Istoria: A Yahoo Boy And His Murano (Part Two)

I did not see him for another FOUR days. When he showed up, he was
wearing a new shirt, and Converse shoes. For him, that was unusual. He
never bought clothes, preferring instead to send the money home. I
pulled him into my room, locked the door – reopened it, and asked him
where he had been all this while.

He suddenly beamed from ear to ear, and for an instant I thought he
had won the Golden Plaza lottery. In what appeared to be the same
instant, I had the sudden fear that he had gone mad – or worse.

He told me excitedly that he had decided to move to Finetouch. I
couldn't have been more shocked than if my biro turned into a snake
and then proceeded to bite off my finger during an examination. He
said he was moving in with one of the 'babas'. They were introducing
him to an internet business, and that they wanted him to start out as
a delivery boy. I probed a little more, and then he opened up and said
they were into 'Yahoo!'

Istoria: A Yahoo Boy And His Murano

I met him on my first day as an undergraduate at the Obafemi Awolowo
University. It was a Sunday, and my parents had just dropped me off.
He walked up to me, and offered to carry my box to my room if I would
buy him dinner.

That sounded odd. I immediately assumed he was not a student. After
all, which student would offer to carry a freshman's box for dinner?
Dinner!!!

Well, I would have bought him TEN dinners to carry that box for me, so
I agreed – and helped him lift it onto his head without thinking. That
was the second thing that struck me as odd. Seeing as I had not lifted
anything on my head in years, preferring to carry loads twice rather
than stack anything on my 'delicate' neck – I took objection to that.
In a very brash manner, he asked if I wanted the box transported or
not. Of course, I wanted it transported – and really, whose business
was it if he decided to lift it with his ears? I thought no more of
the matter, and led the way to F10 Angola.

We had dinner together, and that was the beginning of a friendship
that would last ALL of two sessions. I found out he was from a 'poor'
family – his father was a carpenter and his mother – well, a full time
mother. He was the first child of seven (is that not always the case?)
and he seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. We
would often go to the Bank together: I to withdraw money my parents
sent me, he to send money to his parents.