Life is good, I can make this statement with all certainty because I have seen both sides of it. Hunger, rejection, in want and cried for death which never came but rather I received strength from within when I stopped fighting. Now I live a luxury life doing everything I ever wanted to do.
I will take you to the beginning where it all started, I am Charity Hopson, I was born into a family of four, my father who died when things were very rough, my mum and my younger sister that calls me mum because of our age difference.
We lived in the outskirt of a little community where we had barely enough to eat, but life was peaceful and filled with love. Soon, tragedy struck, dad died and left a huge debt for my mum to pay. I was only 13 years old when these wicked events happened, and we had to move out from the place we once called home because the small house was sold to pay off the debt my late father owed.
The crux of the matter was that I wanted to go school like every other kid but the money was not there and to worsen the situation my mum became fatally could no longer eat the ordinary food, so life became more complex for a 13-year-old girl who barely cannot do anything for herself.
My mum was sick and hungry, my little sister suffered the more because she was barely 3 years. So, confused in that state and there were no family relatives to ask for help. One fateful day, I met a group of older girls and the youngest was 17 years old going to tap latex from the rubber tree and I asked to join them which they refused bluntly so I cried all day long until I met one elder man who showed keen interest in me and wanted to know why I cried, I told him, he laughed and took me to his rubber plantation and taught me how to tap it, for one whole week which was his way of helping me. I began to sell the latex I gathered and got some good monies which I saved some and paid the medical bills of my mum.
Mum recovered but died 2 years later and it made me a complete orphan saddled with the responsibility of taking care of my little sister. I was 15 years old when she died but already, I was among the best rubber tappers in town and was earning some good monies to fend for myself and my sister.
I realized my little sister was doing nothing, so I took some monies I was saving because I still nursed the idea of going to school. From my savings, I opened a little shop for my younger sister where she sold groundnuts, fish and kerosene very close to our house and she grew that little business into one of the mega shops in town and she never went to school because she started making money.
I went to school and was always the biggest and oldest student in my class and finally went to the university where I studied biochemistry and graduated at 35 years old.
I got married at 37 and bore 4 lovely kids. I presently work as the manager of the plastic manufacturing company where I once sold the raw rubber latex.
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