Humanity and Love

When I was a little girl, I had a penchant for boys’ clothes, maybe because seeing my brothers in their clothes made me wonder why I had to wear dresses and skirts. I had no idea that destiny was going to thrust upon me the supposedly tougher ‘male’ roles.

My name is Faith and there are still times when I wonder where life is taking me. I know it has to be somewhere great. I can feel it when I wake up. I feel it when I turn in for the night. Then there are times when I’m scared and I feel a hot rush of blood to my face. It is a warning for me to shake off fear and move on to more calming memories.

Growing up was a mixture of excitement, fear, care and love. I had loving parents who gave me so much love and spent their last earnings to ensure my happiness and education.  I grew up among four boisterous boys. Life was competitive and rough. I wanted to be able to do what they did. When I couldn’t they would make jest of me although I knew that deep down their love for me was strong.

I passed through the necessary basic education but I was still restless. I just knew that for me to be somebody in life my education must be optimal. I dreamt of studying abroad, but my parents could not afford such a venture. That did not stop me from writing to universities in the United Kingdom and the United States. The universities would reply with bulky envelopes that contained prospectus, admission forms and, of course, the fees. My brothers thought I was mad to waste my time writing and asking for application forms.

‘Where are you going to get the money?’ they would ask.

‘I don’t know, but I’m going to keep on applying anyway.’

Two of the several universities, both in Europe, were willing to help with conditional financial support, based on my performance after the first academic year. I pursued these two options vigorously. I chose to go to Glasgow in Scotland. I was over the moon when I received an offer of admission from the university and I shared the good news with my family.

Discussions began about when to travel to London, getting a visa, and where to stay. I had a friend whose mother lived in the UK. My friend introduced me to her mother and, because telephones were a luxury then and there were no mobiles, I started communicating with her through letters. My friend’s mother sent me an invitation letter and other necessary documents required by the British Embassy, and together with my letter of admission from the University, I was issued a visa. I wrote to her immediately and informed her about my time of arrival in the UK.

‘No problem, you can stay with us until you are ready to start university,’ she wrote back.

We entered into the last phase of arrangements for my relocation to Europe. I bought a few articles of warm clothing, a suitcase, and I scraped together enough money for a one-way ticket to London. It was a KLM ticket, routed through Amsterdam. I had never travelled international before, so it was with great anxiety that I boarded the plane at Lagos for Amsterdam that summer of 1975. On arrival at Schiphol Airport, I tried to follow all the signs that led me to an enquiry desk. I was directed to an airport shuttle bus that took me to Carlton Hotel for the night. As soon as I settled down I put a call through to my friend’s mother in London.

‘Good evening ma, I’m now in Amsterdam.’

‘Welcome, my daughter. When should we pick you up tomorrow?’

‘Arrival time is 11:00Am.’

‘We will be there.’

I was relived and slept soundly.

The next morning I made my way back to Schiphol. I was allocated a seat on Qantas airline. I sat beside a middle-aged Nigerian gentleman. I can’t recall his name now but I remember he asked me what I was going to do in London. That was the beginning of our chat during the flight. He became like a father and guided me through immigration and customs. My first shock came at Heathrow when my friend’s mother failed to turn up. I became agitated. I didn’t know anyone in London. There I was sweating; an eighteen year-old girl abandoned in a foreign airport. The middle-aged gentleman came to my rescue.

‘Come and stay with me and my girlfriend,’ he offered.

A beggar can only dream of choosing, so I followed him. We boarded a taxi, which took us to a semi-detached house in East London. A busty Nigerian lady warmly welcomed us. The gentleman and his lady friend were pleasant and they treated me well. This agreeable situation did not last long however. The lady’s younger brother started making sexual advances towards me. I ignored him as much as I could, but eventually he became physically violent. I reported his advances to his sister. He denied everything and the lady got angry.

‘You are an ungrateful girl,’ she scolded me. ‘After all I have done for you. You want to get my brother into trouble?’

‘No, Ma.’ My voice trembled. I was afraid of what she was going to say.

My luggage was thrown out. I was devastated and cried like a baby. I longed to be back home in Nigeria with my family. Somehow, I managed to call another girl friend, a student who lived in a hostel not too far from the Bayswater area. I called her from a public phone.

‘Hello Sola, I’ve been thrown out of the house. What shall I do?’

