{"id":3224,"date":"2025-12-31T17:00:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T17:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/?p=3224"},"modified":"2026-01-02T13:38:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T13:38:05","slug":"he-promised-me-work-in-lagos-na-trap-i-enter-episode-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/hi\/he-promised-me-work-in-lagos-na-trap-i-enter-episode-3\/","title":{"rendered":"He Promised Me Work In Lagos, Na Trap I Enter (EPISODE 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

EPISODE 3 \u2013 When Umunze Turned Their Back on Us<\/strong><\/h2>\n

After my mother\u2019s burial, the house didn\u2019t just become quiet \u2014 it became empty.<\/p>\n

Not the kind of emptiness where nobody lives there, but the kind where people deliberately stay away. The kind where footsteps stop coming. The kind where greetings no longer reach your door.<\/p>\n

Before my mother died, our compound was always full. Neighbors came around. Women gathered in the evenings to talk. Children played freely in front of our house. But after the burial, everything changed.<\/p>\n

People started avoiding our gate like it was cursed ground.<\/p>\n

When I walked past them on the road, conversations would suddenly stop. Some women would pull their children closer. Others would pretend they didn\u2019t see me at all. If I greeted them, some wouldn\u2019t answer. Those who did answered with forced smiles and quick steps.<\/p>\n

I remember one afternoon, I went to borrow salt from a neighbor we had known for years. As soon as she saw me standing at her door, her face changed. She hesitated, then told me she didn\u2019t have salt. I later saw her daughter cooking with salt that same evening.<\/p>\n

That was when it hit me.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t normal grief. This was rejection.<\/p>\n

Rumors moved faster than truth in Umunze. People said my family carried death. Others said it was sickness that shouldn\u2019t be mentioned. Some even said it was punishment from God.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo women don die from same thing. No be ordinary matter,\u201d<\/em> I overheard someone say.
\n\u201cThat girl sef, better make we dey careful.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I was still a child, but I felt the weight of it all. I began to shrink myself. I stopped playing outside. I avoided eye contact. I learned to walk fast, head down, like someone who was guilty of something she didn\u2019t do.<\/p>\n

Even during church, people changed seats when I sat near them. During sharing of communion cups, I noticed hesitation. Some people wiped the cup again after I drank from it.<\/p>\n

At home, my father became quiet. He stopped correcting people. He stopped defending us. It was as if he, too, had accepted the judgment of the community.<\/p>\n

Some nights, I would hear him sigh deeply in the dark. Other nights, he drank silently. He never explained anything to me, but I could feel that he was tired \u2014 not just of loss, but of shame.<\/p>\n

And me? I started to believe the lies.<\/p>\n

I began to wonder if I was truly the problem. If my birth really carried something bad. If death followed me wherever I went.<\/p>\n

That was when loneliness truly entered my life. Not the kind that comes from being alone, but the kind that comes from being surrounded by people who refuse to see you.<\/p>\n

Episode 4 Coming Soon<\/strong>
\nBut rejection was only the beginning. Soon, I would discover that being avoided was better than being labeled. And the name they gave me would follow me for years.<\/p>\n

He Promised Me Work In Lagos, Na Trap I Enter (EPISODE 4)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n