We Don’t Know What’s Up.

I’ve been thinking lately.

7:21 PM, 16/06/22

Picture this: I’m sitting cross-legged on my bed, cradling my laptop and musing about how I’m a pro at cooking spaghetti – there was spaghetti and fried fish in my plate 10 minutes ago but it’s empty now. “Adulthood Na Scam” by Lade is playing in the background and I’m singing along to the chorus ‘cos who can’t relate? My phone just beeped and it’s an alert. I’ve just been paid for a job. It’s safe to say that I’m an entire mood.

Today is the day I’ll complete this blog post I’ve put off for far too long. I can’t believe it’s been three months already ‘cos wasn’t March just yesterday? If you’re reading this, thank you. I don’t deserve you. I used to be the “Consistency Queen,” but life happened, and I’ve taken my crown off till I am worthy of wearing it again. I’ve missed you, and I mean it, so please believe me. I hope you’re doing great ‘cos I am. This year isn’t what I expected it to be – it’s been way better, and I’m beyond grateful.

My service year has been pretty fast. I’ll be done with NYSC and Gombe State very soon, and it’s like a movie ‘cos I’ve not even been to all the places I planned to visit. However, this was what I wanted – a service year that would not stress me, and trust me; there has been little stress. I found time to rest, hone my writing skills, earn money, and be generally productive. So far, things have been awesome… or have they?

8:45 PM, 16/06/22

Currently listening to my “I Love Jesus” playlist ‘cos it’s my favorite and I’ve switched positions so I’m lying down and my feet are dangling in the air. I took a break to check social media for a while – no messages. I’m not even surprised ‘cos I’m not toasting anyone and nobody is toasting me.

These past few months have taught me a lot, and there are some things I wish I didn’t have to learn the way I did, but it’s how life works, and lessons are inevitable. It’s better to learn from other people’s experiences rather than making those mistakes yourself ‘cos there are some mistakes you don’t come back from. I’m not the person I was a year ago because my sweat, tears, and other experiences have shaped me. I’ve re-evaluated my life and now know what I want to make out of it.

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11:55 PM, 5/07/22

I’m not listening to music. There’s this cool breeze blowing and I’m sitting on my bed in a position that will most likely give me a backache. Did you notice the date? Yeah, it’s been three weeks since I started writing and I don’t remember the direction this blog post was going ‘cos I’m obviously not the same person I was three weeks ago. Don’t stop reading tho’. We’re unraveling my mind together.

Shutting everyone out isn’t always the best solution, but sometimes, we do it anyway. The best part is that you can’t even feel bad for not checking up on people if they don’t check up on you. I won’t lie and say that I didn’t feel lonely a lot ‘cos I did. Sometimes, I wanted to call my friends, and I’d change my mind ‘cos what was the point? Why couldn’t they call me instead? Not even a text? Maybe I’d imagined the friendships. I had been angry for so long until one day; I received a call from my friend out of the blue. She missed me and had been through a lot, and here I was, stuck in my world, angry because my friends didn’t call me when I could have easily done so. Life was happening to my friend, and I was being so selfish! I called my friends that week.

Friendships and relationships may not always be 50/50, and that’s okay. Just because you’re not communicating with your friends always doesn’t mean they don’t love you. We’re at a point where we want to figure out our lives, and we barely have time for small talk. We have jobs, we’re learning, we’re far from each other (let’s not go into what distance can do to friendships), and we are discovering new versions of ourselves, among other things. For this reason, we have to pick up the slack sometimes. You should care about your friend enough to want to know how they’re doing, even if it feels like you’ve been abandoned – they may be going through stuff you know nothing about.

Sometimes, we fail to realize that not everything is about us. The lives of our families and friends do not revolve around us, and we need to realize that they are also the main characters in their shows, not just supporting characters in ours. As much as we need our friends, they also need us, and if they can’t be there for us, we should be there for them. This selfishness or negligence may make us lose friendships, and nobody wants that, especially if you don’t want to do life alone.

12:50 AM, 06/07/22

I’m considering a midnight snack but my size 26 stomach is now 28 and a half so I’ll pass. Just in case I go missing on here again, check my Instagram. That’s where I spend most of my time these days.

