The usual articles you come across on the last day of the month and the beginning of a new month is the monthly report/reviews, where most people talk about what they have achieved for the previous month, but I won't be doing that for this article (maybe the next one).
Yesterday was the end of the month and I had a very bad experience in Lagos. For those that don't know, I and my classmates traveled to Lagos to continue our field practical training, and we usually commute every day because the headquarters of the institute is far from where we stay.
We usually take around 2 to 3 hours to get to the headquarters with a vehicle we chartered, then the driver comes back in the afternoon around 1:30pm and take us back home, but something went wrong yesterday 💀
Yesterday, when it was getting to the time for the bus driver to arrive, we called him and his phone was switched off. We assumed maybe he couldn't charge his phone and he will probably be waiting for us outside, we went to check and he wasn't there. We waited till about 3pm and that was when we knew the driver won't be coming.
The only option left for us is to start taking public buses at different locations until we get home, and some of us have to carry others to minimize cost. I was one of the people that was carrying someone on my lap, and she was sitting there for over 1 hour because there was traffic on the road.
I was very uncomfortable because I couldn't even sit straight in the congested bus (I am very tall), coupled with the fact that someone was sitting on my lap. After a while, my legs started aching very bad and I had to adjust my legs so many times just to cope with the pain.
We got to the final bus stop for that route and we had to take another public bus to the next location, that was when we noticed there was a problem; there was a multitude of people heading in the same direction as us but there was little to no buses. We joined the crowd and started hoping for a miracle, but it was looking very unlikely.
One of us suggested we start trekking, but I check Google Maps and discovered the distance from where we are to our next location is over 35 minutes with a bus! Now imagine walking that distance, it will take over 2 hours to get there. I was already losing all hopes of a bus arriving, but some of my female classmates were able to stop a pickup truck and begged them to carry us.
Immediately the truck driver agreed, several people started dragging to mount the truck, it was chaos! The driver got angry and said everyone should get down that he isn't helping anymore, but we begged him and he calmed down. Some of my female classmates had injuries on their knees and legs while trying to climb the truck and one was even crying.
We held on to whatever we can on the truck, I and several other guys were standing while the girls sat down on the truck's floor. The driver collected a little amount of money from all of us which we gladly paid because that was better than waiting for a miracle bus to arrive. We got to the next location and there was a scarcity of tricycles which was supposed to take us to our hostels.
Some of us ended up taking motorbikes because we are already tired and couldn't wait for a tricycle. We finally got home at about 7pm and I was even too tired to cook, but luckily someone gave me something to eat.
Then this morning
We left the house by 6am and we hadn't even gone far and we met crazy traffic which was very unusual on that road. The traffic hold-up was so bad that our driver and several others turned off their vehicle.
It got to 9am and we haven't even gotten to half of the journey, I just knew something was wrong that morning. Some of my classmates were already having breakfast right there on the bus, and I knew if we are not careful we will also eat lunch while still on the road.
But luckily, the traffic later cleared up and we arrived at the institute at about 11am, that is we spent over 5 hours on the road! It wasn't a very fun experience and right now I am tired of Lagos, I haven't experienced a thing like this in the city where I live.
The reason why there's serious traffic everywhere in Lagos might be related to the fuel scarcity that's currently ravaging the country, and it's worse in Lagos because it's an overpopulated state. I just can't wait for this training to be over so I can return to my city, I am tired 😩.
Thanks for reading 💖💖💖
Tuesday March 1st, 2022
Sorry dear. I'm not really sorry fa. Tall people usually find it very difficult to sit for long in a cramped up vehicle. They'd definitely be experiencing serious aches at their knee region... Me I cannot stay in Lagos o. Except it is helicopter that will be transporting me frommy house to the office. Haba!