A time I was stranded in a city.
It was in Lagos.
And It was on August 4th, 2017. I remember because I desperately needed to get to my temporary home at that time in Ajegunle and get ready to attend the Author's Talk in Yaba the next day.
I had visited my Aunt in Ikeja two days before - I went by myself; with directions of course, and I thought I could find my way home.
I was so much confident that even when my Aunt asked that I left the next morning because it was almost evening, I said I could find my way.
She saw me to the junction and I would begin the rest of the journey back to Ajegunle by myself.
I arrived at a park in Oshodi ( I am not so sure if I got the name right) and I was going to get a bus to Ajegunle from there but unfortunately, all the buses had left.
I approached a woman who asked me to walk to the next junction to get a bus. And while I walked, the weather began to shows signs that it would rain.
I said I needn't bother much because I would be in a bus already by the time the rain would begin to fall.
But by the time I got to the junction, there were too many passengers and I learnt I was at the wrong junction.
The rain had started falling by then, evening was fast approaching and my Aunt's number wasn't reachable.
I was directed to another junction where I was told I would get a bus to someplace I don't remember now, and then to Cele before I could find my way to Ajegunle.
At the junction, under the rain, the conductor asked me to get into the bus before I could finish telling him I was looking for my way to Ajegunle.
But unknown to me, Lagos wasn't somewhere you moved around in so late especially when you don't know your way around anywhere.
Most times, the conductors cared more about your money than you and the other times, they just assumed anyone who flapped their buses down already knew their destination.
I didn't know which was my case that night. I had entered the wrong bus and alighted in the middle of nowhere.
I was tired now. I was scared. Scared of the night, of asking for directions. I was scared I might never get home that night, or ever.
I was crying. And I was just walking - under the rain. There was no one I could call.
But while I walked on, something in me began to think of how funny this story would sound/read the next day - because I wrote about almost all my adventures in Lagos. And I began to think of the night differently.
I walked to a woman selling apples in a tray under a very small awning. I bought three of them and walked on while I chewed on my apples.
I was feeling positive enough by the time I chewed on the third and I remembered a comment from a post I had made on Facebook few nights ago when I lost my way in that same Lagos.
The comment said to ask only people in uniforms for directions. And as fate would have it, I saw one immediately and I asked.
I was on the right track. I just had to stand by the roadside with the loads of the other passengers and fight my way into the next available bus.
I couldn't fight the Lagos way with the first few buses and when the next one came, I tried to. I fought my way in but got in with a broken knee.
Either the conductor or the person sitting beside me was kind enough to tell me where I would alight and enter another bus to Ajegunle.
It wasn't too difficult this time. I even had enough time to buy cooked groundnut to chew away the worries that tried to creep in.
It wasn't long before I got to my junction.
I just had to take a bike to Ora street but I remembered Aunty Nene's words against entering bikes in Ajegunle and I decided I'd walk.
I did walk, chewing on my nuts and smiling all the way.
I got into the house by almost 11pm and I had fun telling the story - first to my nieces and then on Facebook. Although I would wake up the next morning with a swollen knee.
I still feel severe pains on that knee till now - sometimes though and every time I do feel it, that night comes to mind and I would smile.