‘Come and stay at the hostel, it is only £5 a week.’

‘But I don’t have that kind of money’

‘Faith, the matron won’t allow you to squat with me. These people are very strict.’

‘Okay, I will try Mary’s uncle who lives at St John’s Wood. Remember him?’

‘I don’t trust that man, but good luck, my friend.’

I was left with no alternative, except to sleep on the street. I needed free accommodation, so I called Mary’s uncle. He was a middle-aged bachelor who lived alone. That should have been a warning.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll come and pick you,’ he said.

True to his words he came in his car, and we left for another semi-detached house in St John’s Wood, North London.

‘Welcome,’ he said as he took my luggage inside.

We went up a flight of stairs.

‘This is your room,’ he pointed as he led me into this well-furnished compact room on the first floor.

‘Come down for something to eat once you have unpacked.’

I went downstairs into the kitchen and was fed this funny tasting plate of rice and stew. I took a few spoons and threw the rest into the garbage bin. We talked for a while and I started to feel some sort of discomfort. I prayed for night to come so I could escape to my room.

At about 8:30pm I asked permission to leave.

‘Goodnight uncle and thank you,’ I knelt down to greet him.

‘My pleasure and sleep well,’ he replied reluctantly.

I could not have slept for long when the door to my room opened and I found the so-called uncle naked and standing beside my bed. I felt a jab of fear in my heart. I jumped up and asked what he wanted.

‘I want you, of course! I like your youthful body, and that lovely skin. Let me touch you.’

‘Don’t or I will scream.’

He ignored my threat and walked towards me. As I tried to escape he grabbed me and slapped me hard. I saw stars and was dumbfounded.

He struggled with me, but I slipped through his hands and ran to the top of the stairs. Then, somehow I tripped and found myself at the bottom, stunned.

‘I’m warning you, I will scream.’ By then I was crying.

At that point, he came to his senses and apologised. He led me to my room and promised not to disturb me again. He kept his words, but I hardly slept. As soon as it was daylight, I took a quick shower and packed my only luggage.

‘Please, I can’t stay here.’ I pleaded.

‘Where will you go?’

‘To my friend’s hostel’

‘Do you have any money?’

‘No.’

He gave me £20, which was enough to pay for accommodation at the hostel for a month, and he dropped me in front of the hostel.

‘I’m sorry for my behaviour last night. Promise to let me know how you are doing,’ he said.

‘It’s okay.’ I never called him again.

My friend, Sola, took me to the hostel matron, who led me to a small hall with ten small beds.  We had breakfast and dinner served in the hostel, but no lunch as you were expected to be out working or in school. I stayed there for the whole summer, got a vacation job as a waitress in a restaurant, earning enough to pay my bills and have a little savings for university.

At the beginning of autumn I took the train to Glasgow. It was a cold morning when I got to my university hostel.

A matronly woman welcomed me. ‘Hello, yes, can I help you?’

‘I’m the student you are expecting from Nigeria.’

‘Hai, welcome my lassie. Ye must be freezing. Let me make ye nice cuppa tea to warm ye up.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ I couldn’t make out her accent.

She repeated herself and when I still looked lost, she just grabbed my hand to lead me inside. I was happy to be in a warm house, away from the biting chilly autumn wind. I rubbed my hands together and blew hot air to keep them warm.

‘Hai, come seat by the fire. You poor thing.’

I was introduced to the other girls in the hostel; girls from Kenya, Caribbean, Mauritius, Zambia, and Ghana. Others came from nearby Aberdeen, Perth, and Edinburgh. I felt better and soon mixed with the lodgers.

The next four years in Glasgow was one of struggling to pay hostel and university bills and have enough to eat, as my bursary barely covered my tuition fees. During the summers, I would get a job and save enough to tide me over the following semester. 

I finished my law degree and proceeded to work for a law firm, McMillan & Sons. It was a boring job. I was not fully integrated into core law in the office. I did more of legal administrative duties. I got restless soon enough and chucked it in. For months I made do with little temporary jobs here and there, until one day I saw a documentary on television that changed my life. It was about the war in Sudan showing grisly pictures of butchered victims, children, men and women. Emaciated and malnourished children; I could see the bones sticking out of their shoulders and ribs.

