A Dozen Of Dusters.

I didn’t attend chalkboard schools so I was never familiar with how the chalkboard gets cleaned. I attended a whiteboard school and sometimes, we are being taught through the computer projector screen so there was no need to scrub a blackboard.

But my friends, Ngozi, Peace and Janet all attended the Nigerian public schools where they make use of the blackboard so in the evening when we all get back from school, I sneak out of the house to play with my friends and talk to each other about our day at school.

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Make sure that you don’t step out of the house and if you need anything, go to Iya Rilwan’s shop and get back into the house immediately. When I get back, I’ll pay her, that was the warning my mum gave to me before she stepped out for the day, on that sunny Friday.

There was no light, there were no toys to play with because my parents never got me one so I peeped through the window and saw Ngozi and my other friends playing outside.
I was at least happy that my friends are by my window and I’ll talk to them from by the windoe side.

Won’t you come and join us? Ngozi came to the window and asked but I was very scared that my mum was going to come back early and meet me outside. I declined but out of curiosity, I asked to know what they all were doing.

I’ve always seen them play with some Ankara clothes, thread, needles and some socks but my mum never lets me step out of the house so I don’t know what they do with those things.
Finally, I had the chance to ask them what they do with the clothes.

What are you people always doing with those clothes and needle? I’ve seen you guys play with it countless times, as a kid who’s always locked inside the house by her parents, I was naive. I really wanted to know what they all do with the clothes, thread and needle.

We always use it to make money, Ngozi said to me. I didn’t believe at first. How will they make money from ordinary clothes and needles? I would have believed them if I saw a printer there which will make me think that they want to print some money but I was wrong.

How will you use this to make money? Is this what your teachers taught you at school? I asked them until Chidi, one of the boys in my compound showed me an Ankara cloth that’s in form of a form and the edges were sewed already.
I gave it a thought for a minute to sew what that looked like but my head was blank. I couldn’t think about anything.

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How will you guys use this to make money? And you are even making surplus of it. Do you people want to sell it? Also, what’s the name of this cloth you people are wrapping? I asked my street friends. I didn’t even have an idea that it was a duster.

This is a duster. This is what we use to clean our chalkboard at school, Chidi said to me.

How will they use such to clean the board? Then, I learned that when they want to clean the board, they will pour a little amount of water on the foamy part of the cloth and they will use it to clean the board.
It can also be used to clean the whiteboard.

And who is going to buy this from you people? I naively asked.

Some women of course. There are some women who will buy this at the rate of twenty Naira and they will sell at the rate of fifty Naira, Ngozi said.

I didn’t believe but the only way to believe was disobeying my mum by stepping out of the house which she told me not to. My friends had already made a dozen of dusters and they went to a woman’s shop very close to their public school.

My kids, are you done making the dusters? the woman asked them. Chidi brought out the dozen if dusters and handed it over to the woman.

Out of surprise, the woman gave Chidi a sum of two hundred and forty Naira. That was when I believed that these kids like me are actually making ends meet by selling dusters.
When we were going back home, we all bought sweets, biscuits and juice.

Since that day, I sneak out of the house to make dusters with my friends and I’ll use the money to buy sweets.