The Little Things That Make Us Smile

‘This is a joke. No, it has to be. Like really, it seriously has to be a joke. This sooo cannot be happening.’ 

‘What’s not happening?’

‘I’ll explain in just a moment’

My Community Development Service group was to carry out HIV counseling and testing exercise on the 9th of February, 2017. I approached the location with anticipation, trying to catch a glimpse of the canopy we had booked and paid for on Tuesday. Vendor was to have it set by 7:30am, when team members were supposed to start arriving, so we could start by 8am. I walked up to the spot to meet the plain empty dusty brown earth that Oluwatobi was standing on. I threw questions at him and his answers brought us back to the reality of the ‘plain empty dusty brown earth’. The vendor wasn’t responding to Oluwatobi’s calls, so we tried with my line. He didn’t respond but later called back, rather ‘flashed’. We called him and his questions started:

‘Eh ehn, how many canopy una want?’

‘HA! At this time? Oga you shouldn’t be asking this when you ought to have set up by now.’

Long story short, the vendor brought the stuff by 8:28am acting like he was doing us a favour. During the wait, other team members arrived. We rejected some broken tables and the canopy for fear of it collapsing. Then he brought out a better one from his truck. After plenty ‘raking’ and pondering at their lack of professionalism or ignorance of the existence of the word, we set up and commenced the exercise. 

Things were going on in order when some men approached. Olasunkanmi immediately moved to usher them to a table, but soon a blank look crossed her features. She motioned to me that the man was deaf and we looked on for some seconds wondering what to do. Then Funmi walked up and started conversing with him in sign language. His face lit up, scratch that, all our faces lit up. Tayo clutched her hands to her chest and kept repeating ‘awwn’ over and over again. Funmi went through the counseling session, he got tested and left. The rest of the exercise went on well and we were off. 

This little moment hasn’t left my mind, because it shadowed every other thing that happened that day. I can still see Funmi’s moving hands, the smiles they produced and the awe of the moment.

It made me smile because we were able to reach out to someone who otherwise might have lost out on a valuable service due to a disability. 

#NYSC #service #proudlyCPET #get_tested #know_your_HIV_status #NYSC_diaries