I recently started learning German, the language. I discovered this German saying that is part sarcastic but makes a lot of sense and has stuck with me. It goes like:
"Alles hat ein Ende, nur die Wurst hat zwei."
When translated to English, it goes like: "Everything has an end, only the sausage has two." Without the part about sausages, it has a British English parallel: "All good things must come to an end." You can guess where this is going already.
The Start
During my childhood, I was not comfortable speaking to anyone except one or two school friends, and it was the same at home with one or two neighbours. I switched schools a couple of times, but the pattern stayed the same, sometimes with none. I only had one constant person who I told everything to, even when I did something bad - my mum. I did everything in my life for her, studied hard, looked forward to speaking with her every day after school, so I always went straight home.
She even took me through some of her high school books and explained the science concepts to me in a tone that, even though I was only in lower primary school, I understood very well. She made a lot of sacrifices for me, and she made me know I was the reason she couldn't go back to school. I grew a love for computers from reading about them in some of her books. She promised to get me one after she noticed that I started asking questions related to them, and she also had all her knowledge about them from books, no interactions with them, if I promised I would keep learning hard, would not do anything bad with it or be like the fraudsters she knew about. I never wanted to disappoint her. I did keep learning hard with hopes I would get it. I never did.
The Drop
I left my mum's to live with my dad while in year 4 or class 4. I was quite too young for that year, but because of focusing too much on studies, teachers thought I was too far ahead, so I kept getting pushed forward. Once I got used to living at my dad's, there was no real motivation to push hard. I let my grades sink, barely heard from her, and my dad had a computer they used for a DJ sound system. It felt like I had what I always wished for, so why study so hard? It was my first interaction with a computer! I saw my dad using it once, and from watching him, he couldn't find his way around it. He was trying to find the folder they stored the songs in so he could listen to some "Adotey Tetor," a sensational Ga musician. I showed him where he could find it, and alas, he did. He looked at me and smiled. I was allowed access to it whenever I needed. It was my new obsession that I always looked forward to after school; it was all I had. It felt like it replaced my mum. The only thing I couldn't do was tell it about my day, but I explored everything about it, even put a password on the BIOS in case someone were to steal it; they'd have a hard time.
Fast forward a few years, I got a hang of the computer and was onto my dad's cameras. They seemed fascinating to me because they worked in a similar way as the computer; they took in light through a lens and got the image imprinted on a film, which was somehow turned into a picture. I got to see the internals of one of his old ones, so brilliant and with a lot of moving parts. It wasn't quite like the modern ones these days. I wanted to be like the people who made that and the computer.
I returned from school one day to find everyone seated and quiet by the door. One of my aunties pulled me aside and asked me to promise I wasn't going to cry after she told me. She said, "We were informed, this afternoon, your mum... is no more." I couldn't express any emotions because I didn't understand what loss is. It really caught up with me over time, and it hurt. I had lost the only person I could tell everything to. The only one! ☹️ It changed everything for me; I didn't have any reason to be doing anything anymore. I had thoughts of doing something to take my life so I could meet her and tell her everything I had done so far and all she missed. I understood that this wasn't going to happen in any way or form. I promised myself to keep her words, "you took a part of me away, so, in anything that you do, make sure you are the best at it." All I had now was the computer. I couldn't tell it to do anything, but only use the programs it came with until I learned to code in C++ from articles I found on BSRF (Black Sun Research Facility), an online forum where people shared knowledge about computers and tech in general. I discovered it on a visit to the internet cafe one day. Throughout this story, notice, I never thought about money. It was really hard for my parents, but I never grew a love for money, which I'm always grateful for.
Discovering what I could do with the programming languages I was learning and knowing I was getting closer to being like the people who made the computer or the camera made something in my heart burn. I wanted to make her proud if I were to meet her one day. I pushed myself to learn more, and I never had a thought of this being a job at any point. And it wasn't for the money.
The Middle Child
I started joining things about tech, Facebook groups, WhatsApp groups; through this, I found Theophilus working on pywe, and I asked him if I could join to help out because I loved the idea. I was doing anything so I could learn more. I was downloading PDF after PDF to read, and I felt I was making good real progress. I got to write a couple of lessons on pywe with the knowledge I got. I wanted to leave the country to meet more of the people who made the camera and the computer. I started looking into how to do that, and I discovered the Scholarship Access Project by Kwadwo Adutwum, such a wonderful person with a wonderful idea; it was like pywe but for people who wanted to study outside the country for better resources. On a couple of meetings on Clubhouse, I shared my knowledge on how people could build web apps with the MERN stack. I got a message from Loretta Kumi; she found me very interesting and started to be my new driving force. She always kept me in check and led me to some good opportunities. I am so grateful to her for that. One prominent opportunity was being a tutor for a CS student; I really enjoyed it and learned a lot. Through that, I got offered a software engineer role at the student's brother's company; they needed a company website and someone to help them with tech. I didn't want to take this role for a while because I didn't want my hobby to become a job. After a while, I took it and went over to check the company out and eventually joined, reason; I didn’t have much internet and electricity at home and my dad was tired of me not having anything to show for being on the computer all the time through the years. All I kept in mind was that I was just helping, because I could tutor him better and also get away from home, while working on Pharst Care too; it wasn't ever about the money. I had a lot of passion for programming things and working on computers that I built a lot while there and greatly improved the company's infrastructure from the ground up. But there was a problem — let's get into that.
I never really focused on money and did everything because I loved it, so it got to a point where people were getting treated poorly at the company. I almost left, but after some advice, I stayed for a while until there were some internal hiccups. I wasn't getting paid for all I was working on for months on end, but I kept doing it. I noticed I was being taken advantage of. So it dawned on me to drop my tools and leave. It did come with its own effects. But with God, you'll get through anything, so I am.
All I'm trying to get out there with this really lengthy story is, you should have control over how much your passion leads you. Sometimes you need to stop and look at the reality around you. Another thing is that you'll know someone through how they treat other people around you; if those people are not being treated right, you should quit being around that person. No matter what passion you have for anything around that person or any empathy you have, it's going to bite at you at some point. This article is so unlike me, and I didn't want to put it out here, but here we go. I do miss you mum, I’ll make you proud, and Miss Loretta, Happy mother’s day if you’re reading this, thanks for always putting me on! And to all the great women in my life. I love you all. 💕
I'm Aikins, and I love to build stuff.
