Life started teaching me lessons long before I was old enough to understand them.
I woke up that morning to the sound of rain tapping softly on our leaking roof. Water dripped into a plastic bowl my mother had placed beside the bed the night before. The sound was gentle, but it carried a weight I couldn't explain. Maybe it was because I already knew — rain meant fewer customers at the roadside stall, and fewer customers meant we would go to bed hungry again.
I sat up slowly, hugging my knees to my chest. The room was small, cold, and smelled of damp walls and old clothes. This was our home. Not because it was comfortable, but because it was all we had.
My mother coughed from the corner of the room. It was a dry, tired cough, the kind that never fully went away. She had been sick for months, but sickness was a luxury we couldn't afford. Missing a day of work meant missing a meal.
"Are you awake, Amina?" she asked softly.
"Yes, Mama," I replied, forcing my voice to sound stronger than I felt.
She smiled at me — the kind of smile parents give when they want to hide their fear from their children. I hated that smile more than anything. It meant she was worried again.
There was no breakfast that morning. Just a cup of warm water shared between us. I drank slowly, pretending it filled the empty space inside me. Mama watched me carefully, as if she was counting every sip, making sure I had enough.
I should have been thinking about school. About books, friends, dreams. But hunger has a way of silencing dreams. All I could think about was how heavy life already felt, and how unfair it was that I was growing up faster than I should.
As I stepped outside into the rain, barefoot and cold, I didn't know that this ordinary, painful morning would mark the beginning of everything changing. I only knew one thing —if I didn't become strong soon, life would crush me without mercy.