My TroTro Diaries.

“It’s 20:00hours.” That was the voice of Karen, the automated Australian voice that prompts me every half hour what time it is. I sat upright with my eyes lit with excitement. “I’m not going to stay another second in this office. I’m outta here”, I said to myself.

Now, here me, I love my job. The only thing that got me excited was the thought of treating myself to some homemade banku (I didn’t know what accompanied it, but I presumed it was okro stew, which is my favorite) prepared by yours truly, Sophia (grammy), when I get home. Oh yes I love food like that.

I made my way to the lorry station rather briskly, swerving all the circle frauds. The only bus that was loading at the station at that time was the same car that I had boarded yesterday. “Oh! God. Not another 45mins of headache” I said to myself. The events that inspired this thought are another topic for discussion some other time — maybe. The bus is a five-seater bus with an aisle, which accommodated seats as well. I happened to be on one of those aisle seats, sandwiched between four hefty individuals. Two on my left, two on my right. On my immediate right was a young man in his mid 30s. On my immediate left was a woman, about 60 years or more. I was on phone having a good conversation with a friend when I got aboard.

The bus took off some few minutes after I had sat in. Few minutes later when the bus hit the road, I heard the usual unromantic call by the mate “Yes! Monny3 no baako wai”. I pulled out my 2ghc neatly folded in my breast pocket and handed it to the seat leader. And resumed to my conversation.

About 10mins later when the mate had finished taking his money and the lights were put off, Mama beside me started her journey to dreamland. She began sleeping. I was really uncomfortable with where I was sitting, but I encouraged myself that it’ll be over in the next 45mins. But the woman next to me wasn’t ready to make it any less bearable. She eventually had to rest on my shoulder — full time. Jack, sitting next to me realizing and sharing in my discomfort, suggested I poked the woman so she can adjust for me to have some freedom. He offered to do that for me if I couldn’t. There and then, I remembered a story I had read online concerning a similar situation, but this time it was a young man sleeping on the shoulders of one old man on a train. I was awestruck by the old man’s response to people who asked that he get the young man off his shoulders. He said, “He might have had a long day. Allow him to rest. We’ve all been there before.”

I looked at the guy seated next to me and responded, “You know, I’m just as tired as she is, and it could have been me sleeping on her shoulders. But I doubt she would have asked me to get my head off her, because she’s a mother and she understands the struggles of her children. I am a son of a woman and I understand the struggles of a mother too. Allow her to rest. She deserves some rest.”

The guy looked at me and smiled. Gave me a pat on the thigh and said, “God bless you”.

She had a good rest till I had to relocate to another seat because the aisle was getting busy, as people began getting off the bus.

My very good friend, Denah, of Paper Mirror Concepts, has said before that, “there are so many humans but no humanity.”

There are so many good people out there. If you can’t find one, be one. It costs you nothing to be kind. Even if it does, I bet it’s worth it.

My shoulder is not too broad. But it still served someone well. No matter how small your resource, you can still make someone’s world better. It begins with us.

Shalom.

PS: The banku was accompanied with pepper and kpanla. Not okro stew as I wished.