CHAPTER FIVE
Back in Sabadu, education was not prioritized; men married multiple
spouses even in obvious poverty-stricken circumstances. Elorm’s family was a family that had a multiplicity of issues and struggles. Men who got married never kept to one wife, those that did broke up at some point.Papa and Mama were separated and the greater part of Elorm’s life
and the lives of his other 6 siblings were shaped by Mama. It is for these and many other reasons that Elorm took it upon himself to change the status quo.
He wanted to be an exception to all the village antecedents. He vowed to
work hard, get established in the city, marry just one wife and stick to her, and educate his own children, if ever he got the means.After a few months, he decided to go back to Nigeria.But past experiences in Isulo,held back his conscience;so Elorm decided to try Benin Republic,
maybe his fortunes would change.
Koutonou – Capital City, Republic of Benin, was the hub of economic
activities in the country, and housed many of the government and
diplomatic services. The streets of the city were congested with beggars,cripples,and lepers; all these dregs of society who harassed people and attacked them just so they could get a few coins for a living, were all over the place.
People, who drove around the streets of the Benin capital, hoped the
traffic lights never turned red as they approach the intersection.
Many others had to make thousands of unplanned diversions to avoid them on a daily basis.Elorm could not imagine himself in the shoes of these calabash-holding beggars, the government of Benin,everybody in the city blamed for mismanaging state resources and not creating jobs for the many citizens.
He had to join the teaming numbers of unemployed young folk, and he
hope that one day in the city, favour would smile at him.Sey was Senegalese, Papio was Togolese, Akratsa and Bambi were Zambians and
then Osa was Nigerian, these were the people he met and lived with in
one apartment upon arrival in the Koutonou.All these guys, had different jobs they did in the capital; some decent,others morally unacceptable. From hand to mouth, he lived, at the city market; he would go and cart
foodstuffs the market women brought from the villages, to the market from the main bus terminal for a fee.
Nine months passed, there was no carving work the whole of the City,
carving was not a thing the people were doing. At the time, there was an
influx of French furniture manufactory in Republic of Benin,and all the
carpenters did was ordinary French furniture for sale.Elorm later found a group of wood workers at the centre of the city,where he carved little designs on French wardrobes and room dividers that had already been made, an invention the Beninois absolutely loved.
Every weekend, six of the guys would go to the Kotonou market to get
foodstuffs. Meat and fish were quite expensive, so meals were generally
light on meat.A range of foods including Akassa-fermented corn dough food, Aloko-fried plantain, and Amiwo-corn dough made from tomato puree and other spices,Beye-roasted peanut cake boiled in oil, Moyo-tomato sauce with onion and pepper Elorm ate during his time in the Benin capital.
As the proverbial “good things come in small packages” would apply, it was in Benin, the least likely of places,that Elorm raised a reasonable
amount of money in 1986.He raised 170 CFA francs over a short period, and quickly decided to come down to Ghana to establish a workshop. With the amount he rented a parcel of land not too far away from the
sea shore from a GA landlord,purchased some wood, iron sheets, and
working tools. Life had now started to take a leap into Elorm’s dream.........to be continued! !
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