GROWING UP UNDER AFRICAN SKIES: MY BAGS OF SUPPLIES

The evening of October 15^th 2006, Marcopolo luxury bus B3:POMO3 belonging to Ifesinachi Motors Limited had just arrived Nsukka just close to Bishop Shanahan hospital at about past 6pm, as the new semester was just about to commence. The bus had conveyed me and not less than 80 other students of the prestigious University of Nigeria Nsukka travelling from Lagos on a more-than-12hours one way trip back to school. The general feeling in the bus was one mixed with tiredness and appreciation to the maker for journey mercies.

While still in early minutes of arrival at the park, the once silent bus erupted in a cacophony chit-chats as everyone on board was preparing to disembark and claim their bags stuffed beneath the bus before departure. My bag been packed together by my mum (of blessed memory) in the usual fashion of school resumption hype. My mum, together with my dad opens up their piggy bank, takes out all the money available and will proceed to the market to buy food stuff and provisions for their boy. This particular bag was as special as every other bag of supplies from the past  and was stuffed with very much of supplies and with lots of love. 

2006/2007 was going to be a lengthy academic year and the content of the bag was supposed to be my lifeline for a whole year because the students industrial work experience scheme (SIWES) was meant to completed making it the longest academic year, I understood the mission of protecting my bag of supplies and scalping from it because it was a familiar activity.  

I was still trying to find my feet and gather all my belongings inside the bus in preparation for disembarkation when the park attendants started screaming at the top of their voices calling on those whose bags were still in the under carriage to without delay, proceed to identify and claim their baggage. Carrying my knapsack and other smaller packs of items (mainly road side items bought during the journey), I advance to the under carriage with confidence to identify and claim my bag of supplies which I couldn’t identify at first look.

Naturally, I had expected that the bag was pied somewhere amidst the very many bags around and had moved because other bags where moving. I continued trying to identify the bag as the number of other bags began to reduce drastically because the owners left the bus park. Thirty minutes later, still trying without any success, it became very clear that my bag of supplies was missing and I immediately began to experience Instant drowsiness and acute dehydration. My supplies!

I’ve had a first similar experience of losing my bag in junior high school. Being a very carefree and lighthearted student, it was the last day of school and all my textbooks and class notes were loaded in my bag for onward delivery home. I, in the usual frenzy of the upcoming holiday was in a world of ecstasy and out played my memory and abandoned the bag in a field far away from school. The resulting events at home cannot be recorded in this memoir.

Both bags were never found till date (and maybe till I finish my MBA) and no explanation could be given on their whereabouts.

Would there be another bag loss? Who knows?

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#MMBA5