The Unwelcome Embrace!

As I lay on my bed yesterday morning, thinking of how much I missed photography and my camera, my mind suddenly did an impromptu back flip to one event that scarred my last days as an undergraduate, actually two events. I may make up my mind not to tell you about the second today but you never know.

A very beautiful lady, smart (to a fault) with very shapely body and a wordsmith with a way with words drew my attention, a number of times to my uncanny acts of kindness/selflessness. The fact that I was dating her at that time did nothing to bring me close to heeding her warnings. I could crave her indulgencies, leave her and go on one of my ‘kind deeds’ endeavour. I sometimes retorted that it was my nature to help and I couldn’t change it and she would always remind me that there was always a line. But the man in me was as stubborn as the man in all men is. Until this one incident brought my emotional knees to the ground.

I was just chilling at my friend’s place when my phone rang.

            “Good day Sir”, as I answered my call

            “Where are you?”

            “I am at divine lodge Sir”

            “Okay, I’m coming to meet you there”.

The caller came and explained to me how my assistance was needed. He was the leader of a group in church that had the mandate to do Prison ministry. He was well respected even by people outside the church, so it was an honour for him to need my assistance. One of the duties they had was to look for people who had been wrongfully accused, detained over the years, now discharged and acquitted so they can help integrate them back into the society after such a long time behind bars. Believe me, it was such a Noble cause and a lot of people benefitted from it. It was this vision that I now had the opportunity to partake off and I didn’t say ‘No’.

This dude had been in prison for 8 years, wrongfully accused (as he said) and remanded, till the court threw out the case for lack of ‘substantial’ evidence, discharged and acquitted him. The group from church picked him up; encouraged by the fact they had heard that he was a Pastor in prison. Now he needed a place to stay until the group puts finishing touches to the plan they had for him. After hearing his story, I was moved with compassion for him. I suddenly was overwhelmed with this urge to care and tend to his ‘broken soul’. I gave him a bag, a towel, my cloths (luckily he was almost the same size as me) and shoes among which was a very nice shoe my dad bought from the USA which I wore just once and had been saving to give to the right person. Again, as a student, especially in final year, 3 square meals were a luxury and 2 square meals were just a blessing. I was blessed (most times) but not luxurious. But I made sure he ate 3 times and even had in-between meals. I remember the first day I took him to go eat and he ordered for Gari and soup, very early in the morning. I took my time to explain to him that he could have anything he wanted, not just Gari. I convinced him to eat jollof rice with meat, eggs and a bottle of coke and after that morning our nutrition therapy was underway. On top of that, whenever I was leaving my room, I gave him money to hold, an extra key to the room and introduced him to people in and around my lodge. People liked him and gave him lots of gifts, mostly money. He was well accepted in church and I was feeling good with myself.

But two days after my project defence, lightening struck! I was in a friend’s room playing scrabble and waiting for rice on the fire when I had this very strange feeling. I knew something was wrong but I delayed a bit because I couldn’t be absent from the feast. Boys would devour it in my absence. By the time I got to my room, the rice lost its taste in my mouth. My room was open to the mosquito door net. I was wondering where the dude was. I half-started preparing for church and half-looking around. Then it struck me! All my shoes were gone. My brand new suit which I had worn just twice wasn’t there anymore. My shirt from India was gone too. The money I had in the house was missing. And most devastating was the Camera my dad bought for me from Dubai – a Sony 2000x digital zoom, 40 mega pixel with battery life for up to 9 hours alongside all my recordings of my final days as an undergraduate including a video of my project defence. All of them, everything I had, GONE! Only my hair clipper survived for reasons known to God alone. I felt a terrible cramp in my stomach. I felt depressingly sad. I had waded into the water of unpopular kindness and I felt myself going below.

I managed to drag my dishevelled self to church with a pair of slippers and one of the few clothing left for me looking like I had seen death. The church attended to me and that was the cue to cancel that aspect of the prison ministry. I was suddenly scared of being nice to people. That incident totally changed my life.

My simple question is, “how many people have you being an obstacle to help coming their way both unconsciously and consciously?” Please beware of your deeds when you assume a role of a recipient!