NB: According to my blog publishing schedule this post on Self-Development should have gone live today.

But I accidentally set the schedule date for yesterday. When I noticed it came online, I quickly unpublished it – and have now just put it back online today Wednesday 13th Feb 2013. Have a good read!

Introduction

Hunger and thirst have no respect for IQ, skills, certifications or other abilities one may have. No one  can survive them. Unless you’re a cyborg or robot. We only differ in terms of how long we can keep going. And that’s why having grit, or developing it can prove useful to you. Indeed, it could save your life! This true story emphatically illustrates the accuracy of the foregoing statement.

Village Assignment Shields Us from Serious Political Unrest

I experienced the need to depend on grit to survive severe physical and psychological trauma during my one year of compulsory National Youth Service in 1993, after graduating from the university.  It all happened in my place of primary assignment: Gulu Vatsa village, in Lapai local government area. Incidentally, I was posted there at my request. I wanted to visit my place of birth –New Bussa (Due to the way things turned out, I was not able to until I left).

There were four other youth corpers who served in the village with me – three guys and a young lady. Our stay in the village coincided with a period of historic sociopolitical unrest tha
t engulfed the country following the cancellation of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections.

At that time, except for occasional lorries bearing belongings of easterners fleeing the north, we saw nothing to indicate the seriousness of the matter. That is except for what we read in newspapers that arrived many days stale.

Things started out well, with all of us resuming teaching jobs in the village’s two schools. I taught mathematics and agriculture in both schools.

Our Monthly Stipends Stop Coming & Tough Times Begin!

However, some months into our stay, something strange happened. We discovered that our monthly stipends normally paid into our individual bank accounts stopped coming in. At first we thought it was just a delay. But the next month the same thing happened. By then we were all low on funds and getting worried.  

But it was difficult to find someone competent to ask. Back then mobile phone technology did not exist in Nigeria. The village lacked electricity access. It was not even connected to the national grid! And there were definitely no land phone lines – talk less of people who owned such devices. Transportation was a dicey matter. By 5 pm, the last car or bus would normally have left the village. Anyone with the intention of leaving would have to be willing to walk many kilometers in the middle of the night. Otherwise finding a place to sleep over till the next morning was always the only sane alternative.

That was not all. Potable water was also not readily available. A water plant reportedly donated by an international NGO had to be put on at specified intervals for villagers to fetch water for drinking and cooking. But petrol to power the generator was not always available.

So this was a real village in every sense. And like any other, living there was tough in certain respects, especially getting access to basic necessities.

The above is just to give you a background picture of the environment that prevailed during the time we had to endure being without money!

Back to Our Missing Monthly Stipend Palavar

In the third month or so, we contributed money so one of us could travel down to the local government headquarters in Lapai. He was to find out why our stipends were not getting to the bank at our end. We all waited with raised hopes. But he returned with no useful findings to report. We were devastated!

But it did not get all bad quickly. If we’d been in the city, things would have gotten painful much faster. The cost of living in the village was very low, as it was home to a tribe/ethnic group (Gwaris) renowned for their farming prowess.  Many farm products like yam and its processed products were thus cheaply available. This greatly helped to prevent little money we had left from running out quickly.

I regularly saw kids as little as 6 years old carrying massive hoes on their shoulders walking briskly to and from the farms daily. The women too. There was food to be had for little money.  

But We Eventually Ran Out – One by One.

The problem was we did not have even the needed little, due to our situation. The young lady amongst us had wisely come with a considerable amount of extra money.  It was her very first time outside Lagos in all of her life. She had nursed misgivings about living amongst people of a different tribe – and who practiced a different religious from hers.

But I’d told her I was born in New Bussa in Niger state. And that a few weeks earlier I’d been warmly welcomed into the Minna home of a friend’s parents on showing them a short note he gave me. “They’re good people” I assured her.  

