posted 4 hours ago
I traveled on Friday to some family issues that I had to attend to. I found the past week to be unexpectedly busy, and I still had not done the goal that I had set for the week. When I sat in the car on Sunday traveling back home, I could feel my heart racing more and more, and I was driving myself nuts because my inner me was telling me I didn't do my set goal, therefore I wasted a week. It took me a while, but I pulled myself back into the present moment, and I stared at the beautiful trees as we drove past them. Just watching the trees brought some sense of calmness. I had to focus and not to panic, and so I started asking myself a million "why" questions.
"Why did I not complete my task?
Because I had to sell onions.
"Why did I feel like I had to sell onions?
Because I did not want them to rot and also if we can sell all the onions in time for when we share our monthly proceeds from choumollier, we will have more to share amongst ourselves.
Why is it important to have more income by this time?
Because it keeps the available labor interested and more hopeful if they are earning decent amonuts. Once everyone I am working with experiences the idea of why being productive with a variety of products is beneficial, I will not be worried about an incentive to keep my team together. So I did not waste my week doing nothing. I SOLD ONIONS.
I decided to do one task I had put after the business plan on my list, and it's a task which I could do in the car as I traveled. That is writing an email to CAMFED, appealing for them to consider giving my niece a second chance with her scholarship.
When I drafted my to-do list, I put my health first because my greatest responsibility is myself and my well-being, from how I understood self-awareness. One other thing I regard with equal importance is to find time to help anyone within my circle of influence who is more vulnerable than I am in a way that is outside their control. This does not need to be related to my plot project in any way. Everyone is vulnerable in some area of their life, be it emotionally, materially, or spiritually. This bit of finding someone vulnerable is easy for me. It's the thing that dominated my life in the past years, of a selfless lifestyle.
I picked my niece, the one who received a CAMFED scholarship ( I mentioned her in my earlier posts). She finished writing her final exams this month and when I taught her during her first term break, I discovered that, because she had moved a lot during her secondary level, and had been in and out of school so many times as a result of lack of school fees payment, she was not at the same level as her peers, knowledge wise. It is sometimes impossible to pick up on ideas when one has missed some fundamental building blocks in topics early on in the school syllabus and, as a result, they come off as dull people. Since her scholarship, she was at peace because she had no more school fees issues. But for a real change in her school work, she needed some support with some basics in her subjects. She barely understood english, meaning reading on her own was still a big ask. When I experimented with her on this, teaching her some basic principles in one maths topic, even if it meant going to a level as low as primary, she caught on well and proved to be a very intelligent girl with a strong willed character. When she realised she could catch on things just like everyone else, she started waking up at 3 am. to do her homework. When she went back to her home, we tried online lessons, and it worked for a bit, but the network made it more strenuous than it was productive, and we let this go. She started going to her teachers outside her normal classes to get help, and this too didn't last long because there is so much of a person's free time you can take before you became annoying.
School shields her from ending up in a marriage that she will regret, and as she gains confident in her school work she will also be healing from a series of experiences that made her believe she was not good enough in life. Now that she has written, if she fails to pass her first O-level exams trial, that's it for her, that's why I have decided to write an email to CAMFED, appealing for them to consider her for an A-level scholarship even if she does not make it this time (which seems to be something they do not usually do from what I gathered from my niece). My plan is, if she fails, I can give her classes like I did with my other niece and find a way of paying for her to register to re-write her O-level exams. That way, there won't be any school fees to talk about next year. If she passes the second time around CAMFED can then take her back. What I know is she still needs to be in school and I cannot afford to pay for her school fees, after she finishes and passes her O-level, and writing an email to CAMFED can be the solution.
I finished the email and talked to my niece to find out if she would want to stay in school if there is that option, and I could tell she was so excited at the idea. She told me her aunt from her father's side was going to help her get into a course which will make her start working with dead bodies, something like an undertaker, but she had a different word for it. I am totally against this, I think she has experienced enough dead people in her very little time on earth. She deserves a big break from them.
What's left is for me to get in touch with the people she who were helping her and talk to them first before I can send the email.
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