One day, we’ll talk about the friends we’ve lost but until then, let’s just keep being the best friends we can be to the ones we still have. We all want to be better, and I don’t think we’re doing a lousy job. In the meantime, let’s check up on a friend we’ve not heard from in a while. What do you think?

Cheers to wholesome friendships.

Love,

‘Ruona ❤️

P.S:

I’ve missed you, I’m sorry.

I didn’t know what to title this blog post so I changed the title six times before I settled for “We don’t know what’s up”. If you have any suggestions, please put them in the comment box. If I like it, I’ll change it and give you credit.

How was the first half of 2022 for you?

Do you think friendships should be 50/50 all the time?

Have you checked up on someone you love today?

Please put your replies in the comments section below. You know how much I love reading from you 💜.

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The First Time I Traveled to Gombe State: Part 2.

This is a sequel to “The First time I traveled to Gombe State”. You’d understand better if you’ve read the first part 💜.

Three hours later, I woke up to sounds of “where is the driver?” He was nowhere to be found! I was confused ‘cos isn’t the driver the one that usually looks for his passengers? It was already getting late and that wasn’t the plan at all. This was the plan:

Leave the park by 6 am, get to Kano by 12 pm, proceed to Gombe and arrive camp by 6 pm. Yes, I still had 12 hours ahead of me.

The driver had other plans because when we found him around 7 am, he wasn’t even bothered. This man said he wanted to “freshen up”. Who were we to complain? the boss had spoken. It was almost 9 am when we left the park and between 7 and 9 am, Hausa vendors tried to finish all my money. One thing with these guys is that they’re very persistent. That’s how this vendor convinced me to buy a power bank from him. I felt good about myself when I priced it from 8k Naira to 2k Naira. It turned out to be fake! I experienced their persistence in Abuja, Kaduna, and Kano.

They also try to convince you to buy their goods here in Gombe but I’ve learned how to ignore them.

So, we eventually left Abuja around 9 am after His Royal Majesty had freshened up. Abuja is very fine but that’s another story for another day. I can’t find the video of Zuma Rock that I made. Sigh. We got to Kaduna around 12 pm and that’s when another thing happened – the driver said he was tired and he wasn’t going again. My friend and I just looked at each other (I forgot to mention that I traveled with Chioma. I met her that day. She eventually redeployed to Bayelsa) in confusion. The plan was to drive us straight to Kano. Why would this man say that he wasn’t going anymore when we still had three hours to go? I had already calculated that we’d arrive Kano by 6 pm and Gombe by 9 pm but this driver didn’t even care. He eventually put us in a small cab at the park and settled the driver (I think the reason why he stopped was because we weren’t much in the vehicle anymore). We left Kaduna when it was almost 2 pm. By that time, I already picked up that if you’re being spoken to in Hausa and you don’t understand, you say “ba Hausa” it’s easily translated to mean “no Hausa”.

I almost overused the phrase because I was tired of having to respond to “kopa” and a string of Hausa words all the time. Hausa people are very welcoming, I won’t even lie.

I posted regular updates on my IG story until I was too tired and my battery became too low.

Kaduna was dusty that time. It’s bound to be worse now, with the harmattan. As we moved from Kaduna to Kano in the cramped vehicle (because why will you squeeze four passengers at the back seat and two in front for a three-hour journey?) I could taste dust on my tongue and I could feel it on my face. We were covered in dust and I know someone that has asthma will not have found it funny. Meanwhile, the useless power bank I got for 2k had already died and my battery was low again. Sigh. We arrived at Kano around 5 pm or so, after constantly reminding the driver that he should drop us at Gombe park. He did well sha. Once we alighted from the vehicle, we had people to carry our luggage for us. Despite the stress I went through, I never had to carry my huge box myself. There was always someone to help (they probably looked at me and went “make I help this small girl, make she no faint ‘cos stress was written on my face).

Mind you, it was around 5 pm and I hadn’t eaten because I was scared that I’d vomit again so I starved myself.

