So last Saturday, I went to an outdoor function with the
Legionaries(Legion of Mary). It had started on a good note. Well, after the
initial hassles with the driver popularly called ‘ticket’ by my hostel
mates(the man is in love with asking for bus tickets before entering the bus),
we finally got into the bus and ventured on a journey to the unknown(well, I
would say that because we had never been to Owerre-Ezukala until last
Saturday). We were excited. We sang praises and finally prayed the rosary. The
guys behind me had so much energy that they talked throughout the journey. Not
only did they talk, they sang songs ranging from high school musicals to some
other songs I didn’t know the origin. I just busied myself with reading stories
on wattpad, tweeting and pinging from my phone and then listening to music. We
passed towns like Nibo, Ufuma, Isulo, Awgbu and the popular rich and beautiful
town of Ndikelionwu from Chukwuemeka Ike’s The bottled Leopard. After driving
for two hours, we finally got to the town of Owerre-Ezukala. Getting to the
town, we began a second journey. We drove into the village for about thirty
minutes before we got to a dusty inaccessible road. We had to get down from the bus,
carrying our food, drinks and other items; we trekked for a total of
fourty-five minutes before we got to the entrance of the cave. Some people
dropped their things and began to take pictures at the entrance of the cave. As
for me, the curiosity to find out what the inside looked like made me not the
bother with the pictures plus the fact that my phone didn’t have a good camera
quality.
The cave was underground, so we had to go through sloppy, uneven and rugged steps that numbered above one hundred to get to the main
cave/waterfall. It was very scary. Missing a step would have been fatal because
the edge of each step meant falling into a ditch. I finally got there. It was
wonderful. Seeing water cleaner than the bore hole water we buy falling from
the top of the cave, the river and then walking farther was a sandy area big
enough to accommodate more than three
hundred persons(fact). To my greatest surprise, the DJ was already there
spicing the whole place up with cool music blasting from the speakers. I moved
my body to the rhythm of the music while moving to explore the whole place. I
entered the main cave 1. It was creepily very dark. I took some pictures with my
friend and with the help of my torch, I moved further but at a point, I
couldn’t take it anymore, so I turned back and left the cave. Out there, I saw
a lot of my classmates, we chatted, took pictures before I left again to
another place at the back of cave 1. I will call the place cave 2. Not many
people had the courage to go there. I dragged my friend Cympero with me. It was
farther than cave 1 and we had to climb up to get there. Cave 2 was more
beautiful than cave 1. It was underground and had many entrances. God is so
wonderful. We were there for thirty minutes, climbing, taking pictures,
chatting about the amazing beauty of nature, watching people exhibit the trait
of jungle genes in them.
All of a sudden, we heard screams, thinking that those over there
in cave 1 were having fun because the pageantry for Mr and Miss Legion was
about to begin before we left to cave 2 , we ran. On getting there, there were
monsters in the form of bees. Obviously, someone must have disturbed them in
their habitat. People were screaming, fighting off the bees on their bodies and
what we failed to realize at that time was that we only needed to be calm and
the bees wouldn’t be able to sting. Chasing them away will only make them come
back and the worse was killing them, the smell of that would only attract more
bees. Also, the fear of seeing the bees was more than the fear of having the
bees sting us. Unfortunately for us, those in cave 1 were now running to where
we were bringing the bees with them. I got stung by one while running. The pain
was severe. I learnt my lesson. I became calm after that and was not visited
again by the flying monsters. An hour later, the screams reduced. We didn’t
know that evacuation had started in cave 1. We started reciting the rosary calling
our mother Mary for help. Fifteen minutes later, some people who managed to get
out of the cave came to us and told us there was a way out of the cave. We
climbed atop dangerous stones and rocks and finally got to the top of the cave
and walked another fifteen minutes into the forest to finally leave the forest.
Stories that came later were that due to the stampede, some
people eventually fell into the ditch, many sustained injuries and some had
their faces swollen from the stinger, arms, legs, neck and other parts of the
body. Not only lives were saved, our food and drinks were also ‘evacuated’ by some good and courageous Nigerians who
covered themselves in black and made trips over and over again back into the
cave. Luckily, we all made it back to the hostel alive by the grace of God. We
carried our food back with us and by the time we were able to eat it, it was
already going sour but what could we do, man must wack now, we still ate the
food to our satisfaction.
Important lesson I
learnt was ‘do not go to where you were not invited.’ Also, young people are
very unpredictable; possibly, someone out of curiosity had gone to the bee hive
and started throwing stones there. When I went back to my room, I thought,
‘What if something worse than bees had come out, maybe python or lion because
from what we heard from the villagers, there was so many dangerous animals who
had their home in Owerre-Ezukala cave? What if …?’ I repeat, God is so so so
wonderful and I can’t stop being grateful to him. Also, our Blessed Virgin Mary
to whom we had called for help did not relent in coming to our rescue. This
event wouldn’t stop me from going for more functions like this. I have a story
to tell and I won’t stop telling this story. It was an experience. Advice to
young people like me: do not spend your youth without having stories to tell
when you get old. Join in trips, excursions and picnics. Life is too short.
Adventure of horror, just Like in high school films, Am sure our fate is different
ReplyDelete#Kellyemax
Another food 4 like minds...more lead to ur pencil
ReplyDelete