The letter that made me cry in my office last harmattan

Last year during harmattan, I was in my office going through the usual chaos. Farmers calling about payments, logistics company delaying deliveries, my phone ringing nonstop. Then my assistant brought in an envelope. No return address, just my name in that careful handwriting that schoolgirls use.

I opened it and found a letter from Aisha, one of the girls on my scholarship. She is in JSS 3 in a village near Dawakin Tofa. She wrote that her father wanted to marry her off last December but she showed him her report card. First in her class. She told him, and I quote, "Baba, if I stop school now, who will take care of you when you are old?"

Wallahi, I sat there with dust from harmattan covering everything and tears just rolling down. Not because I was sad. Because this girl, 14 years old, used the exact argument I would have used. She is learning to negotiate for her own future.

I visited her village two weeks later. Her father shook my hand and said, "Malama, keep her in school. She is too sharp to waste." That moment, I knew every naira I put into that fund is yielding interest I cannot calculate.