Mrs. Serafina

Mrs. Sarafina woke her seven children up at 3 a.m. every day of the week.

As always, Mrs. Sarafina woke her seven children up at 3 a.m. every day of the week. The night before, they had soaked and taken off the skin from the beans in preparation for blending. The next morning, they used the grinding stone to blend the beans they would use for bean balls (akara) that their mother would sell. In the rural community they lived, there was no access to electricity and the machines that could blend beans. The children spent hours laboring over the grinding stone to produce a smooth paste from the beans. Mrs. Sarafina placed a huge frying pan outside the family home which fortunately for her was on a busy street and fried the bean balls. These bean balls were a convenient breakfast for adults and children who did not want to go through the trouble of cooking. Sometimes, people did not have enough time to make breakfast. Not every family was like Mrs Serafina’s who woke up in the “wee” hours of the morning to cook. As she fried, the children stood beside her wrapping the balls for customers who came to buy. The oldest of the children was responsible for collecting money paid by customers. He had a bag strapped to his waist for this purpose.

The children were already dressed for school. As soon as the school bell rang, their mother shooed them off to school with their own wraps of “akara”. She then stayed back to complete the morning sale, after which she took her goods and went to her store in the open market to sell. Usually, Mrs. Serafina wrapped up her morning sale by 9 a.m. when workers had arrived at work and children were in school. When her children closed from school, they went to the market to join her to sell. At the end of the day they all came home together. Mrs. Sarafina exemplified the importance of hard work to her children. Compared to the other wives in the polygamous setting, she was the only person to acquire a piece of land and build a house. Not surprising all her children prospered in everything they laid their hands to do.