My So Called life

The beginning

• Essay

								
Education is an aspiration and a hope to any child born and bred in an environment of abject
poverty. I came to a world, through a process, which resulted in the loss of my mother,
according to what I was told. As a result, I was raised by my aunt, who later handed me over
to my grandmother at the village with the promise of sending me to school at the city in the
later date. As a young boy and novice in many ways, I later realized, my aunty was a
Fishmonger. Which became my formal employable duty as I arrived at the City. Every
morning, I have to wake up at 4:00 am to find my way to the fishing harbour to secure
baskets of fish that my aunty and I could sell in other to put food on the table. This replaced
my formal education as promised and became my major stream of job, which I serve for the
past seven years. Hence, the issue of education was only a concept I could hear from people’s
conversation, but had no experience of it at then.

I later became a friend to Osman, whose father had a television set, where I began to spend
most of my free time to watch, and enjoy, the playing of basketball games, and deeply fell in
love with basketball through watching videos of Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson 1997
Cross Over. This became an attitude of visiting Osman House to watch a basket-ball game,
after returning from the market, every blessed day.

As my passion for basketball grew, I joined my local community junior basketball team
because I had a desire, to play like Iverson one day. One year later, a new tenant was
welcomed to the neighbourhood with the name Mr. Bakarr and his wife, Mrs. Aminata, who
equally, became friends to my aunt’s and often sent me to deliver food to each other in a
certain time period. Through discussion with Mrs. Aminta, she noticed that I have not yet
started schooling, considering my age at then. She decided to admit me into the community
primary school, where she was serving as a teacher. 

That is where my dreams of playing for
the (7) Sixers Basketball team started fully.
Each day after school, I does engage in community leagues, which represented my district
and region in basketball competitions, while my fish-selling job was ongoing. Though, I was
facing a series of challenges, which resulted in missing certain games. And the challenge was
that in certain days of the week, I will not meet my target of fish sales. As days went by, I
was honoured to become the Captain of the school basketball team, and for the first time, I
did take my school to the competition finals, in the National High School Basketball Event.
Because of my performance, I was granted the opportunity as the youngest among the four
selected players to play at the Nation Division One Competition.

As a young visionary individual, I still believe everyone has the potential to become who and
what they dream of being. I still see Allen Iverson and Michael Jordan in me, however, do
believe that only hard work and commitment can take me to the higher ladder of the NBA's
game. Though my fish-selling career might have ended, but the lessons of waking up at 4:00
am on clock time, still live in me.
As part of my aspiration and goals, is to work towards opening the first Nation Basketball
Academy in my country, Sierra Leone within the West Africa region. With the will to create
a provision to ensure every child, in my village and the cities nearby, will have access to
quality education and engage in a sport of their choice.
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