TAIRE, THE ONE-ARMED LIONESS.

My name is Tiare and I am 15 years old. I am from the Northern part of Nigeria.

My life changed the day I was on my way to grind millet in our market. My dear mother sent me. It is a market I have been used to all my life . I go there to buy and sometimes sell too. I gladly trotted on the errand with my bucket comfortably placed on my head and my arms swinging up and down by my side, little did I know soon I would need to specially note all the activities I can carry out without both of my hands.

I cannot remember much after this but I  saw myself on a hospital bed with a bandage wrapped around what used to be my left arm, with my mother sitted beside me. She was tireless in her care for me. I don't know for sure if it was because of her love for me as her child or the guilt that she was the one that sent me to the market, but I hope it's the former.

I heard the government was taking care of all the expenses incurred in our treatment, that was so kind of them. All these happened three years ago. I survived, for this I am grateful. People died from the blast, losing an arm is not the worst fate.

Before the blast, the most prospect I had was to get married and beget children. With just one arm, I was less attractive for a decent suitor. Alot of not-so-decent suitors came knocking , they say I should be grateful that someone at least looked my way. Unknown to them I know better than seeking completeness in another.

The government gave us scholarships after the blast, I make the most of that.  Myself and others like me attend a special school where the Teachers look beyond our disabled bodies and teach our sound minds. The say there is ability in disability and that is what I seek. I heard there is a man in the Senate who has only one arm. I heard his people call him 'a lion with one hand'. His rise gives me hope, in him I have a model to look up to and dare to aspire. I too can become a lion with just one arm.

Some say I don't have two hands which is is needed to prepare and serve meals for a husband and no arm to carry babies but one hand is all I need to hold a pen and flip through the pages of a book.