Bethrand Chibuike @betty

I remember it like it was yesterday, We were having those annoying electric issues on our street, and I decided to find a way around it. Knowing my friend had lived in a region where there's slightly a notice of their ever steady light flickering, I figured it would be a great solution to go boost up there. I headed over to his place to drop it off so it could get charged up while we dealt with the blackout back home.

After some time, I returned to get my power bank, and to my surprise, I realized it was already full and it hadn’t even been up to two hours yet!
Normally, my power bank, which had a capacity of 50,000 mAh, would take at least five hours to charge using my usual charger. I looked at the charger my friend had used- 120 watts was written boldly on it, replacing its brand name.

The next time I returned to my friend’s place, I noticed that his own power bank had already spoilt; he had no use for the charger anymore. But one thing he didnt do was mention the possibility that his powerbank might have been damaged by the 120 watts charger.

Curious, I decided to take the charger for myself and headed into school where I had concluded to spend some time on my book, and now I could read and also charge even more faster.

Excitedly, I plugged it in and innocently, it started charging my power bank. But to my dismay, the Digital display was showing no sign of life the next minute.
I tried everything personally possible to revitalise the life in it but all was futile.

Today was another practical turmoil. We left home around 8 AM to get to school. We knew it was a practical class, so we had to leave early to ensure we wouldn't miss out on anything.

When we arrived, we realized that the entrance to the practical hall was locked making us contemplate on the probability that the non-academic staff union strike and all that could have played a part.

Well, we waited there for nothing less than 30 minutes until the door was finally unlocked. The manager had shown up, but without supporting staff; we understood without being told that it was because of the strike.

We started off the practical and hoped that without time constraints we would be done quickly.
Surprisingly "in no time turned into hours", it was 5hrs.

Normally, I do not eat breakfast before going to school. It always made me feel uncomfortable and restless each time I tried. Usually prefered to eat in the afternoons on school days. However, this particular morning, a thought crossed my mind that I should get something to eat before heading to school, stubborn me never expected the practical to extend until 5 PM, though so I left with an empty stomach.

It’s saddening, but I challenged myself, I guess.
It’s not that I didn’t have an extra cash to buy food or snacks around; I just figured I could train myself, or rather train my stomach, to adjust to a different system.

(No mind all this oyibo, hunger really wipe me wetin no good today.)

We had a pharmacology practical in school today, and it all started off fine.
It was a long lecture that lasted up to 3hrs straight without break and tiredness was boldly dancing on our faces.

At a particular time, we were grouped and assigned to different tables that was set up with apparatus.

Each group was to identify a leader to carry out the experiments.
Normally, I’m always selected as the group leader, but today I was just feeling tired and not ready to take on leadership.

After much pushing by my teammates and group members, they all cheered my name to take up the apparatus. With a bit of pride, I took up the apparatus, and then I was trying to sip some base into a pipette when suddenly, I swallowed, oh wait I didn't swallow, just received a mouthful good amount of the nonvolatile base.
I was wanted to get annoyed and complain about not wanting to involve myself in the first place, but the loud laughters by group members lured me into joining the laughing battle.

You all still remember the last ASUU strike?
We the students had presumed wrongly that it was only going to last a few weeks, but few weeks turned into months and into several months.

During the third month, my family unarranged talked about how several months had passed and how I had wasted doing nothing beneficial. Mom further suggested that if I was interested in working to earn an extra income rather than just sitting back at home and claiming that I was studying python (something she never understood) on my phone all day, that I could rather get myself busy with something and still make extra money for myself.

I took the night to think about it and the next day, I affirmed to my mom's suggestions and then she also had to reach out to one of our relative working at a foreign charcoal factory within the state.

Well, after some few minutes of negotiation my mother called out informing me that a space was waiting.
The factory work, she said: was going to add to my confidence, experience and the best part, I was going to earn extra income for myself.

The days after, I was set for the journey, leaving behind my smartphone, and anything that could distract my focus.
I went with one of my button phones instead.

After I arrived at the large factory, I met with the relative who showed me around and instructed to always call to his attention whenever I needed anything.

About the factory, there was many things to talk about: bad network, the smokey environments...
everything was just dissatisfying for me but I was kind of uhmm trying to adapt.
Gaining an experience on this field was priority at that moment.

My friend came up to me at school some days ago, looking a bit worried. She asked if I could help her set up a Cash App. She was almost pleading. “I really need it for some transactions, to explain how desperate she was, she was willing to pay any amount to get it done.

At first, I hesitated. I knew Cash App wasn’t officially available in Nigeria, and I knew all about how complicated it might be. But she was pleading too much as if i was her last hope.
She spoke on how she had met soecialist in the field but none arrived at anything useful.
After all the back and forth, I decided to at least see what I could do, so I reached out to a couple of my friends who might know more about it.

After contacting three of them, it became clear that they all found it an impossible task. They lamented about the processes involved in setting up a functional Cash App for someone in Nigeria and if at all it would work after all the stress.
I almost backed out after hearing from my friends, but then I thought, “What could be so tough about it after all?”

I spent the next two hours straight working on it. I read up on the requirements, downloaded all the necessary apps, and configured them one by one. The process felt overwhelming at times, but I was focused.

After a lot of trial and error and mixing all sort of delibrated possibilities and trying to match the recommended settings, I was finally making progress.

After those two hours of intense work, I realized I was about 60% done. I had set up the basic structures for a working Cash App, complete with an active dollar card.
I had to call it a day cos hunger was pressing on my neck.