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I am Debby, the only child of my father.
They call me "My father's wealth" because I have very similar facial characteristics of my father, same as body mass and walking steps.
When I was young, my father always go to the farm with me.
I thought that it was wise to invest my knowledge and efforts in the building of my father's crop and livestock production business, but that wasn't my calling as things were very difficult for me to handle.
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For him, I was a kind of liability in the crop section of his farmland so he sent me to the livestock field when I got to 11th year of age.
Yeah, I was my father's son that he never had and a daughter which he can't afford to see suffering or begging for food.
While doing whatever my father demanded of me, I was also studying and making good grades in school.
I graduated from the secondary school as the best graduating student, wrote the West African Exams and won a scholarship to study law abroad.
I chose Australia as my preferred country since I have an uncle living there and my wish was immediately granted as if they had a vacancy for me already.
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"My choice, my life."
Those were the words that rang in my mind all through the period of my traveling to Australia.
At first, I was comfortable living my home town and my father was just beside me feeling the emptiness.
For the record, I loss my mother the day I was born and my father has been the only parent that I know. He did everything right and made me to feel complete.
When the plane touched the group, I looked everywhere, just to check if I could see any familiar face, but none was recognisable.
I tried calling the support line given by the scholarship organization, but they weren't answering.
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Damn!
"I've lost my way. I've got to a no man's land at last. I've left everything for nothing"
I kept repeating these words in my mind and not knowing that my current time zone was far different from home.
Yeah, it's about 3:00 am for them and they've gone to bed.
I slept in the reception room of a nearby hotel owned by a Nigerian.
The morning came and I was woken up by many missed calls and text messages from home which some contained the directions of where I should have spent my first night in.
I called Dad through a landline and he was very happy to hear my voice.
To cut the story short, all was fine immediately I secured my accommodation on my third day.
Studies began for all new students after a week of my arrival.
To be honest with you, studying outside of your region or country is very different and difficult. I scaled through my first year very badly because, the language barrier was much.
For sure, I understand English, but not when it's spoken very fast and with less elaborations.
After my first year, I began to get familiar with the way of life and whatever was done in the university.
During my stay, I had one very big challenge which was me not being able to return home during vacations. I really missed Papa and he was getting older by the day. His voice continued to change every single day.
I encouraged myself through his encouraging words and overcame my fears that I may lose him before the completion of my program.
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For me, it was study to return to Nigeria, not knowing that my journey just began in the foreign land.
I successfully completed my stay in the university, came back to Nigeria for my law school.
I finally mate paper in his old age, bought good stuffs for him and his house helps while he blessed me, wished for my blossom days to come as soon as possible.
While I was enjoying the moment of reunion, a call came from my uncle in Australia demanding for my return to the university for an employment as an assistant lecturer in my department.
I looked up and down, wondered why life just want to separate me from my ever loving father.
I cried the tears of joy while telling my father about it. He also shaded tears by the way.
I stayed for some weeks before traveling back to Australia, but promised to be visiting home this time.
This post is an entry to inkwell short story challenge.
I hope you like my story?
Thank you very much for visiting my blog post.
Happy midweek to you.