The Diary of A Hustling Single Girl - In the Beginning

The Diary of A Hustling Single Girl - In the Beginning

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My name is Janet. Janet Solomon. I'm sure the first thing that will come to the mind of many is here come's another girl with the stereotypical combination of English names. Many will think once a girl hides away her native names she probably has something else to hide. You are probably right, but may be not. From the part of the world I come from we bear very different names some people consider funny in some other parts of the country or even the world.

While celebrating my birthday, my 21st birthday for the 5th time, someone suggested I need to start writing about my experiences and that's exactly what I hope to achieve with this. In this hustle things that I survive on, you have to remain as young as your benefactors want you to be. Some call them customers but I call them benefactors. There guys are the reason why people like us haven't been declared internally displaced persons. In a country where social security is non-existent, they are our social security. Those dudes are also in their own way contributing to the nation's GDP *wink*.

I was born into a family of 12 in a very remote area of Nigeria's Niger-Delta area. Very close to those areas where nights never fall, not because the sun never gets tired of shinning but because the oil companies obviously don't know what to do with the gas which oozes out of the ground as a byproduct of the fat they steal from our communities. A community where there's little hope of making anything good out of life. I was born in a place literally flowing with gold, the black gold, but where want and poverty seems to be in inverse proportion to the level of wealth being taken out by people who can hardly have water from their own soil even if they dig for a hundred years. You can therefore imagine my joy when my father's younger sister, Aunty Debby, who lived on the very popular Okumagba Avenue in Warri came to the village to ask that she be allowed to take me to the city. I was just a little over 10 years old and that was the beginning of what I expected to be a happy growing up. Or so I thought. To the contrary however, it turned out to be the beginning of my initiation into a life on the streets. Of long walks in dark alleys. Of hustles in the city. Of seductions and the other raunchy 'S' word. Of romps and wild rides. And of drugs, drugs and more drugs.

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Next on The Diary: I met Big Daddy Jake

Why would anyone call him Big Daddy?! Even though I was only 10 years old when I met Big Daddy Jake, I was smart enough to know he doesn't deserve the name. A tiny, kind of shrunken slightly disheveled man, Big Daddy looked liked he was in his 50s even though I later got to know he was only in his late 30s. Big Daddy Jake can't be more than 5ft 5. Very small for a man called Big Daddy I must emphasise again. As the weeks went bye however, I clearly understood why Aunty Debbie fondly called him that name. That understanding came at around 1am one very cold night... (To be Continued)

Update: Read Episode 2 Here