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DREAMS BORN IN DUST (PART 1)
<p><img alt="" src="/media/inline_insight_image/32487.png"/></p><p>Dreams Born in Dust</p><p><br/></p><p>The dust rose every morning before the sun fully woke. It clung to slippers, to hems of trousers, to the air itself. In Ajani Street, dust was a way of life—soft red, stubborn, and everywhere.</p><p><br/></p><p>Sixteen-year-old Sadiya swept the front of her mother’s kiosk as she did every day. Sachet water stacked neatly on one side, bread on the other. The radio hummed low, talking about big cities and bigger opportunities that felt far away from Ajani Street.</p><p><br/></p><p>Sadiya dreamed anyway.</p><p><br/></p><p>She dreamed of classrooms with clean chalkboards, of books that smelled new, of writing her name on something that mattered. She dreamed of becoming an engineer—someone who fixed things properly, not with wire and hope.</p><p><br/></p><p>“Dreams won’t feed you,” people liked to say.</p><p><br/></p><p>But dreams fed Sadiya in quiet ways.</p><p><br/></p><p>After school, she helped her mother sell until evening. When the sun dipped low and the street cooled, she pulled out her old exercise books. Some pages were torn, others dusty, but the words inside were alive. She studied by kerosene light, solving problems while the neighborhood laughed, argued, and lived around her.</p><p><br/></p><p>Her best friend Tunde laughed at her sometimes—not unkindly.</p><p><br/></p><p>“You and your big dreams,” he said one evening, kicking dust with his foot. “This street raised us.”</p><p><br/></p><p>“And I’ll raise myself from it,” Sadiya replied, smiling.</p><p><br/></p><p>The day the results were posted, the dust felt heavier than usual. Sadiya’s hands shook as she scanned the list pinned to the school wall.</p><p><br/></p><p>There it was.</p><p><br/></p><p>Her name.</p><p><br/></p><p>At the top.</p><p><br/></p><p>She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She just stood there, breathing, as if the world had paused to look at her properly for the first time.</p><p><br/></p><p>That night, Ajani Street was loud. Neighbors came by the kiosk. Her mother held her tight, eyes shining.</p><p><br/></p><p>“This dust,” her mother said softly, “it tried to bury you.”</p><p><br/></p><p>Sadiya looked at her books, her street, her dreams.</p><p><br/></p><p>“No,” she said. “It raised me.”</p><p><br/></p><p>And as the wind lifted the familiar red dust into the air, Sadiya knew something had changed—not the street, not the world, but what was possible.</p><p><br/></p><p>Because some dreams don’t grow in comfort.</p><p><br/></p><p>They are born in dust—and still, they rise. 🌱📖</p>
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