Our parents’ job requires being constantly on the move. And now that I had reached my final year in high school, they were transfered again, leaving the city for a town I had no idea where it was on the map.

Never heard of the town before. There were many popular towns in our country but this new place they were headed wasn’t one of those. The name sounded like someone’s full name, first name plus surname – which made going to the place a bit daunting.

Thankfully the time to pack and relocate was during the long vacation so I could participate and get to see our new home.

The journey was long, and the longer we drove away from the city, the more boring and miserable the journey got. Our car even broke down on the way.

We had to sleep in a nearby town and continue the next day. Later, we would understand why we had many unfortunate incidents on our way.

Finally we reached our destination after two full days on the road. When we arrived, we felt like we had journeyed 40 years back into time. The place seemed so backward in many ways.

As early as 7pm, everywhere was silent like midnight. And all you hear is the chirping of crickets, hooting of owls and other nocturnal birds. The place didn’t have lit streets so going out to buy something from the market square wasn’t a pleasant scene at night.

And at the market, many goods were out of stock. It seems customers had to tell the vendors in advance what they wish to buy and when the seller goes on a long journey to a nearby city, they bought items for interested customers who made advance payments.

One day I badly needed to replace a lost Sim card and when I got to the telecommunications customer service office, I was told they were out of Sim cards and after two full weeks when the Sim cards arrived, they said the network was bad so they couldn’t start the process. A process that takes less than fifteen minutes in the city.

The buses in that little town conveying passengers to various destinations were death-traps. Passengers knew they were death-traps. Drivers knew they were death-traps. But neither had a choice.

The drivers were too broke to afford new buses and passengers couldn’t afford buying private vehicles. So we had to sit in them and ask God to take the wheel.

Most of these buses are meant to take maximum 15 persons, including the driver and conductor. However, about twenty people are crammed into these minibuses, excluding the driver and conductor. On top of these buses, tonnes of luggages are loaded. As if that were not enough, beneath our feet, tubers of yam, fowls and sometimes a live goat are packed to serve as footstools for passengers.

The roads are permanently under construction so you can imagine the dust on the way. It’s best to travel wearing dirty clothes because if you dare put on neat clothes, you wouldn’t recognize your self  by the time you get to your destination, thanks to the dusty roads . As if all these were not enough, there are armed robbers on the roads.

The pathetic thing is that these are not ex-military or some guerilla fighters. They’re a bunch of teenagers that only God knows where they got their weapons. What annoyed me most was that the men in the  town couldn’t mobilize themselves and ambush these teenagers, teaching them unforgettable lessons. Instead, they allow them fatten themselves on the hard-earned labours of peasants, widows and other unfortunate fellows that are robbed and sometimes killed if they resist.

A week after we arrived there, I tried to revise my notes since my final exams was just a few months away. There was this big tree on the edge of our compound. I took my table,  chair and books and headed towards the shade of the tree. It was around 5pm.

After about 45 minutes of studying, I noticed the weather was getting dark. Out of no where one very long snake from the bushes nearby moved past me and headed straight into the crown of the tree under which I sat. I froze.

The tree was home to the many snakes that played and ate in the thick bushes surrounding our house. My God! How safe were we here??

With lightening speed I packed my things and hurried into the house. Ever since, I was very cautious when going anywhere in that evil town. I couldn’t wait for school to reopen and go back.

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