It's exciting to be with you all this week and I greet my Indian friends. Namaste!
To our last week winner, trust you are working hard again for another round but just maybe, I will end up there.
On the topic of this week:
FORCED OUT OF YOUR COMFORT.
It dates as far back as year 2000 when I was still in my secondry school days. I was a student of Secondary technical school which was a boy's and girls day school.
Within the same area are others secondary schools but most of them are just boys school, only one was girls only.
For some reasons, my school became the target of two boys school within the area always engaging us in an uncontrollable riots. This continued for years and most times life's were lost in the process of the riots and the teachers and principals of both schools seems helpless because the boys from the others schools are drop-out students who have refused to be useful to themselves, their parents and the society at large so all they've got to do is to cause trouble every now and then to other students and nearby schools like mine. They use all kinds or weapons and cutlass.
I remembered vividly one day they stormed our school towards the close of the day, surrounded us and with the mix up of girls in our school, the chaos was so much that they over powered us immediately, all we could do was to go into hiding. In the end of it all, one of my good friend and classmate had a deep cut in his hand, sadly, that machete was dipped into an acid so some days later the hand started to decay and had to be amputated. Till date, he has one hand which is a constant reminder of that ugly incident.
After my JS3 I had to leave that school by force for the sake of my life to another Technical college but this time in my home town and for the first time , I was going to leave the family and move to our village all by myself.
That began another phase of my life and struggle to survive on my own .
As against entering bus to school, I had to treck up hills of about 1story building height in the village. I had to go to the stream to fetch water as against going to a borehole of a stone throw from our house in the city, I had to cook what I eat as I lived alone and worst of all, relatives would ask me to join them in farm during the weekend , village life began for a once city boy.
But I must say it came with some blessings too
LIVING CLOSER TO NATURE
I had the opportunity to eat fresh home grown food most of which I planted myself and this taught me indepent life and the importance of self development even in the worst condition
It also came with some demanding tasks as I had to clean the compound almost every 2weeks during rainy season to keep some reptiles away. But for a City born and raised, it wasn't too easy as my I would have some blisters after the work and sometimes even before I finish the clearing which I would have to suspend.
HARD LIFE OF GRASS CLEARING
THE MOST IMPORTANT POSITIVE ASPECT
In the technical college, I was in the Electrical department so I learnt how to wire a house and till date, it's a skill that has become part of me though the process wasn't too easy
So the journey of life that would take one out of his comfort zone is never an easy one or something to look forward to. But as unpredictable as life is, when that change comes, it's still possible to make out something from it.
(all pictures are mine)