The worst scene that still gives me nightmares was seeing a man hacked to death with a machete by a group of about six to eight men. That was the eye-opener for me. I cried and cried to see such inhumanity. I was haunted for weeks by the way the man shuddered as he gasped for his last breath. I refused to eat meat. I was traumatised and depressed. I called the producer of the programme to make enquiries about non-governmental organisations and missionaries in Sudan. I just had to make myself useful. That was the only way to retain my sanity. My colleagues at the law firm thought I had lost my mind. I acknowledged that perception, but the only way to get it back was to go to Sudan and join a mission there.

‘But what will you do with your law degree. You have no experience of nursing or medicine or even first aid. Those are the skills required if you know you want to help,’ one of them queried.

 I ignored that and pushed on with my search. I called the headquarters of one of the missions in Geneva. I explained my desire to render voluntary services in whatever way I could.

‘I’m an African and I hate the way my fellow Africans are butchering themselves,’ I cried.

I was referred to their liaison office in Glasgow. I went there and met a nice Scottish lady called Susan. She was sympathetic but advised me to get some training on emergency medical care. She believed I was intelligent enough to manage other simple duties. I was put on training to learn how to apply first aid to gunshot or machete wounds, how to apply pressure to stop bleeding, how to take pulse, how to dress wounds, how to resuscitate and other simple nursing skills.

After six months, I was given the green light to go. My ticket was bought and arrangements made with the local mission in Sudan about my arrival. I arrived in Khartoum and saw my name displayed on a card held by a Sudanese.  I approached him and introduced myself.

‘Welcome to Sudan. My name is Yusuf.’

‘Thank you Yusuf. Please call me Faith—as in, hanging in there.’

We had a warm handshake, and he led me to an old jeep.

‘You certainly are going to need a lot of faith and some dose of hope here,’ he said.

I almost lost my balance trying to climb into the jeep. My scout drove through a dusty, bumpy road, ten miles into the outskirts. I heaved a sigh of relief when we finally stopped in front of what seemed like a courtyard consisting about five thatched huts.

‘This is the Mission.’

‘This is it?’ I gasped, almost running back into the jeep.

‘Welcome to the Ritz,’ he said in that scornful manner again.

I didn’t find it hilarious and ignored his sarcasm.

‘Come and meet the leader of the Mission. Later you can take a shower under the African sky. Very romantic, eh?’

This man needs to have his head examined, I thought.

‘Welcome to the Mission,’ was repeated by five people; an African, three Europeans and one American.

‘Thank you very much indeed,’ I said and ducked my head when I heard several loud bang in quick succession behind me.

‘What was that?’ My heart skipped several beats.

‘Gunshots and local bomb explosion,’ said a black woman, whom I later learned was called Tanya. ‘Don’t worry you’ll soon get used to it. Come in and have a cup of Sudanese tea.’

Before I could take a sip of the tea, there were shouts outside. I hurried outside with the others and saw several wounded men were being rushed into the biggest hut, which served as the Mission hospital. Some of the wounded were carried on wood stretchers, some slung over shoulders, some hopped on one leg, and some even looked dead already. Most of the wounds were from gunshots, machete cuts, and burns.

‘How are you going to treat all these men without medical supplies?’ I asked Jack, the American and the only medical doctor.

‘We do whatever we can to stabilise them,’ Jack said. ‘A few who need surgical treatment may die of course since we do not have an environment that is conducive to perform operation.’

The first day was a replica of several months to follow—many casualties, agonising deaths, not to talk of outbreak of cholera and other water-borne diseases from nearby villages. The different warlords were another trouble to contend with. The policy of the Mission was not to get involved in local politics, but to render medical assistance to the needy. So no matter the pressure from either faction to take sides, the Mission refused. That firm position saved us from some dangerous dicey situations.

Every day I saw death, hunger, wickedness, and victims of rape. After one year I couldn’t take it anymore and I asked to be transferred to a non-war zone Mission.

Jack, who was also the Mission leader, said, ‘Okay, but running from a war-zone does not make it easier. This is Africa, and if it’s not war, it’s HIV/AIDS epidemic, or a sit-tight President who decides he is the best thing for his country since sliced bread. As a result my dear, you have to learn to be strong and take each day as it comes, no matter how unpalatable.’

I looked at him. ‘How many missions have you been on?’

