My Time as an Apprentice

I've never ever been a fan of the Igbo tribe's “boy boy” system, which technically is where someone's child goes to live with a businessman for years in order to be given a certain amount of money to start his own business. The reason I've never been a fan of it is because of how these boys are being treated by their masters, which to me is nothing but just pure slavery.

Unfortunately, not everyone sees it as that, as most people see it as discipline, and maybe it is true, but some of these so-called masters take things too far every now and then, and it doesn't sit right with me.

Although I haven't experienced it personally, as my dad wasn't exactly a fan of his kids going to live with anyone, the closest thing to slavery that I had experienced myself was the few months I spent learning how to cut hair at my boss's shop.

_{photo by Matt Bero}

You see, I've seen videos on first-world countries where certain employees have the right to say no to their bosses (or demand more pay) when they're being asked to do things that don't exactly fall under the work they're there for. Well, it's not really the same thing here, as most Nigerian bosses have this ownership mentality, like as long as you work for them, they own you and can ask you to do anything work-related.

The same thing happens when you're trying to learn a skill. You see, back then, I was convinced that the only reason I wasn't cooking for my boss and his family was because I didn't know how to, because this man was literally asking me to do everything.

His shop, where I was learning how to cut hair, wasn't far away from his home, so he would occasionally send me there to go help his wife fetch water at home. He would do this even during working hours when I should be at the shop, paying attention to what he was doing.

But you see, that wasn't the worst thing yet, because the worst thing happened the day he asked me to go wash his baby's buttocks after he was done taking a poop, and yes, I did it more than once, as it became part of my job.

And I know what you guys are thinking: why didn't I speak up? Well, this was roughly ten years ago, so I was still a kid back then, and also I didn't even know I could speak up against something like that because when you looked around back then, it was sort of normal for trainees to be treated in such a manner because at the time, it felt like our bosses owned us and we could not challenge them, as doing that would mean you getting kicked from the shop and sent home, which was the last thing anyone wanted.

So yeah, I don't know if they still do things this way currently, but if there's a practice in the country right now similar to slavery but isn't against the law, it is this.