“Mama Balo” Documentary Tells a Hostel Cleaner’s Story From a Place of Resilience

Mama Balo. Photo credit: Vistanium.

In this essay about understanding and recognising the unseen labour behind our comfort, I wrote that “no one derives joy from cleaning other people’s mess.” But there is Mama Balo, a hostel cleaner at Lagos University Teaching Hospital Students’ Hostel who, for the past two decades, has derived purpose and essence from cleaning the mess made by the students and maintaining the order of cleanliness in the hostel’s environment.

Mama Balo wakes up every 6 a.m., marches into the students’ hostel, and starts sweeping and mopping the corridors. She then carries plastic bags out and eventually scrubs the toilets with her bare hands—toilets she might never have used to ease herself.

Mama Balo was born Sherifat Esther Adebiyi but the name would be socially shielded by the nickname, and before Nigeria’s independence into a trading home. Her dream, following her mother’s trading footsteps, was to become a fruit seller, importing different types of fruit from villages into Lagos. Her dream was on the path of coming to pass; she had started hawking for her mother and hoping that one day, she’d own a store of her own, selling fruit, until the then military regime banned road selling.

In the eponymously titled documentary, Kayode Idowu and Hassan Yahaya (the directors), present us with a different kind of resilience and passion in “Mama Belo.” Being a hostel cleaner is socially regarded as a menial job, often described by words like “dirty” and “less important”. A story of this kind is usually told from a place of pity but “Mama Balo” is everything but pity. It is a kind of documentary that gets you up and makes you question your dedication to your important work. It is the kind of documentary that tells stories about what is important in a subject’s life, without pandering towards where it hurts. For someone who has been at a job for 20 years, she has definitely encountered different shades of humans: rude students, unkempt students and ridicule from others.

But the directors want to show us that happiness doesn’t have to be expensive. The documentary shows us how Mama Balo’s diligence in her work has taught love, dedication, joy and contentment.

However, despite the perfect execution of the documentary, (extra shoutout to the cinematographer), I would have liked to derive answers to the following questions from the documentary: Why have they started calling her “Mama Balo”? What is Balo’s story before his death? How well has Iya Balo done for herself in a job she has maintained for two decades?

This documentary, released by Vistanium, nudges you towards attention and action. You should watch it.