*The Last Chair*
Amina used to set up chairs.
Every Friday in Abuja, she arrived at the community hall at 5am. Her job was simple: 200 plastic chairs, straight rows, no gaps. The NGO paid her 5,000 naira per event. It wasn’t much, but it kept light and rice in her house.
The hall hosted coding classes for girls. Amina didn’t code. She’d left school at 15 to help her mother sell akara. But she listened. While she wiped dust off each chair, she heard the teacher explain loops, variables, websites.
One morning, a laptop was left on a chair. The screen glowed with a half-built page. It said “Welcome to My Garden.” Under it was a picture of tomatoes, peppers, and a note: “I’m growing this to sell online.”
Amina stared at it for a long time. She grew peppers too, behind her flat. But she sold them at the roadside and hoped for the best.
That night she borrowed her cousin’s old phone. Data was expensive, so she watched one YouTube video at a time, under the streetlight to save power. HTML. CSS. How to make a button. She practiced on scrap paper first, drawing tags like
and
.
She didn’t tell anyone. For 8 months she set up chairs, then stayed after to practice on the hall’s computers after everyone left. The security guard let her, because she always stacked the chairs perfectly.
At the next coding showcase, the teacher said, “We have one last slot. Anyone?”
Amina’s hands shook. She walked up and opened her site. It wasn’t fancy. But you could order peppers, see the price, and pay with transfer. She called it “Amina’s Garden.”
Three women ordered that week. Then ten. By December she hired two girls to help her deliver.
Last Friday, she didn’t set up chairs. She taught the class.
She still arrives at 5am. But now she arranges the chairs, then sits in the first one.
Because the seat you set up for someone else can end up being yours.
📱
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