‘About twelve missions, not all in Africa, though Africa is the most challenging. But I love it because it stretches my ability, creativity, patience, tolerance, compassion and, most important of all, my purpose for being here on earth. My life is in danger in Africa, but so it is in Chicago, my home. I could get shot or knifed anytime by a psycho who just wants my wallet. Sometimes you find contentment in the most unusual things, but then, that is life. I am more fulfilled in what I’m doing here—saving lives, giving hope to the oppressed and sometimes teaching the locals English. My breakfast is mushy rice porridge, day in day out. Lunch may be the local corn grits and supper, well, that is another privilege, if you are lucky, as many locals go without food for days. How can you sleep in your oversized bed in Chicago, where you are served oversized burgers and chips, have the best of everything, knowing that some human beings are barely existing on an ear of corn a day, with the possibility of being shot the next. I can’t live with that thought, so my life is in Africa. Once I am finished in Sudan, I will move to another Mission in another part of Africa. That is my life. I will not have it any other way,’ he finished in an emotion-laden voice.

I felt ashamed. Here I was, an African, running away after a year of just one mission, yearning for the comfort of my bed and the certainty of three square meals a day, including all the luxuries I could afford. Here was an American, a stranger, carrying the burden of my continent, doing what I should be doing.

‘I’m staying,’ I said to him the next day.

Jack just smiled. He did not say a word, but the smile was worth a pot of gold.

For the next ten years, I moved from one mission to the other. They were tough ten years, but years of growing up and seeing things from several perspectives; about human endurance and love blossoming in very unusual places. I fell in love and married one of the local chiefs in Angola. A medical doctor, trained in England, who had to come back to take over his father’s traditional chieftaincy title but decided to stay and help his people. Looking back, I may not have met him if I had left the Mission.

The meeting occurred in the middle of a scuffle between two war factions. I was drafted along with two others from the Mission to the site. A young African man was shouting orders to some soldiers on how to stop the flow of blood from a neck wound. He brought out a thick roll of bandage and placed it on the wound.

‘You hold in place and apply pressure,’ he yelled to one of the soldiers.

‘And you, put that gun down, and give me a hand to place this man on a stretcher.’ He kept on barking orders from left to right, his T-shirt splattered with blood. I just saw his back and his hands working like propellers, fast and continuous. I came closer and offered to help.

‘What can I do?’

He turned round and I saw his face for the first time, sweat running down his eyebrows and I looked down at his bloody gloved hands. I wouldn’t call him handsome, but what I saw was anger with compassion at the same time, and a bit of frustration.

‘You can start by checking on the wounds of that boy over there,’ he said.

We worked under the toughest conditions; inadequate medical supplies and equipment, little food, clothing and medicines. For hours we attended to the wounded, without a minute’s rest, as this could save a life. One night, I was dizzy and swayed a little from the intense sun I’d been exposed to earlier. He steadied me and gently led me to a small rock to sit down.

‘Have some water from my flask.’

I accepted and drank, while he poured a little over my head to cool it down.

‘Welcome to hell on earth, where brothers are killing brothers, sons killing fathers. You cannot trust your own kin, because your life could be sold for a bottle of antibiotics. That is the present circumstances here—a pitiable one.’

‘I can’t take any more of this. Either I quit now or lose my sanity.’

‘You can’t leave these people like this and sleep again. Or can you?’

After I regained a little strength, he helped me up, bid me goodbye, and walked back to his bush clinic, about a mile away.

In the midst of chaos, killings, maiming and utter horror of war, we found solace in each other. We comforted, supported, and gave each other strength when the other was down. The rapport grew into something more than just partners in saving lives. We became each other’s eyes and ears. Our soul and heart entwined under the African sun where there was no iota of control. Our love blossomed like a rose amongst thorns, shaky and almost squashed sometimes, but able to survive the harsh surroundings.

After years of killings, the warlords finally agreed a truce. I’m still in the missionary work, but I have set up a non-governmental charity organisation to help women and children from war-torn countries resettle to normal lives. And I have the full support of my husband. I find self-fulfilment in that. It is not as glamorous as what you see in the movies. It is a gruelling twenty four hours, seven days a week job, but I will not change it for anything else. It is all about humanity and love.

Photo Credit: Creative Commons
Story Credit: Waving in the Winds by Bisi Abiola (Outskirtspress, 2014)