Christmas wasn't it for me; actually, today was probably the most stressful day that I've had this whole month, and it wasn't because I spent all day in the kitchen cooking or any of that stuff you guys do on a day like this.
I woke up this morning, about fifteen minutes past six, because I had to go to church for service. This wasn't a Christmas; it was my usual Thursday service. My church doesn't exactly celebrate Christmas.
So I got up, got ready, and by the time it got to 7am, I was already on my way out. I boarded a commercial vehicle, and the conductor of the bus didn't hesitate to ask for fare, which I and my little brother quickly paid. About five minutes after we made that payment, we realized why he had collected the money that early.
There was a huge traffic jam ahead, but luckily for us, our driver had been smart enough to divert into a nearby street, hoping to come out right in front of the traffic, but that wasn't the case; the traffic was everywhere.
Apparently, a tanker carrying a lot of petrol had collapsed and caught on fire the previous night, killing the driver on the spot. After waiting for about two minutes on the bus and realizing that we weren't going anywhere soon, I called my dad to know if it would be best for us to come back, but just like every African parent, he insisted we march on.
And that was where the stress began. We started to walk, and after we had walked for about thirty minutes, we eventually got to the spot where the truck carrying the fuel had fallen, and we could see firefighters looking exhausted as everyone gathered around to watch what was going on.
By this time, a lot of shops on both sides of the road looked burnt, their goods, or whatever was inside the shops, gone. We continued to walk; this time it was slowly getting to an hour when I received a call from my dad.
He had been standing at the bus stop for more than thirty minutes himself and couldn't find a vehicle that was willing to go that way. And that was when he realized how serious everything was, so he instructed us to come back.
The only problem with that was that there were also no vehicles on our way back, so guess what we did—we walked. This was probably the longest walk that I've taken all year. We walked for a very long time before we eventually got home.
The moment I lay on my bed, I dozed off. Then I woke up this evening and found out we still hadn't had an electrical power supply, which was a strange thing. Ever since I traveled back here, there have always been at least 20 hours of power supply every day. I don't think there has ever been a time I went to bed in total darkness.
That was when it hit me. When we had walked past the area where that accident had happened, we had noticed that an electrical pole had also caught on fire, burning both the wires and everything. It turned out that wire was what supplied light to this side of town. So apparently, not only did that fire kill someone and destroy people's shops, it puts me in a position where I literally can't sleep or risk drowning in my own sweat when I do.
