A Night On The Road

I heard a loud bang and I could swear I saw my life flash before my eyes. “What just happened?” I asked myself.

I turned around to check on my friend in the back seat, and he was just as terrified as I was, maybe a little more because unlike me, he was wide awake when we sped into the port hole of doom.

As I turned back to focus on the road, I noticed the terror on even the driver’s face. He was wreaking off it like he almost saw the gates of heaven. He was sweating lightly on his face like he just had steam sprayed on it as if it wasn’t a cold night in a car with fully operational air conditioning.

image taken from pexels

I watched the speedometer arm slowly fall back to our departure speed, wondering why. The impact from the near-death accident trashed the car up a little. Who would step out to check what went wrong? We were in the middle of nowhere close to midnight. We had zero reasons to stop and like 100 reasons to keep driving until we were at least in Bolga, a town we considered safe territory: a busy town with lots of movement happening.

image taken from pexels

My friend and I didn’t question the driver’s judgement when he kept driving even though we all knew the car developed a fault because we understood subconsciously why he made that judgment call.

Unfortunately for us, the policemen at the checkpoint ahead of us didn’t share our understanding. We all let out a loud sigh in unison when our car’s headlight illuminated the bright red signpost a few meters ahead of us. Our journey was brought to temporary rest because we weren’t allowed passage into Bolga- our safe territory. But we were at least sleeping next to trained armed men, so our worry with regard to safety was addressed.

Safety aside, Awudu and I were terrified now for two reasons: first and better was the fact that we would have to sleep in our car which was packed full of fish. But trust me, this was the least of our worries.

Before we boarded the car back in Tamale, we had made plans that when we got to Navrongo was when we’d break our fast. So in anticipation of arriving in Navrongo tonight, we didn’t buy any food. Fasting 16 hours is a struggle enough already, but having to sleep with the 16-hour fast in a car stinking of fish was a different level of torture.

Not to mention the fact that this was our first time sleeping an entire night in a car. I woke up at regular intervals throughout the night because of the discomfort of unending slimy sweat on the car seat I was supposedly sleeping on. I’d never waited longed so much to see daybreak in my life.

Unpleasant situations have a funny and effective way of getting one on one’s feet. I didn’t need to hear an alarm or a rooster to be up the following morning. Surprisingly, we couldn’t find our driver when we woke up. It seems he had taken our tire rim to Bolga to repair since the impact from last night completely deformed it. This surprise gave us relief because I for one was glad he sped up the timeline of us getting our hands on food.

But his early departure didn’t return any goodies. The disappointment and fury in our eyes were evident when we reached out for the black polytene in his hand only to find out it was two hot sachet water pieces. Then again, we couldn’t blame him because we didn’t inform him we needed food when he left. But who is to blame? Us? We weren’t even awake when he left.

We shrugged and let out visible signs of discomfort as we gulped the sachet of water down empty stomachs. It was a necessary torture for temporary relief.

After about 30 minutes of waiting, our car was in shape to hit the road again. Our happily ever after was only an hour or two drive away.

image taken from pexels

When we finally arrived on campus, the thought of showering didn’t cross our minds until we attended to the pressing matter at hand- breaking our overdue fast.

We got a phone call to get ready as the bus for the field trip we traveled overnight for will be leaving in 2 hours-just enough time for us to get ready. We got out happily ever after in the end and all the trouble we went through was worth it.