Yesterday morning when I finished my shift, I had to arrange
for an Uber cab online to get back home to the staff house. I normally trek ’cause
the house is like 15-20 minutes from the office, but it was dripping and the
thunders were raging. My cab arrived and I hopped in.
“Why do you look like my daughter? Are you my daughter?”
went the driver.
I was amused; of course I knew he was joking. I replied I
was not his daughter. Simultaneously he told his wife who he was on phone with
that he had a passenger in his car that looks like Nwakaego. I could hear the
woman’s voice from the loudspeaker. The name, Nwakaego, confirmed my suspicion that
he was Nigerian. When I saw his name on the cab request page, I couldn’t be
sure he was Nigerian because he bears Livinus, but when I entered his car and
he spoke the first sentence, I knew he was my Naija broda and on mentioning
Nwakaego, every doubt flew off. He asked if I was on night shift to which I
replied yes. He asked which part of Nigeria I am from, I told him I’m Yoruba. He
asked another question which was ambiguous. I could make from it that he wanted
to know what I work as in my company or what I studied. I told him I studied
Geology. Dazed, he looked back from the steering wheel.
“You, you don finish Geology?”
I smiled. “Sure. Since 2008, so I am not even a recent
graduate.”
“Yeeh, and here I am thinking you’re like 21.” I smiled
again. It’s so sweet to get people deceived with this cute baby look. At this
point he had missed the turning to the staff house. I let him know and he
blamed it on his garrulousness. He promised not to talk again when he drives.
Anyway, it wasn’t too late as we found a way to connect back to the house
through a parking a lot.
“Ngozi, wonders will never end. See the girl I told you look
like Nwakaego, she was just telling me that she is a Geology graduate and I was
thinking she is about 21….” Well, I couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation
as it was time for me to drop. I bade him farewell and entered the compound. I did
enjoy his petty talks, especially his surprised look when he learnt I am not a
fresh graduate.
Moments later in the house, I started looking for my second
phone. I recalled I dropped it in my bag when I entered the cab. I knew I
entered the cab with it and didn’t drop it. I rummaged through my backpack, brought
out everything in there, even searched through the wrong places. I went back to
the kitchen where I was cooking, searched and searched, searched through the
closet, through the bathroom, everywhere, every unlikely place. No phone.
“What happened to my phone? I dropped it in my bag now.” I whimpered.
I searched through all the places I already searched through
again. No phone. It’s just like my people will say, ‘Iwakuwa la n wa nnkan to sonu’. It means you look for lost things
in the most unlikely places e.g. looking for a full bag under a mattress.
I tried calling it twice from my other phone. It rang. But
then I remembered I had it set to silent. The only place I could trace it to was
Mr. Livinus’ car, maybe it dropped on the car’s floor when I thought I was putting
it in the bag. So, I contacted Uber’s customer care and they supplied me his
number. I called him. He oohed and aahed that he had picked a few passengers
since he dropped me and hoped no one picked it. He asked the passengers in the
car at the time to check the seat and the floor if the there was any phone
there. No phone. He promised to get across to me if he found it later. I
thanked him and hung up.
I was distraught but kept telling myself it was not lost and
I would find it, for even though this phone does ‘skon skon’ occasionally, it is still good, and then I had important
stuff on it. I decided to switch to worship, as if I was not looking for any
phone. As I worshipped, I’d stir out of bed once in a while and go back to the
places I had searched. Then it occurred to me it might have dropped at the door
when I was entering the house. I was by this time in my pajamas, but I couldn’t
bother to change. I just criss-crossed my sleep-cover-cloth over it and went to
the door. No phone still. I took a step farther to check the gate area. No
phone. Then I decided to open the gate and look towards the direction where the
car dropped me as the car didn’t enter the compound, I told Mr Livinus it was
okay to drop me at the gate. All this while I was wondering how much of a sight
I was in my sleeping clothes and cover cloth.
So I glanced towards the direction where I stepped out of the
cab, and lo, there was my phone lying faceup. I quickly went over to pick it.
It was there, no one had stepped on it, no car had crushed it, it only had
drops of rain on it.
“Thank you sweet Holy Spirit. Thank you so much.” I chorused
repeatedly. To say I was glad was an understatement. I was (and I am still) grateful.