Chioma and I paid for the journey to Gombe and while we waited, we decided to get buckets ‘cos we didn’t buy them earlier and they’d be expensive in camp. One cheerful Hausa man was happy to show us around. Most of the shops we passed were left open with no attendants. When we asked this guy, he said that they went to pray. The stores were just open. Wow. By the time we got back to the vehicle, we were still the only passengers present but there was no way I was going to spend another night on the road. Chioma agreed that there was no point in looking for a hotel and we could complete the journey. People filled the Sienna and we pulled out of the park when it was almost 6 pm. I had taken a drink by then. I didn’t want to faint.

By that time, I already called my mum to cry and tell her that I was tired and I couldn’t continue anymore. I was tired, dirty, and I just wanted to rest.

According to my calculation, we were supposed to arrive at Gombe latest by 11 pm because we were told that Gombe was 5 hours away from Kano. I remember thinking “so it’s not six hours anymore, I can do this”. It was dark outside when we traveled so I don’t know the places we passed between Kano and Gombe but I know we passed a part of Bauchi. In my mind, the journey from Kano to Gombe was longer because it refused to end. I shared my location with my friend who went to NYSC camp in Gombe and he was telling me that I still had a long way to go. Even after 5 hours were up, we were still on the road. The checkpoints between Kano and Bauchi are more than 10, I won’t lie. We kept stopping anyhow because for every checkpoint, at least two passengers will come down to stretch their legs and if you know Hausa people well, you’ll know that they’re laid back and not time conscious. That’s why we left Kano and 6 pm in the first place. Stores don’t even open till 9 am around here. They don’t like stress and you cannot rush them.

I’m just remembering to mention that in the Sienna, Chioma and I were the only girls with Haus-speaking men. It was later we realized that the driver could not speak English. I spent more than half of that journey praying in tongues and asking God to protect me. Hard girl, hard girl but I was scared.

After repeating the “move-checkpoint-stretch your legs-move” about 10 times or more, I had almost given up. Miraculously, around past 12, the driver pulled into a very dark park. That’s where I lost it. “Where are we?” I asked. The other passengers had dispersed and it was just me, Chioma, the driver and some men in the park. The driver couldn’t speak English. I was confused because we were told that camp was along the road (I realized later that the people that gave me descriptions did not have to pass through Kano and it was a different route entirely). Not long after, the driver disappeared.

This is the road to NYSC camp, Amada, Gombe State. We passed somewhere else entirely.

We were still confused because there was no way we were going to sleep in the park again. We were the only girls, it was pitch black and the park didn’t look safe. A vigilante or policeman that could speak English approached us and we explained that we had been traveling for two days and we couldn’t sleep in the park. This man told us to pay him 2k Naira each for him to carry us to camp on his bike. We bargained and I even tried to use the “what if I was your sister” line on him but he just told us that if we couldn’t pay, we could sleep with the other men in the park. Eventually, he agreed for us to brink 1,500 Naira each and we proceeded to Amada, Gombe on his bike.

This man extorted money from us ‘cos camp wasn’t even up to 30 minutes from that park but I didn’t mind because I would be out of the cold, in the safety of NYSC camp.

We arrived at camp at around past 1 am and you can imagine the look to the security man’s face when he saw two dirty girls dragging their boxes. He didn’t say much. He just showed us to our rooms. We were among the very first people to arrive at camp so most of the rooms were still empty. He also showed us to the bathroom and told us where we could get water. After Chioma and I chose our beds, we went straight to get water. I scrubbed my body like never before and I slept. The next thing I woke up to was “Do you think you’re in your father’s house? Will you jump up from that bed my friend?” This was around 5 am and I realized that I was already in NYSC camp.

In all, it was a draining but enlightening experience.

Love,

‘Ruona ❤️

PS:

This is the rest of the gist oh! This is what I went through.

Have you encountered annoying bus drivers before?

I can’t believe that a Hause vendor cheated me. My precious 2k! Has this happened to you before?

What would you have done if you found yourself in the same situation as myself and Chioma in the Park and you didn’t have any money to pay the policeman for transport?

What part of the story did you enjoy more? This one or the first one?

Please drop your comments in the comment box below. You know how much I love reading from you! 💜