Skip to main content

Through the Lens of Resilience


Through the Lens of Resilience

Accidents are termed miracles when they end well. My miracle occurred during a storm so severe it made roads impassable, creating a long traffic jam in many parts of town, including where I lived with my aged mother in a house desperately needing a paintbrush. This house, sheltered thirty families, all varying in their degree of disrepair. My mother, with her leathery skin and eyes that could pierce, seeing through souls without judgment.

The flash flood’s fury was somewhat mitigated by a marsh near our home, beyond which lay a forest, the town's unofficial dumpsite of both human and material refuse. I knew the rains were coming; I saw the clouds outside the mosque after my prayer, but I had planned the photo shoot and the YouTube video I watched earlier spurred me on. I kept hearing his voice "If you are 25, you have 25 reasons to fight on".

 Donning a scarf, I grabbed my camera and ventured out, drawn by the toads’ croaks, as I had promised myself to make a gallery for the toad's choir. The noise will also drown my hunger pangs.

Photography, in my town, is for those who missed the bus of life, especially for women. I had stopped sleeping on the same bed with my mom so she wouldn't hear my sobs. Following my sack from the ghetto studio because I took many breaks to pray, I was tempted to drop my camera but I knew nothing else and loved nothing else.

That day, as I stood knee-deep in water, soaking in the rain, photographing toads, Jude, an art patron stranded by the flood, discovered me. This encounter represented more than just a financial breakthrough; holed up in his car he had watched me wading in the muddy waters, for an hour before he called out " I will pay for every picture, no matter how it looks and you will be the official photographer at my gallery"


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

FEBRUARY 27

By Ola Vincent Omotade Aderonke will be my only poem that never ends, For a good woman is but a poem. A genuine poem that comes in blue moon. You are a jewel of purest gold, The smile that never grows old. You are the beauty of the sunset sky, The intricate twinkle of a happy star. You are the keeper of an unborn life, A champion, heroine, a candlelight . You are a budding shoot, evergreen, a colourful sweetness. Your laughter is like the whirlwind of the spirit, it  keeps resounding in the valleys and hills of life and motions. Encircling the hearts of men with magical notions. So now the night of January is past and the day of February is broken Today speaks of this calmness, this brightness,the one you brought. Today carries  messages of heavy words, Words that are pregnant with beauty for you. And with my golden mouth and pen, I wish to celebrate your existence. What joy of a fuller and freer life, have I got if onl...

ÌGBÀ ÈWE (CHILDHOOD DAYS)

By Teslim Opemipo Let our mothers come like harmattan haze and swear by the sacrality of ògún if the roof lying above their fathers' house has never been stoned by a boy in love to walk them out for an evening talk. Let our fathers come like a windy rain and swear by the simplicity of òsun if the path that leads to the village stream has never danced to serenades sang by their soles in chase of maidens with braids so long. Let the elders come like a mid-year harvest and swear by the tranquility of the moon if they've not once tasted the bliss of childhood fermented with the morals of moonlight tales. In our village, childhood is made of water; kinsmen, remember, water is brewed with life and life is the laughter moulded on our lips when we gambol from rivers to trees and to fields painted in the colours of hopping grasses. Brethren, if you hear an elder saying: growing up kills laughter and joy, do not giggle for they once like us tasted the bliss o...

FADING SAPPHIRES

By Ola Vincent Omotade She shouted at me  '' just walk away '' You made my past miserable, you're meant to be forgotten. I tried  to walk gently out of her sight. she then 'whispers'  I hate you ,cheater, devil  she said. Then i knelt down and from my sour mouth,I said "Could me and you with fates conspire,to break this sorry scheme of a thing entire. Cos my glances nowadays are now in glimpse. She looked  at me and replied i give you just five minutes. Then i knew i had to do more of poetry and not planning. So i started this way Clouds and Darkness were round about me. Just like the first time i saw your face. And After your lightning enlightened my world, there was a great race in my heart. The way my heart beats radically still wont Change. so I wept bitterly upon the mountains and upon the Hills and it seems someone is taking me away.. Waters cannot quench our love neither can flood drown it....wait Just mention, e...