Water Baby

'Men are like rock, but women are water. Quiet and calming or powerful and flowing . . . Be like water and you can break any rock' She's the Pearl of Makoko and the world is her oyster. Yemoja is most at home on the water, like her namesake, the mermaid goddess, she's a true Water Baby. Maybe that's why everyone calls her Baby for short. Baby lives on Makoko, across from the third mainland bridge in Lagos. To the government it's an eyesore where there could be lucrative waterfront properties, to the Laotians, it's a slum settlement but to the people who live there, it's Adogbo, home. Baby is used to the way things are, but she can't help but think that the life her father and elders have mapped out for her isn't the right thing. At 19 Baby should be married with children already, according to her father, but instead, she captains her water taxi The Charlie-Boy to have an income and to help uphold her household. What she really wants is education, a chance to have more opportunities and to join the Makoko Dream Girls, a mapping project for Makoko. Baby feels helpless and stuck until she decides to take destiny into her own hands and forge her own path for the life she truly wants. These plans are propelled forward when a video of Baby mapping Makoko with a drone goes viral. Baby finds herself thrust into unwanted fame but whilst the attention makes her uncomfortable, she may have a chance to help her community. When Baby's invited to Switzerland for The World Economic Forum, she has a chance to put Makoko and its need for clean water on the main stage. Could this be her chance for everything she's always dreamed of, a ticket out of Makoko, education, choices? Baby has to face the fact that what she thought she'd always wanted might not be the reality she was hoping for. Because no matter where she goes the roots that bind her to her home are strong and maybe, the life she wants has been in front of her all along and her place, her peace, her happiness, is on the lagoon waiting for her.