I 'LL TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN

AM I STILL LIVING? (5)

It was really a great time of retrospect and reflection in my childhood. One week after the annual one month holiday by the school, my father wrote my mother a letter, telling her to prepare to come to Enugu with me. That was to fulfill his promise. My father had earlier promised to be sending for me to spend my long vacation period with him in Enugu. My mother had to start gathering some things together for our journey. She had to get all my cloths washed and packed. She got her own necessary things ready for the trip. I was so happy that night as we waited for the following morning to heat the road. It was the longest day I ever witnessed. I kept counting the hands of the time, wishing it would fasten up and bring forth the anticipated morning. But funny enough, I did not know when the day peeped. It was my mother that tapped me to wake up the following morning. Getting myself showered and brushed, I sat down and ate my morning breakfast. The breakfast was moi-moi she cooked the previous day. We ate it together; afterwards, we bade our family members good bye and went to the motor park where we would board a commercial bus departing for Enugu. As we got to the park, some group of people came towards us, trying to grab mother's luggage from her. But my mother resisted them and held our luggage firm. They kept asking my mother "Enugu?, Enugu?" . At this time, my mother then allowed one of these people to carry our luggage while we followed him. The man led us to their administrative office where my mother paid for her ticket with which we would board a commercial bus heading to Enugu. The ticket was for my mother. And she meant to carry me on her lap in the bus. This was because I had not come of age to buy ticket in the transport company. Within a short while after my mother purchased her ticket, other passengers came up and bought theirs. The departure time of our boarded bus was 7:30am and the number of the passengers was not completed, the company had to announce the readiness of the Enugu bus to depart. We all got into the bus. The company made their final cross-check of passengers' tickets.

According to the bus' driver, it was the tradition of the company that prayers should be said before heating the road. So he requested for a volunteer among the passengers to pray and commit our trip to Enugu into God's hands. One passenger volunteered himself. He prayed, after which we zoomed off.