I grew up where I saw women selling themselves every night. Once the street lights come on, you’ll see them walking one after the other to the where the lights shine the brightest. They were like light bugs. They dot around the light as if it’s the light that gives them the energy to do what they do. My mom sold food by the streets at night. I would be next to my mom watching these girls do their business. I spoke to some of them. A few of them became friends and they asked of me whenever they came around to buy stuff. When their dresses were too revealing, my mom would ask me to cover my eyes. I saw her struggle. She didn’t want me there but if I wasn’t, who would help her sell?

My mom was doing life all alone with four kids. I was the eldest. My dad disappeared because he couldn’t stand us. We were more than he bargained for so when push came to shove, he disappeared and never looked back. My uncle, my father’s elder brother was there for us until he too stopped caring for us. I was a child. I didn’t know why he stopped but I remember my mom warning me never to go to my uncle for assistance. She never said why. She said, “Don’t ever step foot in that your uncle’s house. He’s no longer for us.”

When I grew up, I got the whole story from another relative. My uncle wanted to have an affair with my mom but my mom didn’t want to. One day, he nearly raped my mom when she went there for money my uncle had promised her. That was the point my mom felt the danger in associating with my uncle so she decided to cut us off from him. Once he was gone, life was all about suffering. We were four. It wasn’t easy. Mom had to do it all alone.

I dropped out of school four times before I finally completed SHS. I was a smart kid. I would drop out for a year, go back and still kick the ass of the many subjects we were doing. It was hard but Mom tried her best. Before completing SHS, she told me my education would end at SHS because my other siblings also needed to have a bite of education. I wasn’t angry. She had done her best and all I could do was applaud her.

I knew I didn’t want my education to end at SHS. To me it was the starting point so right after SHS, I travelled to live with an aunt who I thought could help me. She was married to a rich man. She could singlehandedly take care of my education and make my life better but she didn’t. Once I was there, she added me to her domestic staff. I swept while the househelp slept. I cooked while her children went to school. I washed while she and her husband remained in bed. I woke up with the rooster but I didn’t crow. I watched it crow to announce the morning but my morning had started long ago.

I went to her husband and pleaded with him to help me go back to school. The man listened to me with interesting eyes and said kind words. He discussed the possibility of me going to school and the conversation I had with him with my aunt and my aunt got angry. “How dare you talk about education? Am I the one who gave birth to you? Don’t you know your mother?”

The relationship was never the same again. I told my mom I wanted to come home. She told me, “There’s nothing here to come for. You’ll suffer when you come. You say you’re suffering there but at least you eat good food and sleep in a beautiful house. It’s better than here so make it work for you there.”

I wanted more than eating good food. I belonged to a beautiful house but wasn’t part of the home the beautiful house provided. One dawn the rooster crowed without me. I was still in bed thinking of what to do next. I was in bed until the sun rose. My aunt came to my room with rage. I was too peaceful that day to allow her rage to get to me. She ranted, insulted and physically held my hand and pulled me out of bed. I got up wearing a smile. I knew the next crow of the rooster wouldn’t meet me in that house. I sauntered around the house until evening when they were sleeping. I parked my things and left the house quietly. I went to live with a friend.

I was so unimportant to them that no one came looking for me. She didn’t even tell my mom I’d left the house. The only thing that was going to miss me was the rooster. It had to do life alone without me. No one would care about the significance of its crow. I was gone for good.

Just as my mom said, there’s suffering everywhere. You have to choose your poison and hope it doesn’t kill you immediately. It was hard to eat at my friend’s house. I got a job at a fuel station. The pay couldn’t even pay for my daily transport to work. I got a job as a waitress. The disrespect and maltreatment from customers and owners were enough to stifle the soul of the Invictus. I went to work with my friend. She was working in a hotel so I went with her to just watch her doing her work. On my first day with her, I saw prostitutes walking the street doing what they do best. It reminded me of my childhood. Those light bugs and how the light gave them energy to do their work. I missed them and missed my childhood.

Before going to bed that night, I’d already chosen the path I was going to walk the next day. Before the street lights came on, I ironed the only dress I thought would look sexy on me. I picked up my friend’s small bag, bought a few condoms with the little I had and walked to the street. My friend looked at me and said, “You look like a nun compared to those girls. Who’ll take you seriously?” I answered, “Watch me.”

So it started. One man a night, two men a day, one for short and one for the whole night. I was only going to do it for a week, raise some money and start something with it. One month later, I was still there, a little light bug growing to become a mother worm. The money was good. It was so easy to make it and since it was easy to get, you easily let go of it. I bought more dresses. I bought drinks. I bought drugs. I was learning the tricks to be able to sleep with more men on a night. Six months later, I was sure I was made for prostitution but it took me too long to discover my call.

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My friend looked at the money I was making and she quit her hotel job to become a light bug. The two of us were unstoppable. We would count our money in the morning and laugh at poverty. By midday, we would be broke again. It turned out, it wasn’t the light that energized these ladies. It was the sense of broke that made them hit the street every night so they could be rich by morning and go broke again by midday.

I sat next to a man in his car who was intrigued by the way I got him to patronize me. He said, “You’re very good at selling. If you can sell yourself this way, then why don’t you consider selling other things too?” I responded, “It’s easy to sell myself because I’m right here and you know what you’ll get immediately you pick me. All other things are hard to sell.” He asked me to give it a try and see. I asked what I should sell and he answered, “Hawk something. Go from office to office and sell to the guys there.”

He gave me an idea. So I started selling things men could buy. Perfume at first. Watches followed. Khakis and then belts. It turned out a lot of men didn’t want to buy what a lady holds in her hand. They rather want the hand that holds the item. Those I liked, I gave myself to them and they became boyfriends. Through that job, I met a man old enough to be my dad. He slept with me and decided to keep me for himself alone so he gave me a job. That way, I would be in a cage so he could feed me with grains.

He wasn’t a bad man. Some days I was scared I was going to kill him. He didn’t have the energy but always wanted to go three rounds. I started building my dreams from his pocket so I would be somewhere by the time he finally dies on me. I spoke to him about school and he told me he would fund it. I spoke to him about my friend Aggie and he was ready to help her. Aggie got a job too but she later went back to the street because it was free out there.

God being so good, this man didn’t die so I was able to complete a certificate course that I used to enter the university. He was at my graduation. We took a lot of pictures I couldn’t post because of his family. After the university, I was promoted. I was stable and was ready to start a family and have kids of my own. I set my mom up. My siblings were able to dream a dream because I was there for them.

The man who came into my life was a pastor. He wanted to marry me but my past and who I had become didn’t allow me to marry him. I told him I wasn’t good for him. I begged him to let me be that sheep that got missing out of the hundred. He said, “But Jesus left the ninety-nine to pursue that sheep because it was very important to the flock.”

I followed him to church. It was in that same church that I met Moses. The man who a year and a half later married me. This pastor was the officiating minister of our wedding. He didn’t marry me but married me away to a member of his church.

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Not too long ago, I was a light bug, circling around lights for energy. Today, I’m here writing this story as a testimony to faith, hard choices and what God decides to use his army for. I’ve done a year already in marriage. I get scared of the past often. I’m always tempted to regret my past but without my past, this present wouldn’t be here with me. One bad choice after another led me to who I am today so I can only be grateful for the hand that led me away from who I used to be to who I am today.

—Angie

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