DITCHFALL

Source: http://pixshark.com

Saturday is a day I can’t forget in a hurry. A day where all the action movies I have watched gave me ginger to pull stunts. It wasn't a skyfall;it was a ditchfall, starring Olivia Oyibo and yours truly as all your action heroes in one, moi!!!

My Sister has already written about this on Face book which you can find on her wall HERE. My writing pales in comparison to hers (I wish I posted first sha) but as it’s our story so I’ll share from my own perspective.

That Saturday we were supposed to go visit my other sister and Sister-in-law but there came a sandstorm. If you live around Gwarimpa/Dawaki/Dutse, you’ll testify that it was the sandstorm of life. The dust that came into the house eh, we just recently got rid of it all.

So I promised to make Burgers that evening and didn’t get all the ingredients I needed. I tell my Sister that we should go to NEXT – everything under one roof (if that is true...) and we get most of the things I need. I need to make the perfect burger with all that goes with it and my Sister was a great help.

Now, when we started out to the store, it wasn’t raining. As we leave the store, it's not raining. When we hit the express though, the kind of rain that begins to drop (not fall), you will marvel. Olivia drives slowly. A lot of drivers on the road act confused like pawns on the chessboard of rain, tossed to and fro by the elements. In order to avoid a collision with these cars, we decide to veer off the express road onto the News Engineering path. Ahead of us is a car struggling under the rain and the car's boot is wide open and distracting. We can’t see anything so I use my scarf to clean the shield from inside so my sister can at least see the road but I kid you not, we see nothing-Nada. Except the sky- the rain looks like a giant someone put a hose down on us aiming at the windscreen. This is the kind of rain you say was “sent”. There are no witches in my village so I can’t say where the rain was sent from. No other explanations.

So we are praying and asking God for the rain to ease up so we can see where we are and park and the rain lets up a bit but then, it‘s just like the giant adjusts his hose and increases the pressure because we can’t even see the car's headlights clearly. Where are we?

My sister uses her side to see, bringing the glass down and trying to map out a path. We are getting wet but we don’t care. She’s like we should park where the road is wide because at this rate, someone can hit us from behind.

Well, we see a house on our left (the window is wound down) and then we see some blocks to the side; we are close. Next thing, we are down-just like that. We are staring into rushing water that is rising- our headlights harshly outlining the dirt, the current, the hole!

We don’t even scream; we are in shock. Olivia tries to reverse but it seems the car will go further down so she just slams on the brakes and holds still. We don’t know what to do. Her voice takes on a teary tone as she orders me to call her husband. I tell him we are in a ditch and she talks to him.”Arome, I don’t know what to do....this car is not insured yet...” When she’s done, She takes charge again-her voice going back to normal, hands the phone back to me and asks me to wear my seat-belt. What do you know, seat belt isn’t coming through. I tell her I have to go get help. She first says no, we should stay put but we don’t know if the rain will keep falling, if the water will rise, if the car will give way. I’m like- no way, I have to try. I try to get out through the window but we are afraid my weight may bring the car down deeper in the ditch. what if we topple over?!

Source: oliviaoyibophotography 

 It doesn't look scary now but just think about this: No light, raining bulls and cats and rushing water below...you go fear na!

 I open the door which opens up a bit and get out- I don’t wear my slippers. As I come out, the soil is wet, I’m grabbing and holding unto the sand and I’m falling- I hear Olivia talking to a cousin of ours and I don’t want her worried for me. Now I’m not thinking but there’s a scripture that says he brought me out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet upon the rock. When I get out- fingers, nails, clothes caked with mud, I feel like David when he wrote that part in scripture. I don’t stop to think, I rush to the road, see headlights coming in the distance and run towards it. I flag the car down-my arms flapping like a blue penguin and like Trevor in Grand Theft Auto, I run to the driver’s side and ask him to help. This hero jumps out of his car without shoes while I run along to a nearby house, screaming for help. I flag down another car and the driver also gets out. By this time, my sister has already come out through the window of the backseat and we are good.

