Methinks this table is one of the best parts of this room because look at me writing three days in a row. Granted, I’m only writing today because my roommate and her friends in the hostel borrowed my phone to take pictures. I refuse to go into the details of how I feel about that, not because I’m confused, but because I know that having conflicting feelings in a scenario like this doesn’t have to mean confusion. So, here I am, holding a pen is right for the first time since God knows when. Amazing! I must say. Although, I do feel terrible about the fact that I’m barely one paragraph in, and my hand already hurts. Jesus! What happens when I have to write page after page in any sociology exam. Then again, The exams are nowhere near – or it’s easier to think that.
I deviated. I was going to tell you about this room. But then, the deviations make a fuller piece. A realer piece. I think I only felt compelled to mention it this time because I’ve made a habit of doing that when I talk to my friends. I’m constantly apologising for turning what could have been a one-minute voice note into five minutes, so I guess it’s become such a habit, I’m even apologising in my work. MY WORK. Where I’m supposed to be as expressive as possible. Though, I realise I really shouldn’t talk too much before I bore you.
And I deleted it again. This time I’m not apologising. I’m just saying how funny I found it. But yes. My room. In my ‘Home Away From Home’. I actually found out just two days ago that that’s the tagline of this place. I was returning from…Jesus Christ knows where, and I looked up at the banner in front of the building. It had the name of the hostel boldly written on it. Maryam hostel. Right underneath, however, was the part I never noticed before. The tagline. There it was, and reading that one phrase put me on a thinking spree. As everything I never really noticed before usually does. I started to wonder, ‘does it really feel like home here?’ So, I started comparing.
The first thing I could think of was the fact that my curfew here is a lot later than my curfew back home. Heck! I might as well not have a curfew here because if I’m ever out late enough that I could miss it, I most likely planned to sleep wherever I was. Back home, I’d have started to panic as soon as it was nearing 6 pm. I’d have started to expect calls. I’d even make them if I didn’t receive them. So, based on that, it doesn’t really feel like home here, but in a way that I like. I wish home would feel like here.
Next, I thought about the fact that I’ve had to start planning food and the likes since I got here, else, I’d starve for a while. Back home, all I have to do is walk to my mother’s shop and tell her I’m hungry. She might tell me what to cook, she might ask me what I want to eat; basically, her reaction isn’t something you can always predict, but she is the constant. I can always go to her and she’d do the thinking for me or we’d do it together. Here, I have to do the thinking alone, prepare or order or go out to get food alone too. Honestly, I’m tired of that. Also, why does food have to be so expensive? I hate it here. By ‘here’, I’m referring to the whole country, by the way. But yes, that’s one more way this place isn’t like home – and it’s a way I definitely don’t like.
Water runs right into my room – well, bathroom – and right into the kitchen here (as long as there’s been power supply to pump it), and that is one wonderful way this place is like my home. It makes me realise I basically suffered in the school hostel last session, but I won’t dwell on that. I like to keep my past, particularly heart wrenching ones like that, behind me.
The matron is absolutely lovable. She knows my name and recognises me even when I have a mask on, and I think it’s the same for most of the other girls that stay here. Now, you’re probably thinking: ‘if she recognises you so well, she’s probably all up in your business.’ Right? Well, wrong. She’s not. Besides the typical ‘Good morning/afternoon/evening’, she never really tries to insert herself into what I do or where I go or when I get back or what I wear and everything else you can think of that would make her unbearable. She’s a mother in the way that she watches over us, asking how we are and what we need, but she’s not like MY mother in all the annoying ways. I probably should elaborate on that, but I won’t. It’s personal.
If your definition of home is clean running water, a roof over your head and a bed, then, maybe, Maryam could really be your ‘Home Away From Home’. You’d have to be a girl, though. And bring your own mattress. But, yeah. It could work. For me, I don’t know if it is home. Heck! I don’t think my home is home, anyway. But, I’ll know when I do find a home, right? I hope so. For now, I guess this works.
I still hate that long walk to the main entrance, though.
©️Erioluwadamiloju
