Regrets and Excitements: A life for a degree. Part 3

we continue...

I will speak more about my experience with Islam In Focus in the subsequent parts. And my story about Islam in Focus will not be complete without mentioning Khadija Basiru and the children. Lol.

The 1st semester of my level 200 begun and the struggle as a non-resident was resurrected. I mentioned earlier that I lost my residency because Sani left school. Besides, I tried to work things out with the then Mensa Sarbah Hall gmsa Executives to secure a room for me, but it was to no avail. This time around, I was coming from Samsam(a hilly town on the Nsawam road) each morning to campus. Most often, I miss my first class in the morning. Get to campus all tired. At the end of the day, I get home tired as well. It was hectic. During the early weeks, I met a jhs classmate who was a resident. A non- Muslim. I tried to spend some nights at his end but he wasn’t comfortable. So I had to leave and find another space. As at that time, I had also returned to my teaching job which I began immediately after senior high. This time, I was a part-time teacher, using from Wednesday to Friday as a teacher and Mondays and Tuesdays for lectures. Apparently, I just needed a place on campus to spend two nights. The stress was becoming frustrating and disturbing.
It was then I met an old friend, Tawfik Mohammed, we spoke about my situation and he said he will speak to his roommates hoping that they will be comfortable to allow a fifth person to join them. He called later to inform me that some roommates were not too comfortable with it. What we decided to do was that I will just keep my stuff in his room then I manage to find another place to spend the nights. I started with the Mensah sarbah Hall Mosque. When it’s time to sleep, I just leave my phone and money with Tawfic then I move to the Mosque to sleep. The first dawn azan wakes me up and after prayers, I go straight to Tawfic’s room to take my bath and begin my day.

Sleeping in the Mosque was a whole mood chale. On some occasions, I get scared, sit up for a while before forcing myself to sleep. I wake up on other mornings with body aches and mosquito bites. I had to manage through and hope that things get better. Some weeks later when Tawfic’s roommates got used to me, they finally allowed me to join them in the room. I started spending the nights and the days with them. I had more space to concentrate and do more stuff. And the comfort chale, it was finally heartwarming.

Later, Tawfic and I started having conversations on business ideas. How we could start something to survive as students on campus. We continued these conversations with another friend, Muhsin, who was so much into business because he had gathered lots of experience by then. We had conversations on selling eggs and bags of rice on campus to students. We had solid plans but that couldn’t materialize because we didn’t have much capital. We again had conversations on being mobile money merchants on campus because after some observations we realized it was another lucrative venture. We made some preparations for it as early as we could. We managed to get a merchant SIM card. Then we contributed to getting some capital to begin the whole venture. We got a branded mtn table, a plastic chair, and an umbrella. We spotted the forecourt of the Central Cafetaria as a hotspot for the business, hence, we started using the area to capture some attention.

We run the business in shifts depending on our lecture times. Anytime I had lectures, Tawfic will take over and Vice Versa. Muhsin was our senior man, and being a final year student by then, he didn’t really have much time to assist with attending to customers. His presence on the team was also much helpful. The business was getting the attention we hoped for and we were able to make some money from the little we started with. Something funny happened. During those days, I liked one particular lady on campus and after some conversations, we started a relationship.
Funny enough, this lady was shy to come around the business area because she was shy it will be said that her guy was a mobile money vendor. Chale, hustle oooo, and stay away from people who don’t believe in your dream.

To be continued....