Our daughters are hungry

Our sons are starving

Our babies are sick

Our husbands are angry

The land is bleeding

The air we breathe is bitter

Everywhere around us, there is despair

Sadness settles on young and old like a heavy, dusty cloak

Sheba sees it in the eyes of Halima her neighbour

 who struggles to feed her three children

Halima’s angry husband dropped dead from a heart attack

Sheba had a husband once

But he left to look for work in another town

Well, that is what he told her

She has heard about him – he has another wife and three children

She has not heard from him – not even to ask about the two children he left behind

Sheba does not have a husband

She has her children

She also has her ‘Akara’ which she fries to keep her children fed, in school and a roof over their heads

Sheba sees the drooped shoulders of Ngozi

Who sells vegetables next to her in the market

Every day Ngozi hopes she will make enough to cook a decent meal

So that her hungry daughter will eat

Her starving son will sleep with his belly at least half full

Her sick baby will feel better

And her angry husband will be too tired to raise his fists to her

Sheba sees the anxious look of Bode, the mechanic across the road

He used to be angry

Now he is simply weary

There are hardly any cars to fix anymore

He stopped pricing his services a while ago

He simply tells his customers, ‘Give me what you have’

Then, he will be able to go home and meet his wife’s wary look

Bukky is wary because she does not know what to expect from her weary husband

Sheba watches the hesitant footsteps of Lillian as she passes by

With a vacant look on her face

Sheba is worried about Lillian

She has been like this for a while

Ever since her daughter died giving birth

Her useless son in law did not have enough money to take care of her daughter

Yet, he had enough to marry someone else six months later

God was kind, the baby lived

Yet poor Lillian, who can hardly feed herself

Now has a baby to care for

Okafor her husband should not be going to the farm with his bad leg

He goes anyway

Otherwise, they will starve, be angry or sick

One night Sheba had a dream

She dreamt that she called Halima, Ngozi, Lillian and Bukky to a meeting

In the dream, she said to them, ‘We need to help ourselves. No one is going to help us. No one is here to save us. We should not be hungry. We should not be sick. Our children should not be hopeless. We should not die before our time. I have a little money. Let us do something productive so that we can all benefit. Let us help each other. We have no one else’

It was such a nice dream. There were no arguments, there was no hissing and shouting

They all agreed to help each other

They all had ideas on what they could do

That way they could feed their children

And not have to send their daughters away to work as maids or much worse

Or watch helplessly as their sons run around the bus terminals

They would be able to pay school fees

And pay their rent with money and not their bodies or that of their daughters

They would be able to manage, whether their husbands were dead dead

Or alive but dead

It was such a nice dream

Then Sheba woke up

Alas, it was just a dream

Sheba was in such pain

She thought of how happy the women looked in the dream as they planned

The rare smiles on their faces

Sheba cried when she remembered the hunger, sickness, anger

That was still so real

Yet, Sheba was not prepared to let the dream go

There must have been a reason why she had that dream

She wiped her tears

And took out an old box and searched for the gold chain

 The one her Auntie gave her a few years ago

Her Auntie used to tell her, ‘Whenever you give, you never lack’

When Sheba asked her, ‘what if I have nothing to give?’

Her Aunt would say, ‘there is always something to give’

Sheba took the chain to Musa in the market

He cheated her, but what he gave was enough for what Sheba had dreamt about

She called Halima, Ngozi, Lillian and Bukky

She said to them, ‘We need to help ourselves. No one is going to help us. No one is here to save us. We should not be hungry. We should not be sick. Our children should not be hopeless. We should not die before our time. I have a little money. Let us do something productive so that we can all benefit. Let us help each other. We have no one else’

They all started to cry and thank her. She said to them, ‘Whenever you give, you never lack’.

You all know a Halima, Ngozi, Lillian or Bukky

It could be a Hassan, Chike, Paul or Bode

You know, without being told, that they are hungry, sick, sad and angry

Don’t wait for them to come to you

Be a Sheba

Whenever you give

You never lack

There is always something to give

Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is a Gender Specialist, Policy Advocate and Writer. She is the Founder of Abovewhispers.com, an online community for women. She can be reached at BAF@abovewhispers.com