Hey Steemians!
So I'm sharing this story as my entry for the Promo-mentors Writing Challenge.
THE STORY
It was an experience that spanned about three days.
It started on Friday 19th May, 2017 and the journey ended on Sunday 21st May, 2017.
It was my friend's wedding!
We've known each other from college. We call him Xman!
After school, life happened and he relocated to Abu Dhabi, UAE. Few years down the line, I got a call from him....he was getting married and I was gonna be his best man!!
So as a fashion stylist, I made our three piece suits for the occassion...
He was gonna come back home, to Nigeria, to do the wedding. It was gonna be a weekend to remember.
We are both from the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria and it rarely happens for people from our tribe to marry from another tribe. But guess what!! Xman was gonna marry from the Igbo tribe.
According to tradition, it meant we were gonna have to travel to the hometown of the woman for the traditional wedding, at least. And that was Enugu state, an eastern state in Nigeria.
Interestingly, the parents of the bride reside in a Noth-eastern staete, Benue state, which meant the church wedding service was gonna be in Makurdi, the Benue state capital.
So my other friend, Netwox, and I embarked on the journey from Ibadan to Markurdi, Benue state(The food basket of the nation). We couldn't make it down to Enugu state for the traditional, due to work et al. We travelled by road...it was such a long drive...the journey lated about 12 hours, we touched down in Makurdi at about 20:30hrs that evening.
We settled in into our hotel and it was good for us three to catch up on old memories from school.
The couple
Netwox and I
Xman (The groom) and I
So the main gist was really about to start. It was saturday morning, the d-day, we were all dressed...and off to church we headed. I have only always heard it but never really experienced it..THERE WERE TWO WEDDINGS HAPPENING CONCURRENTLY at the church!!! It was strange..I had never seen it...
It was a beautiful service in the end...there were a lot of cultural music and dance done by the women folks...it was so fascinating, the music especially...so much unique harmonies...
So I heard that as a foreigner, women were offered as entertainment and we were literally offered but I should state that we politely declined this offer...lol.
Also as the food basket of the nation, Benue is blessed with abundance of fresh fruits. It was there I saw mangoes so big that one might not be able to finish a single one(I have never seen such mangoes in my life)...this unclear shot taken by my friend as I was having some mango...this particular one is locally called PETER...lol...you could see how big the mango is...
The real gist was on the journey back home on Sunday morning.
It started at the park..I had taken a front sit, next to the driver only for some guy, who happened to be the park manager, to say I can't sit with him in front, for no reason...(he was travelling with the bus).
I had to let peace reign and went to take another sit at the back, with my friend.
The journey started way later than scheduled for reason(s) I don't know till date.
Finally, the journey started and we were all anticipating home. Bear in mind, this would be about a 12 hour journey. About an hour drive, we had a bus breakdown...what!!! it was an injector problem.....why on earth will you put that kind of a bus on the road????
The driver parked the bus and did some touching and said we were good to go
Another hour down the drive, the same problem surfaced, this time it was in the middle of nowhere...The only option we had was to just find a way to get the bus to the nearest down somehow...we moved at the speed of a snail..lol...but eventually we got to a town in Niger State, Ikot Ekpe I believe, and we had to stop to fix the bus..
Here's a picture Netwox and I took while we waited...
Finally, after about an hour and a half, the bus was finally fixed and we got back on the road...
As if that wasn't all, we had about fifteen (15) stoppages from security check points on the journey...incredible!
And then somewhere in Benin state, we got word that there was robbery happening somewhere ahead..OMGosh!!!!
So, we had to take another pause to get clearance to move again...
Wow, it was a pretty long journey on this fateful day..We touched down in Ibadan at exactly 23:45hrs!!
Yes so it was such an interesting trip for me and Netwox. It was an experience, given that's the farthest I have ever travelled plus all the dram that happened on the trip.
It's a trip I'll always remember because I was able to share in the joy of my friend Xman...
I hope you enjoyed the read...
Yours steemfully
@bisodun
Quite a journey!
Yes, it was a memorable one..