Fear, Part II

(NB: This was written on Friday 24th September, but until now I haven't had sufficient internet connection to post it.)

On Monday of this week, I lay awake for most of the night because I was convinced there was a rat in my bedroom. As it turned out, it was just two huge cockroaches, making an unusually large amount of noise.

On Wednesday I had my phone stolen from my desk at work, and then, on the way home, got caught in a sudden and vicious rainstorm with winds so strong that my okada driver and I had to cower behind a car at the side of the road for several minutes, while the storm – and various large wind-borne objects – swirled around us. When I thought it had passed, we drove on, only to meet more rain on the way, at which point – since I was near to one of our offices – I stopped the bike and went in search of a dry seat and a cup of tea. No such luck – the office was all closed up for some reason, so I just had to wait until it was dry-ish and chance it. At home and having changed out of my wet clothes, I did the only thing you can do at the end of a day like that: ate Nutella from the jar with a big spoon.

And I wish I could say today had been better. But last night at around 9pm we received a phonecall from a colleague saying that there were rumours that there a group of Muslims were planning to strike out against Christians in Kaduna today and that we should stay indoors (the actual words used were "The Muslims have been urged to rise up and kill the Christians"). A few calls to and fro with VSO confirmed that the security services and the British Consulate had also heard that there was an attack planned and that we should stay at home for the day.

Natural worrier that I am, and since we live in an entirely Christian area of town, my mind went into overdrive. I was imagining all kinds of scenes from Half of  A Yellow Sun or various films I’d seen, and I was terrified. To be fair to myself, the scenes I was imagining were no worse than violence that has been seen in Nigeria as recently as March this year in Jos. I slept badly and have been on edge all day – making sure the gate to our compound was locked, jumping at every noise and generally being miserable.

As far as we can tell, nothing came of it. We heard that the rumours started because of an incident in an area out of town last night: the police shot two okada drivers and then, in retaliation, the police station was burnt down. Apparently a group of people were threatening to come into the city to cause trouble today; but they either didn’t or the security services intercepted them.

Talking to another volunteer based in Kwara state, she too a said that near them there were attacks last night and lots of sirens today. I hope this isn’t the beginning of a long and troubled lead-up to the election in January. I hope I manage to ‘master my fear’, as Iorek Byrnison would say. Because, if I’m honest, right now, I think I’d just like to go home, have 2.4 children and have the greatest danger I face be my overdraft.