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Jungle Justice 2
By Felix | April 8, 2008
My hands have been quite full lately, I had to go for a speaking engagement at the University of Ilorin on Friday, with a team from the New Nigeria Club, we spoke to a group of final year students who are about to face the real world after school. The program started about 7p.m and ended at about 12midnite.
I had the opportunity to speak to them on entrepreneurship and seeing the students and their reactions to our different topics and how it impacted on them, I longed to go back into time to take the opportunities that were given me in my school days to learn, and I passed.
I remembered my own days in school, when my priorities were facing a different direction and I thought to myself, how lucky these ones are to be able to know themselves now and take their future into their own hands, I remember how I started my session with telling them how I had spent 8years in school instead of 4years and what made me qualified enough to be able to take the podium and talk to them, this shocked them and at the same time got their full attention for me to play my part.
As we drove out of the school premises I had a feeling of nausea… it was just few minutes before midnight with heavy down pour of rain and the driver of the car slowing down and squinting to see the roads in the pitch black night and with the heavy down pour of rain blinding and obstructing his view and only picking up a little speed when flashes of lightning light up the road only for a few seconds…
… My mind flashed back to the that day in the jungles (to understand this post you might need to read jungle justice) of Calabar (south eastern Nigeria) when I got lost with my friends, while running from the police, not just lost because we couldn’t find our way out, but also lost because we were supposed to be using our days in school to and acquire knowledge to get empowered like the way the students I met that night in Ilorin who just got blessed by my team that had spent 5 solid hours downloading principles that will guide them through life after school and also present opportunity for their first jobs.
As I heard them clap that night and bang the tables in front of them with excitement, I remembered the steady consistent bang! Bang! we were hearing from a distance after being lost for over 5hours and thinking we wouldn’t see civilization again! As we approached the steady bang! Bang! sound we were hearing, we started seeing what looked like from a distance the roof of an uncompleted building in the distance with the steady motion of a man driving a nail through roofing sheet and wood, but now the swampy grounds we threaded on had started giving way and swallowing our legs, it was clear we were heading in the right direction, but we had to almost swim through shit to get to civilization, as there was a pit toilet in view and since we didn’t know any other way out from there, the water running from there mixed with the mud water of the swamp took us in almost waist deep until we came out by a well and saw some villagers who looked at us like aliens at first until one of the guys who was with me spoke efik language with them, telling them that we were running from political opponents as this was the only story that would have made sense since it was during the local government elections in 2002.
Being used to seeing political violence in that part of town, the story was easily believable and they were willing to help, they gave us buckets to fetch water from the well and take baths, helped us buy slippers and nylon bags to put our clothes in and showed us a palm wine shed where we could wait till it got darker for us to get back where ever it was we were coming from. We had to pull our clothes and be in boxers and t-shirts so we can easily blend with the villagers look there in case the police showed up.
When we got to the palm wine shed, drinking and narrating how it felt to be lost in the jungle with the fear of not seeing the light of day, a few of the villagers there who overheard us were shocked to hear that we went in that deep and came out alive, and they went ahead to tell us how their domestic animals, like the chickens from their poultry and dogs, got missing frequently in that same jungle, because of the snakes (pythons), that were there. They told us how a week didn’t go by without them killing snakes that came out from that same swamp.
But we laughed it off saying we would have killed any snake that came across our way and they in turn laughed at our naivety, because we didn’t know how big the snakes they were talking about were and being disadvantaged by being in the swamp where the snakes lived, we had little or no chance of making and if we managed to get the snake injured, it would have writhed and twisted and scattered the whole area out of pain and vengeance.
Now this sent chills down my spine and I remembered when I prayed a few hours before then asking God to bring us out of that place and promising to head back home to Lagos (western part of Nigeria) if He got me out. Now just a few minutes after being out, I had forgotten was drinking the palm wine, mouthing about the ordeal like I brought myself out of it.
A few hours later when it became nice and dark, I was already feeling cold and we were just 2 left out of 5 of us initially, I went to the road, boarded a bike and headed to my girlfriend’s house back then, because it was the safest place I knew I could go to when we had problems with opposing frats. Soon as I got there, took my bath told her a little of what happened while eating, I started feeling feverish, my body had developed temperature and that was it for me and day light for another 3days, as I fell ill with malaria fever, and I couldn’t get in touch with any of my friends during that 3days period… to be continued
April 9th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Malaria u say .. boy that word has brings back many many memories.. wink.. Thank God for your life, continue to honor him and u will never find yourself lost again.. hagn sweetie xxx
April 9th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Glad it all turned out well, boy!
Ponder over dis.
You are more sinful than you can believe, but you are more loved than you can imagine.
dts d LUV JESUS has for us his children, even if we re sinners.
April 9th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Life is a voyage!! from tym 2 tym we experience storms n shipwreck along d way.we all ve our share of lose,guilt,mistakes n pain.some of us ve emerged from painful circumstances with strong insights about who we are n what we want.
Each step of d way we learned.we went through exactly what we needed to become who we are 2DAY.
Is ur past a mistake?NO.Ur mistake is mistaking that for the truth;God can ‘reframe’ our past in d light of the grace n mercy that will lead us 2 a positive begining.all we owe him is 2 learn 4rm it,be grateful 4 our new today n move on.
PEACE N A FIST SWIT1!!Xxx
April 14th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Atimes its good to make mistakes, cos they say experience is the best teacher. How we all wish we could all go back and i know all would do lots differently now cos we are wiser.
May 30th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
@imelda: wise talk!! some mistakes were meant to be in other to see the forbidden barriers of the unknown..
May 30th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
you sure have something great to do in this life that God want you doing just continue to worship him his too good to you