The Fulani Nurse

She was stunningly beautiful. Even the nurses were automatically attracted to her. She wore the muslim hijab flowing all the way down to the level of her knees. The hijab which created an oval shape of her face only further revealed her beauty. From her look, I had no doubt she was Hausa.


My clinic is located in a semi-urban area so like the other Hausa women that come into my consulting room, I pondered whether to communicate in pidgin, yoruba or to just look for a translator. But opening her mouth to speak, I was stunned by the purity of English that flowed from her mouth. What a superb compliment to the stunning beauty.

Her baby was just as fair as the mother. After listening to the complaints of her six-month old daughter and writing the prescriptions, I was forced to ask her, "Please, where did you school?"

Then she narrated to me how she had had a dream of becoming a nurse. her primary school was in Ibadan, a private school. I would have caught her if she was lying cause I schooled in Ibadan too, I knew the school she was talking about. Then coming down to Lagos, she attended another Private secondary school. she had to have been brilliant.

When she told her father she wanted to go to the school of nursing, he told her it was against the culture. What is the benefit of a girl going studying beyond secondary education ? he asked her. He gave her the option of trading or learning a skill. She chose the latter and she learnt how to sew.

Then she got married. The husband is a business man who promised to send her to school and help her achieve her dreams of becoming a nurse....but after two kids, that seems very unlikely.

But looking at her, and speaking with her, you could tell that she is of a determined breed. So it came to me as no surprise when she said that along the way, she had found her way to a private hospital in Lagos and trained as an "Auxillary Nurse". She however looked discontented, her dream was to become a certified, registered nurse.

However, she expressed hope at the end of our discussion, saying that her younger sister has now been offered admission at the Ahmadu Bello University and she boast that the little six month old in her hand would become a Medical Doctor.

At twenty-eight, she looked like her a twenty-two year old. When someone came in and said something to her in Yoruba, I told her I envied her for she could communicate smoothly in three different Nigerian languages: English, Yoruba and Hausa. She corrected me that it was English, Yoruba and FULANI.