The Day SAPA paid me a Visit

Have you ever been broke before? Have you been at that point where you hungered but all you could do was stare at chicken through a glass because you never had the means to get it? If so, you can relate!!! Happy reads guys!!!

Sapa is a slang word in my country which in English means an extreme state of poverty.

As students in high school, we start out the first week with full cheeks and smiling faces. We progress in this mood till the fourth week and then everything gets tough. Apart from paying departmental fees and other unnecessary dues, the costs of living on campus is enough to make one depressed!!! hahaha! I said so because I have been there before.

So a week ago my roomie hired me to repair his mobile phone, it had screen issues because it fell from the second floor of our hostel. He paid me and off I went to the accessory store to buy what I needed. I fixed it and made some little gains but unknown to me, the Impact which the phone made with the ground made the case curve inwards. Happily, I reached the hostel and gave it to him.

He looked at it and was happy too but at night he came complaining about how the screen I fixed did not rest was on the phone. I realized the curve and warned him about the costs but he gave me a go ahead. With joy, I opened the phone and added some glue to make it stick and then the unimaginable happened!!! the screen got spoilt. I was speechless! In fact I felt dumb for the first time in 2022. I broke the news to him and sadness filled the air. Why were we sad? hahaha! because the remaining amounts in our bank accounts will be used now... how do we feed? how about transportation? this was how Sapa began its journey.

Okay so I kept asking myself "was it my fault or my roomies? or we both contributed?" Yes I guess the third was right because we contributed the money together. I had to make a few calls to raise some money and I had them in my account. The D-day came for me to go again to the accessory store and we were both happy because we have raised the money. I sat in class receiving lecturers from a comedic lecturer and was having the a good time when I checked my G-mail messages and saw a *debit alert. 'Oh my goodness!' I exclaimed in my mind, my account was just wiped empty by someone from some God-knows-where place. Suddenly a flashback of what happened some months ago streamed in. I was robbed then and in the process lost my debit card(which is used to withdraw cash from the ATM). My mood wet sour and I could not participate in the class again. My roomie who was also in the class( because we belonged to the same department ) noticed my mood and began asking questions. I broke the news and two of us went down again in depression. We were really in deep trouble.

The following week, we somehow managed to raise the money and repaired the phone. But at this point we had nothing... literally nothing! It sounds funny but as students the implications were adverse. Sapa was not just at the door anymore it had entered already!

I actually gave this article the title "The pains of a broke man" but I changed it to a more fun title. It was really hard coping at such conditions. We stay in a room with different kinds of people, food, drinks and yet I drank pure water( water sold in sachets in my country) because I had nothing to eat.

God was merciful to me because some friends later came around and helped me rise up because Sapa swept me up my feet ! I also had some petty referral jobs that paid me commissions! whoa!! Sapa goodbye for good!

This is really funny but my main point is no matter what state of bankruptcy you are, never give up! never think of suicide and if you think about it, don't do it because you lost !!! Each day you wake up, there are a plethora of opportunities waiting for you to harness and exit that state.

LEAD IMAGE SOURCE - UNSPLASH FREE IMAGES