During the time of rain, Busayo life was actually so simple and also peaceful.
Every fateful morning, she will wake up in her grandmother house that is in Ilorin. Her grandmother who was actually Mama Tayo will be outside making the hot pap in a very big pot. Busayo can remember vividly well, she will be singing this her old Yoruba song of ancient.
Actually life was really a pattern. Busayo will go to school, come back home to do some households chores and then will go to church on Sundays. Sometimes during the week, she will listen to stories been told by her grandmother every evening under a very big tree that is at the front of their house.
But everything actually the fateful day rain came too early.
It was around July when the rain always come around August. That fateful week, Busayo father who actually live in Lagos send a message through her uncle, Uncle Shina.
"She must come to Lagos to stay with me. She needs to start preparing for her university".
Those words actually felt like a thunder. Very loud and sudden and also unwanted.
Busayo didn't really cry when she heard the message. The last words her Grandma told her when she was about leaving was
"My daughter, always remember who you are no matter where you find yourself in life"
But when she was inside the bus that will take her to Lagos, the rain started and the sky became so dark. She leaned to the window and whisper to herself.
Lagos was not really what she was imagining it to be.
The first challenge she faced was the fact that her father wife didn't welcome her warmly as she was expecting. Her father house didn't smell like a home for her. All the stories, evening talks and even songs she usually enjoyed when was in the village with her grandma was not there.
The majority of her day was spent on household chores, instructions and just cold silence.
Busayo faced her exam and passed the exam. But she was becoming quiet slowly. She really missed her grandma voice, she missed the peace, she missed where she was coming from.
Gradually, she started to forget what it actually felt like to be truly happy.
There was this fateful day when she was actually cleaning the kitchen, she found a hold photo in a book. In that picture, she was still a baby then sitting on a basin of water and behind her in the picture was her grandmother who was clapping and singing.
As she hold the photo, a strange thing happened.
She started feeling the smell of hot pap and smoke also.
Closing her eyes, she saw for the first time in 4-5 months, she heard her grandma voice again.
"My daughter, you carry the roots from where you are coming from. Even if the rain washes away the ground, the rain cannot wash the roots away as it stays deep"
That fateful night, she wrote a short letter by hand. A real letter.
"My dear grandma, I have not forgotten."
After many years, Busayo graduated from the university of Lagos. Searching through the crowd, she saw her father and also her father wife was there. But there was someone in the crowd that she saw that make her burst into tears of joy, it was her grandmother.
Going out to give her graduation speech because she was the best graduating student.
"I want to give this degree to my grandmother who taught me everything about life. She taught me about the power of stories and the beauty of home. She taught me to remember where I come from no matter how the rain fell"
In the time before, there was peace.
In the time after, there was growth.
And between those two times, there was a girl named Busayo, who never forgot where she came from.
She grew up to make her grandmother proud.
