ENTREPRENEUR’S SAFETY NET

The day the customers stopped calling, Chika sat in her small shop on Ogui Road in Enugu and listened to the silence. It was not peace; it was the kind of silence that feels like waiting for bad news. Her sewing machine sat still, the needle paused mid-thread. On the shelf, her sandals — brown leather, soft and fine — waited for buyers who never came.

Outside, Enugu kept moving. “Zobo! Abacha!” hawkers called, Okada engines rumbled, the air smelled of dust and roasted corn. But inside, everything stood still. Each day she opened her shop, each night she closed it a little heavier.

Then one evening, Adaeze walked in, smelling of coconut oil and laughter. Her salon was two streets away, a cramped room always buzzing with gossip and gospel music. “Chika nwa, gịnị mere?” she asked. Chika dear, what’s wrong? “You look like someone who has wrestled with life and lost.”

“Business is slow,” Chika said.

Adaeze shook her head. “Ihe a di egwu o!” — This is serious! “You can’t just sit here. Do something, before your spirit begins to sew sorrow.”

That night, Chika couldn’t sleep. Scrolling through her phone, she found an advert: Learn digital marketing for ₦5,000. It sounded foolish, but she registered. Under the dim bulb in her shop, she learned — how to take photos, write captions, tell stories that made people look twice.

When she finished, she turned the lessons on herself. She arranged her sandals by the window, where the Enugu sunset poured in gold. She wrote her first caption: “Made by hand, with patience and prayer.” She posted it. Within days, orders started coming. Within two weeks, everything sold out.

Adaeze was the first to hear. “Nne, ị ga-eme nke a kwa m o!” — My sister, you’ll do this for me too! Chika agreed, charging ₦10,000 to manage Adaeze’s salon page. When new customers arrived, others came calling. A food vendor, a tailor, a mechanic. Soon she was running eight pages, each at ₦20,000 a month. Her sandals funded her dreams once; now her words did.

She bought a new phone, repainted her shop, even hired a young apprentice. Her days filled again — the hum of her sewing machine mixing with the soft taps of her fingers on her phone. Adaeze often stopped by with puff-puff, grinning. “Ị hụla ndụ a?” — You see this life?

And some nights, when she locked her shop, Chika would pause to look at the last pair of sandals she ever made — her own. She had kept them as a reminder: that when everything went quiet, she found another way to make noise.

“Anya na-eme onye na-achọ ndụ,” Adaeze once told her. The eyes stay open for the one who wants to live.

And Chika smiled, because she knew — her eyes were open, her hands still creating, and her life, like her sandals, had been remade by hand.

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