My parents didn’t want me to be idle while at home waiting for my final examination results. So they got me an old phone and some money to buy airtime wholesale and retail to customers.

I went to Kwame Nkrumah Circle, where I bought what looked like a little desk and an umbrella. It took some negotiations to secure an affordable set. When I returned home, I went to one corner of a street bordering a basic school and sought for permission to install my new business.

Once permission was granted, each morning, I carried my little desk, a plastic chair and the umbrella to my new spot. Initially, customers were not many. But with time, they began to grow. The profits were meager. Even my parents understood this was not a big business that could blossom into something substantial. It was just something to keep a teenager occupied so the devil doesn’t employ me in his industrial mischief.

Being exposed to street life taught me a lot of lessons. I saw married men, desperate to get numbers of young ladies, I saw how fortunate I and my siblings were to have parents with stable jobs, I heard stories with lessons I never understood till later in life.

For instance, there was a this tall, fair man who, upon seeing one fine lady in her mid thirties approaching, took off his wedding ring and put it in his pocket.

The lady was buying airtime from me. Those days, our airtime was in the form of scratch cards. The man tried to buy airtime for the lady and she refused. She bought for herself and started walking away, the man tried to follow, persistently asking for her number but she refused.

I think she forgot something and so she came back, and when leaving, she told me not to give out her number to the man. The man bragged about his new Hyundai he had just bought but it wasn’t enough to woo the lady.

I saw many of such incidents. Sometimes, the men were successful, sometimes they weren’t.

But I soon discovered one secret. It was a conversation between two married womanizers.

“If you ask hundred women for their phone numbers, at least one will give out her number.” one friend told the other.

And with time, I realized their persistence paid off. Some of the people they approached were married women who seemed to enjoy the flirting but didn’t give out their numbers.

Others were young ladies now starting out in life and unsure about many things. Those who appeared to have overwhelming bills on their neck gave out their numbers. There were other ladies who gave out their numbers for reasons I couldn’t tell.

These womanizers might have used their persistence to achieve negative means, but the lesson cannot be overlooked : relentless determination pays.

There were young ladies that subtly expressed interest in me, especially in comments they passed while purchasing airtime.

Later at night on my bed I thought about all the things that happened at work during the day, especially things those young ladies said to me. Most of them were much older than I was, and I wondered what they saw in me.

Much later in life, I would come to understand many things.

Then another day, there was this woman in mourning clothes who came to buy airtime, and a man in tears came to beg from her. The lady never minded her.

She told me of an incident when she was much younger. She had just lost her dad and the little contributions given her by relatives and loved ones she gave out to one man seated by the roadside weeping. The man told her he badly needed money to pay a debt and will pay back, giving very credible details about his identity and assurances that he’ll pay back.

Not knowing, it was a fraudster. After that incident, she vowed never to help any stranger ever again.

I pitified the beggar who came to us for help but I understood why the lady had become callous to the needs of strangers.

On the streets, I saw and learnt so many lessons the classroom doesn’t teach.