‘High rising bullet ridden walls, sky seasoned with black smoke, a street left in ruin.’ That was not how the story started but where I chose to. This is what has become of a once beautiful city of Homs, somewhere in the Middle East. I have learnt to skip the first few pages or chapters of any book to the point where the meat of the story begins.
‘The streets are quiet and desolate, distant gunshots and shelling keeping caution abreast. A door creeks open and a head concealed in hijab pops out, “You shouldn’t be out in the street,” she says, but I have to be on the streets – that is the reason I am here, to cover the story from the outside. Though the loneliness of the street sickens me and occasionally creams my skin with Goosebumps, I refuse to be scared into hiding, it is part of my job ethics not to show fear.’
This sort of loneliness reminded me of my trip to the University. University of Nigeria, Nsukka precisely. It was the first time I would ever perform a solo travel – tens of kilometres to the Eastern part of the country – and live outside our small flat in the middle belt. I was sixteen, and the idea traumatizing. Worse, I was a chronic introvert. Haven made the journey through rickety roads, I stood at the gate, staring bleak at pedestrians walking in and out.
The sun left the sky in a hurry as if to mock me. Without much options, I shyly stopped a dude and asked for direction.
“Take a bike to the Department of Student Affairs. You will find all the info you need there,” he said.
He was nice and looked it too in his shirt and jeans. I thanked him. The crowd was something else, queue the length of king cobra. Normally I would have chickened out, but on that day, it was not an option. If I failed to get registered, I might as well forget the exam I had the following day. If I haven’t eaten for the past twelve hours, I didn’t notice, the adrenalin in my system nudged me on, a day that flipped open a new chapter in my life. As an adult, travels now comes with a new kind of feeling; enthusiasm.
‘I move towards her and she shuts the door,’ I continued reading. ‘Down the street is a mall halved to rubble. I push aside the debris blockading the door and force my way in. The air inside is a blend of rotten vegetables, ammonia and decaying flesh. I cough. Twice. Removes a handkerchief from my breast pocket and choke the smell off my nostrils. My tummy grumbles. I am hungry but obviously, nothing good and edible can come out of such a place. I fling my head and turn to leave and a voice came, a low dull voice. I recognise the language as Arabic but not the wordings.
‘I turn the direction of the sound. Four children; three boys and a girl hid in the dark corner, probably trapped. They must have been there since God-knows-when because their skin is as light as polythene, eyes sunken in their sockets. They clutch each other tighter, spitting words that eludes my understanding, only their gestures translates they were begging for something, probably their lives. “I want to return to my country asap but there is no way am leaving this kids in this condition.”
As I read through the last lines, my fist clenched and my heart beat faster. Having the conviction to travel comes with anxiety which increases adrenalin flow to prepare the person for the unforeseen. Fear I like to view as setting restrictions for ourselves even when there should be none and the vice versa, bravery. For me, that first experience didn’t erase my introvert nature but refined it, made me know when to lower the shield. I can now easily relate with strangers, a once abominable act.
Moving from place to place however is not my sole form of travel. Those times I am incapacitated by finance to change geography, I sink in the ocean of words, words in books that transport me with vivid imagery of places, of Paris, Peshawar, Port Harcourt or Preston. In those worlds often, I encounter characters that give me reasons to be brave, reasons not to be afraid of what I can do once I set my heart to it.
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