On hearing that from me as a fellow tribesman, she’d relaxed. When the stipend problem began, she’d posted a letter to her fiancé in Lagos. A few weeks later he arrived to replenish her supplies. As you can imagine, she was not the only one who was happy to see him

Making Ends Meet: I Begin Helping A Village Teacher Make 80m Long Ridges For N100 Per Ridge

It was inevitable that our lady friend would have to periodically bail us out with cooked meals – she was the closest we had to family. We moved in two’s and three’s most times. I cannot be sure how individuals amongst us catered for themselves when they were alone. However, we sometimes visited the homes of other teachers whose wives served us meals. Most of them had heard what happened, and they were most supportive and helpful.

When I exhausted the funds I had, I knew I had to find a way to earn income. Eating in people’s homes all the time was inexcusable. But it was my first time in a village. I did not know where to start.

One day, one of my students came to me with the idea of getting a piece of land. He suggested that I could plant cassava and sell the growing crop before the end of my stay to make some money.(I eventually gave it away for free when leaving)

I agreed and got down to work on it. The land was easily obtained just like he’d told me. At the end of the first day of work however, I realized I’d drained my energy. Since

I had no food at home, that night was terrible for me. My stomach rumbled non stop. I knew if I did not get some food of my own, there was no way I could keep working on my cassava farm.

One day, one of the village teachers showed up on the plot next to mine to work on his farm. After watching him for a while, it occurred to me that I could make some badly needed money by helping him make his ridges.

From the way he handled his massive hoe, it was obvious that he was quite skilled in its use. But I’d noticed that age was telling on him and making his progress difficult.

We discussed and he agreed to pay me N100 for each 80 metre long ridge that I made. I cannot recall how many I eventually made for him. But the first N100 I earned (less than a dollar – imagine that!) was enough to excite me because it afforded me an opportunity to actually go and buy a few foodstuffs that I could cook in my own room.

But what could N100 buy? Not much. And this was where I really learnt the lesson about having grit. All I could buy was white yam flour, palm oil, salt, onions and ground melon.

I bought a lot of the flour, which mixed with hot water turns into a thick white paste that can be rolled into balls.

It’s a popular meal called “Amala lafu” in my part of the country. But the stew I made was more of a tasteless concoction due to the limited ingredients. To me however, it was better than nothing. It felt good to be able to stay in and cook something I could eat on return from the school or farm. How I managed to swallow and keep that funny meal down remains a miracle to me till this day. I simply closed my eyes, and swallowed till I was full – urgh! It gave me the energy I needed to keep teaching long hours and working on the farm in my free time after I was done with the students.

I Pick Up a Foot Infection That Makes Walking A Nightmare

I continued working on the farm in my free time. I worked barefoot. One day, I cut my right foot on a sharp object. Thinking nothing of it, I let it dry off on it’s own once the blood clotted. Little did I know that I’d picked up a serious fungal infection.

And it was so rare and difficult to treat, that it took 6 months of referral from one consultant to another, to find someone who knew how to treat it successfully(i.e after I’d returned to Lagos).

One that would later make the dermatology deparment in the teaching hospital insist on using me as a subject in a medical class. They also made me wait so they could take a picture of my infected foot before my prescription was given to me. That’s how rare the infection was – so if you see any foot in a dermatology textbook out here discussing Tinea Paedis, it could just be mine

Our Missing Payments Show Up!

Eventually, in the fourth month or so, the outstanding payments of our stipends were released in bulk into our accounts. I can no longer recall how the news got to us. Suffice to say that we were relieved.

But for us – especially me – one thing was clear. Having grit had helped me survive prolonged exposure to extreme physical and psychological hardship without suffering any trauma or other emotional setback – especially being my first experience of it.

Final Words: Get Coaching To Defeat Adversity

The above is just one of so many character forming life experiences that I’ve had. All of them have over the years equipped me to help others deal competently with adversity in their lives.

Be it prolonged delays, disappointments, setbacks or outright failure (which in my world we call Temporary Defeat”), I can help you.

Click the following link to learn more about my experience based coaching/consultation