An interview: things fall apart

I'm feeling quite tired and I'm having aches all over my body from all the work I did at the fish farm on Sunday. I actually saw it coming and I knew I will end up with aches today, but I'm pretty sure I will feel better before this week runs out.

I was supposed to write an article in the morning when I woke up, but I woke up late! I only had time to just prepare for school, so I postponed writing an article till later in the evening.

I got a couple of topics I could work on but I was thinking of an easy one to write today, then I suddenly remembered an article by Princessbusayo about an interview she watched on YouTube (questions from an interview)

Image credit: Microphone vector created by freepik - www.freepik.com

How was Nigeria back then vs now?

I would say life was a lot simpler back then. I wouldn't want to go further back to before I was born but what I could remember from back then was that the economy was much better than what we have now.

I grew up seeing and using coins, but they slowly lost value and were no longer in use. I remember they were some things I could buy with NGN1 as of then, but these days you can hardly buy anything with even NGN10!

The one that pains me the most is the gradual loss of the Christmas spirit. Before now, you could already smell Christmas coming from a thousand miles away right from September.

As soon as we enter the "ember" months, people have already started discussing about Christmas and some families have already started making plans. You could already start seeing fireworks and the occasional shooting of "banger" by kids (I did that a lot back then).

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But these days what do we have? Most people don't even talk about Christmas until December. I no longer hear Christmas songs, I don't see Christmas decorations and items in market places, and children no longer play with fireworks anymore.

I truly love the way Christmas is celebrated in the Philippines, they start right from September! They have the longest Christmas season in the world and if you think I'm joking, just a quick Google search will clear your doubts 😆

They got it right with naming this season the "BER months". Those of us in Nigeria refer to it as the "ember months", but is there"ember" in October? Nope, just "ber".

what was your first money experience?

My experience is similar to almost everyone's own because our mothers played a fast one on us. I don't know if they all had a meeting and connived to always help us "keep" the money that was gifted to us.

Some of my uncles and aunties used to visit us a lot back then and anytime they are leaving, they always give me and my siblings some money. But after they leave, my mom will convince (or confuse) us to hand the money over to her so she will keep it for us.

When we confront her after a while, she tells us that she has used the money to purchase clothes for us. Seriously mom? I already have lots of clothes and you could have consulted me first before using my money to buy clothes.

We didn't learn our lesson then and we still fall for the same trick next time. Even after we knew what was happening, refusal wasn't an option and defaulters will be spanked 😂

When was the first time you earned money?

I was in senior secondary school when I actually earned some money and I did it online! A friend of mine came to me with a proposal that someone needs news articles submitted to him and he will pay us daily.

We were to submit 10 articles every day and we will earn NGN1000 for them (that was around $5 back then). It seems easy enough, and the person told us we can copy articles from other websites but we must make sure we rewrite them so it looks different.

Well, I did that only once and I gave up 😆 it wasn't what I thought it will be and it was pretty hard to some extent. I got only NGN1000 ($5) from writing 10 news articles (or should I say rewrite).

How has the value of money changed over time?

I will just show you the screenshot of a post I made on noise.cash last week and you will know how bad things have gotten.

The price of canned sardines has doubled! I also saw a post by Princessbusayo where she said she bought a can of Pringles for $2.2, the same pringles I bought for around $1 last year.

I was walking past a local store that sells meat and I noticed that the price of 1kg of turkey is now NGN3000 ($6), It was N2000 two weeks ago ($4). You might think that it's the price in dollars that is changing, but that's not it. Our currency is losing value very fast every day.

Let me explain what I mean; in 2011, $100 was NGN15,500 but 10 years later, the same $100 is now around NGN55,000! So if you were receiving a salary of NGN15,500 in 2011 and it was increased to NGN31,000 in 2021, you weren't upgraded but actually downgraded! From $100 to $56.

what was the first thing you saved for?

If I could remember correctly, it was a mobile phone. I saved up all my allowances and the money that was given to me every day to buy food in school, and then I bought the phone from a friend for about NGN4000 (around $26 back then).

The major saving I did was when I was working in a computer center. My phone got spoilt one day and I didn't have money for a new one, so I went to work at a computer center. I saved up a major part of my salary and bought a new phone after 3 months

Conclusion

All done! At first, I thought this was going to be hard and I wouldn't have much to write about, but ideas started flowing freely as soon as I start. The journey of a thousand miles truly begins with a single step.

Anyone else noticed rusty is on a break? Yeah, I noticed it yesterday but will you let that stop you from churning out beautiful articles? Of course not! Pick up your phone (or keyboard) and keep writing, rusty will come back when you least expect (like a thief in the night 😉).

I invite you all to also try your hands on this interview and you don't have to be a Nigerian to take part in it, you can use the same set of questions to do a version for your country. Well, this is where we part ways for now. Adios 🤗

Thanks for reading

October 4th, 2021