Source: oliviaoyibophotography

My brother-in-law initially thinks we are in a small ditch until he sees where we are. He comes over with the men in our compound- Shout outs to Mr. Steve and Brother Adukwu. By this time, the rain has subsided so they go to get a towing van or truck. It’s almost 9.00pm at this time. Before you know it, some men stop by and it turns out we (or my sister and cousins) know them and they try to help.

They get three cars to come close to the car, fix towing hooks and belts (for lack of a better word) to the car and try to pull. As they drive off trying to pull the car, one of the ropes/belts cuts off and one of the cars pulling skids a bit. Nop! We give up on that option.

Source: oliviaoyibophotography

We find out that a protruding tunnel in the ditch is what kept us from having a freefall. In between the tunnel and the rear tyres is nothing. Although when I was climbing out, it was filled with water and sand.

All in all, men just came out of their “holes” to help. Hunks, Dudes, Skinnys, the whole works. I’m thinking we should do a BBQ night with these dudes or a singles night so I can hook them up already with some of my people. 

Long and short, we let the car sleep there for the night and on Sunday Morning- Hallelujah, the car arose!

Source: oliviaoyibophotography

Source: oliviaoyibophotography

Source: oliviaoyibophotography

I should give enough gist on this but as I said, Olivia has already written about it. Here, however are the lessons I learned.

1. I can be a stuntman. All the Fast and Furious moves I made that night can’t be rivalled. My adrenaline just pumped up and did what it did. No fear. Remember the preview of Fast and Furious Seven where Paul Walker (RIP) is running down a truck and the babe spins over in her car to grab him? I was doing some Vin Diesel-Jason Statham-Paul Walker- Jackie Chan- Daniel Craig move over there. 
2. Your first prayer is usually pushed by fear- my dear, e no dey work. Immediately it happened and my sister was like saying “Oh God”, I broke into my other language, yes, the heavenly one. I don’t know if the kabashing was for some miracle to happen and lift us up and unto the road or whether it was so the car wouldn’t go further in. The Kabashing didn’t do any of that. Rather, it gave me some clarity that I needed to get out and go up. So, it’s best to call Jesus or Holy Spirit or Speak -in your language or heaven's tongues or pidgin and be calm. Make sure you don't just allow fear to make you numb.
3. Always listen to your instincts. Even if it’s a false alarm, with time you’ll be able to discern wisely. We felt “somehow” that Saturday. Funny the last prayer point for Saturday in the Prayer bulletin was on protection.
4. What you think is clarity to you may be gibberish to others. I thought I was calm when I spoke on the phone with my cousins but they thought I sounded like a yelping dog with short interjections of, “I’m calm. Why aren’t you hearing me? I’m calm” and then gibberish all through.
5. Some things are not ordinary. A few minutes before we fell, over in the house, my brother in law slips and falls while releasing the dog. The kind of pounding he had eh;he still had to be massaged yesterday. I have Jesus to massage me. Also, my lovely nephew has a horrible nightmare that night-maybe he got vibes off his mother but according to my mother, my young nephew is already waging war with the enemy.
6. There are good Nigerians! The second guy who stopped said he might not have if I had been a guy but that they came out under the rain to help and waited until our cousins came to meet us, that was amazing! Several people stopped at various times when the rain had subsided and kept checking to see if anyone was srtill in the car. We were in our cousin’s car keeping warm and several times we had to come out and say we were fine. In fact one elderly woman stopped the car and came out to ensure no one was in the car. And then we had like some testosterone thing going on there. So many men came out to help. It’s a man’s world, no wahala. Take it.
7. There are Nigerians who will just look. Some people stopped not because they wanted to help but they wanted gist. In fact, one car stopped suddenly that the one behind it bumped into him. The car behind insults the car ahead then continues looking at our car tipped over while driving slowly.
8. There are selfies and selfies. I didn’t have time to take a selfie. I just had time to call my brother–in-law and MI on the situation at hand. However, people stopped to take pictures. I tell you! In the drizzling rain fa.
9. When you face a death situation, you don’t think death. My mind was blank. This is the second time stuff like this is happening to me and both times you don’t think death. You are blank. I do know that my sister just wanted to hold her son. Thank God we didn’t bring him with us on our trip to the store. We almost did.
10. The cold will not kill you. I don't like to be cold but this one eh-the rain pouring over me etc and I survived it...chai!
11. I'm glad my hair isn't relaxed and it was in braids. My sister had to take off her braids and wash her hair. Anyways, I just washed my hair in braids that morning. Wearing kinky twists finally;shout out to a Femme!
12. You may be confused and not know you are confused. Here I was googling where to get towing vans in Abuja and all Google kept showing me was tolls, toll gates, toll points to be introduced in Abuja etc. It took me hours to realise I was typing "tolling vans" not "towing vans" and by the time I realised it was too late-my phone battery had died.
13. There will always be antagonists at any scene. One dude comes over and is like, “who drove this car here?” in a tone that was like, was the person stupid. My sister said to him, “I am the one” and he comes over to her and asks, “Are you angry?” and blah de blah and tries to make an issue out of it. I’m like, “I saw the ditch and I decided to drive right into it-yippee”. He sha helped at the end.
14. It's a man’s world. And I am glad when I get married, MI will be responsible for stuff a woman is not built for. The men took charge. Because I am quite independent, I tagged along with the men, suggesting I could get into the car to put it on neutral so we could “drag” or pull ( I can’t call that tow) it out until my sister told me to stand down. This was not my turf. I did make valuable input though.
15. When you are fasting, be prepared. My church has embarked on a 21 day fast. We call it PUSH(Pray Until Something Happens). When you do fast, expect some things to happen. Just saying. I kept having this strange feeling that angels were under the car (don’t ask me why they didn’t stop the car from plunging in). I couldn’t have climbed out like that with all the slippery mud and all.
16. Remember to be thankful. You have to be. When I got out and settled down, I was like, “Why? Why should this happen? Are we not praying enough? Did you shut your eye a bit and this happened? Or my Guardian angels decided to take a vacay?” It’s easy to complain but then I think about what could have happened. If Olivia was speeding, we would have plunged right in, I would have been flung through the windscreen and I can’t swim or I might have just slam my head, had a concussion and not woken up again. (RIP Iredia). If the tunnel was not there, we would have plunged right in as well. If the car had given way at the side and not the front, we would have tipped into the ditch and the impact of the wall would be heavy on Olivia.  I just know I am alive and well and grateful!

