The Hustle

Posted March 2 2016

He wakes up at 4.00am, it’s automatic and he doesn’t need an alarm clock. It’s his survival instinct at play. Man must go to work or man will suffer. Well suffer less, because it seemed he was already suffering. He ears cocked like an antenna to see if his neighbors generator was on. His neighbor better pass him well well, because his neighbor could afford to leave the generator on all night. Thankfully it was off, as NEPA, PHCN DISCO or whatever they are called usually supplied power at this time of the day. He heaved a sigh of relief because that meant he could iron his shirt at home today, and not in the office like he had to do when the power supply randomized. Clothes ironed, a warm bath, a gentle shove of the wife to wake her up, and before you know it the time was 4.45. He was moving slowly today. He had to leave home before 5.15 to avoid the traffic. He started looking for his socks, that took another five minutes as one leg had wandered off again! He scuttled to the kitchen to pack his breakfast, good old bread, Agege bread, he wondered who sold this one to his wife and smiled.

5.10 am. Not enough time to pray so he hugged daughter and son and dashed out. Car refused to start! That darn mechanic! He assured him everything was fine! After four attempts and some banging on the battery head the car miraculously starts. It’s 5.25am. He knew he was late for work….which was to start at 8am. Everybody was on the road and the traffic had built up. His mind wandered to the work waiting for him at the office. That was tiring as he was working without working so he switched on the car radio to listen to the news. By the time the news and newspaper review were done, the headache had started.

After 3 hours 10 minutes he got to the office…late, clocked in and sat at his desk. The file pile on it had grown bigger since yesterday. When you are late things get dumped on your table and you have more work to do even if it is to reject the unnecessary files. The office day is long, meetings, calls, instructions, dishing instructions, emergency problem solving, a brief laugh here and there, gossip, no break time. Lunch is ordered from the nearby buka 3 wraps of pounded yam with every kind of offal you can imagine….man must chop.

Work officially ends at 5pm but not for him, it extends to 6.30 pm. Refusing to go and hangout at the nearby joint with the boys he decides to go home. Traffic! Hunger in go slow is quenched with gala and the third bottle of Coke of the day. He gets home after another three hours (making a total of 6 hours on the road). Wife and children are already asleep. At 10 pm he eats the fried plaintain prepared for him, shouting at the TV as he watches Arsenal lose again making his blood boil. He plans to iron tomorrow’s shirt as there is light but he falls asleep on the settee at 1120pm, sticky and worn out. A mosquito wakes him up at 1am and he drags himself in the darkness of no light to the bedroom to catch the remaining 3 hours of his now traditional 4 1/2 hours sleep. Tomorrow he will do it again………

The rat race is on and although many of us didn’t run the Lagos marathon we run this race. The heat is on and there is a lot of pressure. We are almost like robots as we are pushed through the day by the commitments we have subscribed to or created for ourselves. In Nigeria we put the pressure on our cars, generators, cookers, fans etc but those are machines and they get worn out easily. Good thing about these is that they can be replaced or patched up with ease. Duplicate plenty, however life no get duplicate. Our bodies are not machines and they have to be handled with care.

#livehealthy

Heavy traffic is seen on the Lagos-Abeokuta expressway in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos