third day sold all the firewood and got a total amount of #700 ($1). Then things were very cheap, imagine a dollar 💰 then was able to get the two recommended textbooks I needed with a scientific calculator and I still had a change of #50. My joy knew no bounds that period. My grandma was so proud of me, she shed tears anyway...she felt bad that she couldn't provide "all" that I needed but I assured her that it's not something to bother about, she has thought me to be hardworking and I just did a part of that to raise the money I needed.
I returned to the school the next week with books and the scientific calculator* and felt so much belonged. Imagine seeing almost all my classmates with theirs and I didn't have one. The joy I felt in purchasing these academic materials with my hard-earned money was extraordinary. As I use the materials, I remember the sweat, the scorching sun that hurt me, the long distance I trek, and others 😃, but most importantly, the materials assisted my academics. certainly, the journey of wealth is not an easy peasy one.
This was the very first time I made money and used it to buy something of great value in my life.
This post was inspired by the #hivelearners community contest on the topic titled THE VERY FIRST