PS: Special thanks to the following people. I hope one day they read this blog and identify themselves. The first responder, Femi! Amazing guy. He pulled my sister out with amazing agility and he was calm in giving instructions. The second responder-ooohhhh, Allison (I hope I got your name right; wonderful guy! Great with instructions, ready to offer the warmth of his car and stay with us until our cousins got to us, my most amazing cousins, Tayo and his wife and friend. The guy in the red cut out sweat shirt and shorts and his wife with the little fro, the guy who helped put up wallpapers for my cousin one time and his car, Mr. AK and his car, the elderly man who advised us to stop pulling the car and wait until the next morning (he had an aristocratic look. I think his car was a kia sportage-new version. Not sure though), the “are you angry?” man, my bother in law for not being mad, Brother Adukwu and Mr Steve (as mentioned earlier) and his car, Olivia’s friend’s husband the Engineer who advised us to use the Hayab to pull or rather carry the car out, the security man who watched the car for us at night and all others. 

PSS: We still made the burgers and milkshakes. Ooohhhh, it was something. Hot and spicy and all. We made it yesterday(sorry on Sunday), my OCD sister Olivia helped to cut and then cleaned. Everyone loved it. The burgers were very very rich, if I may say so myself and the shakes...invite me to your house so I can mix up a drink for you and guess what, it's healthy too! Still scoping my sis for more pictures.

We are thinking of having same for the election weekend.

Source: oliviaoyibophotography

Source: oliviaoyibophotography