新媒网 · 跨境数据社区

✍🏾 Once you start healing trauma, your body comes out of fight or flight mode & your body craves a lot of rest & silence 🧘🏾‍♀️ That was my case when I fled from my Father‘s abuse. I was always tired & kept to my self a lot. When I arrived PH City in 2002, I met this Girl called Charity* a day after I arrived. We were both seeking for jobs in a popular club then in GRA. She as a waitress & me as a Singer in the band that performed there on weekends ( I never got the job there) Amongst other job seekers, we were asked to wait outside for the manager so we sat under the shade of a tree waiting to be called. While we waited, Charity & I got talking. I narrated my story of growing up, death, abuse & how I found myself in this city looking for a job as a singer. Charity told me hers too. She was a single mother who left her Village to seek greener pastures. After that day, She gave me her address & asked me to come live with her in Diobu. She was "Squatting“ with a single mother who lived in a shack with her children & a grandchild from her young daughter. She was indeed squatting cos there was barely space in the shack. They woke up at 4am to prep periwinkles for sale. That was the owner of the shack‘s occupation & Charity would help them out. Every morning we would get ready & go job hunting. Breakfast was akara & bread that Charity bought for us. That used to be my only meal for the day. Charity used to have a boyfriend who gave her upkeep money. That was how I was able to feed on akara & bread until one day, Charity told me to follow her somewhere in the slums. When we got there, it was a newly built shack that looked like a self contained house. She told me that the owner of the shack, a man was to be my boyfriend. That he would be giving me 200 naira a day for feeding & that I would live there with him. Inukwa m na arrange marriage 😨 When I refused, I was asked to leave. I had stayed with her for a month & in those weeks, I made some friends in the show business through my job hunting. Cont in comment section 👇🏾 ©️Lilian Engel #RebornByLamili 🦅 __________________ #StoryTelling #StyledByLamili #Suvivor #TheBrandLamili