A trip to the North

It can't possibly get any worse than this Tumbi thought to herself, I have been on this bus for well over 6 hours since the bus left the terminal at zuba in Abuja, I was praying deep in my heart that I don't end up regretting my decision of attending this interview even when the chances of me getting the job is almost zero and I don't even know where am going to be spending the night.

As if it was not worse enough that I was travelling to Borno to look for a job, the most terrorist ravaged part of Nigeria, the "headquarters" of the dreaded Islamic extremists BOKO HARAM, there is this annoying man by my side that I had been struggling to bear the odour coming from his body and to make things worst he just fell asleep and tilted his head and is now resting on my shoulders-Gosh can it get any worse than this? Oh did I mention the air conditioner in the bus stopped working half way through the journey? Just then I heard a man from behind screaming 'madam you for buy two sit oh' complaining about an oversized woman sitting by his side and almost squizing the life out of the remaining 3 passengers at the back seat. I was happy atleast I am on a row where we had just three passengers and a little way for passing which has been covered by luggages though.

We don dey near? I asked again, this should be like the 10th time am asking the other guy to my right and he just nodded his head and said "Inaah"? Which I assume it means no because I don't understand the language of the area much and that also contributes to why I still don't understand why I am hoping for the job. Hey I guess like they say 'he who is down is not afraid of falling' what more can someone who has finished school for over 3 years and waiting to get a job do? Am jumping at any opportunity these days and this happens to be the worth of them.

Not quite far ahead appeared a military check point, where the used sacks laoded with what seem like sand to separate the lanes to make the doubled laned road into a single one, alternating the positions of the sand bags make the road into a zigzag Patten and as we were approaching it, the driver slowed down normally so as to manoeuver these sand bags but first we had to wait for the cars from the opposite direction to pass before we can because of the nature of the road and this can help the soldiers check each passing vehicle.

They seem to be something unusual about these particular check point because passing through no fewer than 20 of such chech points before we got here would give us a clue of how the next one would look like but first there were no sand bags but just trunk of freshly cut trees lay across the road and fresh cut leaves from these trees litter the sides of the road. And wait!! These guys are not on carmo instead they are wearing the traditional ismalic jalabia and their faces appear covered, oh my God we are in deep!! ..before I could say those words the cars in our front appear to be trying to retreat and the next few moments were just hell...

There was a sudden rush of people out of the cars in front of us followed by ours and suddenly there was a great bust of sporadic shooting in all directions and people in the cars in front of us trying to get out started falling down and as I was about running to a direction I don't even know I just fell flat on my face and I could feel blood streaming down my forehead...I was on a person am sure was dead and I slowly reached for my forehead and felt a deep cut but I was still a bit conscious, so I tried to look at the direction the shooting was coming from as I could hardly see or hear a thing as a result of the shooting meanwhile they were still moving towards us.

With my last bit of strength I rolled my self under a stationary bus which am not sure if it was ours with the engine still running. I blacked out and that was it.

Am not sure if I expected my eyes to ever open again but they did and it was at the military camp in the capital city Maiduguri and to my greatest surprise I had just a bruise on my head and on my foot, I had stumbled and fell hitting my head on the Tared road...what a relieve right?

Who cares about a job when I've got my life?

Hope you had a nice time reading.