Your Life in a Four-Hour Road Trip

Brenda Hartman-Souder

"Drive as Though Your Family Were in the Other Car”

You wish drivers would heed this sign, but you know they won’t. You think Nigeria’s and all world’s problems might start to resolve if all of you honored this advice.

You head out of Abuja after the x-rays are taken; Nigeria’s capital has the consulates, the embassies, the businessmen, the rich politicians, and the orthodontists. Your son needs a jaw expander.

You’d like to believe your fervent silent prayers: Please, please, please let us stay safe will go answered but you also think, This road is one giant crap shoot. You think of this road trip as jumping unknown but certain-to-be-there hurdles. Your husband deftly manages rush-hour traffic, swerving around cars that abruptly brake or turn with no signal, ignoring cars that pass at crazy speeds or honk impatiently if you slow down. You look like a normal, sane, and safe family of four in your little royal-blue Toyota mini-van capsule.

“Shine Your Eyes” Joint

The plastic-duck-yellow container hanging on a roadside stick signals a palm-leaf shack selling the potent homemade stuff. You’ve never tasted it but you wonder if a swallow might make the trip more tolerable.

You have to admit, though, the scenery is terrific. You pass mud-brick and thatched-roofed huts nestled among the lush, rolling savannah. Okra, corn, and cabbages await harvest, crops growing inside neat, rectangular fences of impenetrable cacti. Funky, “how did they get there?” rock formations and silent volcanic mountains dot the countryside. Smoky-green layers of hills rise to touch wispy white clouds.

You remember how your eyes were shining when you first arrived more than 12 years ago—ah the exotic wonder of being in Africa. How even now when you are scared there is a pulse, a pull, even a love that brought you back and keeps you here.

“Dangerous Bend: Slow Down”

You tense at every curve because you know that many disregard or haven’t been taught (no lessons or test required before buying a license to drive) the common sense rule: NO PASSING ON BENDS! You have to admit the journey takes more time if you never took a risk, but you also remember when a car, impatiently slinking behind a tired, trembling truck, tried to dart out and almost hit you head-on.

Your children seem oblivious to the danger—they’re singing lyrics from “High School Musical” and conversing in Nigerian English which they slip into with no effort whatsoever. They love their international school and have friends of various nationalities. You try to remember that bringing them overseas—the sharp curve-decision from cozy North American existence—was a deliberate choice made partly on their behalf. 

Still, their lack of worry on the road amazes you; your 11-year-old daughter checks the house every night for someone lurking in a corner or cabinet and you’d like to tell her that Honey, what you should be doing is watching every bend in the road like a hawk.

“Many Have Gone on These Roads: SLOW DOWN”

You count at least eight carcasses of crushed cars along the way, and you only have to glance at them to know that it’s mighty unlikely anyone escaped unharmed. You know ambulance service and paramedic care do not exist, that old ambulances are used to take coffins to burial sites.

You have to stop for “nail boys,” who bring your car to a halt by laying down a board full of spikes, while they rifle through your registration papers and, even though you keep everything up to date, still try to fine you. You have to slow down for the military checkpoints you watch how the soldiers will wave anyone through with a smile—never mind if you have guns in your trunk—if you slip them money, and at one stop a thin, smartly uniformed policeman begs you for twenty naira, about 15 cents. But you never pay bribes because once you start, there is no stopping.

Along the side of the road, grains and vegetables have been spread out to dry. Children, even toddlers, in school uniforms walk and yell “white person” if they see you. Fat Fulani cows amble along the side of the road and their herder leans on his staff. All are oblivious, it seems, to the danger just beside them. You are amazed at the patient and mostly quiet persistence of your Nigerian friends, who detest the corruption, the demise, the lack of progress, but who day in and out get up to work, farm, laugh, and love.

“You Have Been Warned: SLOW DOWN”

You notice that the road is pocked with more potholes than the last time you took it, but this is the only artery connecting Jos with Abuja. Cars now have to swerve to avoid this evidence of corruption—laying a thin layer of macadam down and pocketing the money meant to construct the road properly. The sixth largest producer of crude oil does not maintain its roads. But this is a road, not a muddy track, and you should be grateful.

You stop at a roadside market to buy vegetables. A row of rickety wooden shelves displays dazzling red tomatoes and peppers, fat potatoes, purple onions, green beans, carrots, and shiny hot peppers. You are a seasoned bargainer but the list in your head disappears as women immediately surround you in their worn skirts and shout at you, beg you to buy. 

Finally you’ve had it—you yell that they are losing your business by being so loud and aggressive and they back off a little. One smart woman picks up the cabbage and avocados and other things you haggled over and helps you put them in the trunk and you give her a tip of gratitude and then you leave—the flashes of color in a muddy parking lot etched in your mind.

“Remember Only the Living Celebrate. Have a Safe Journey”

Your car ascends the winding hills onto the plateau where Jos is situated. Your kids munch sandwiches and spill peanuts.
Tall cell phone network towers stand like sentinels. They look out of place in this rural countryside, but now you can phone pretty much anywhere in the world. You’re also grateful for men hand-digging the four-foot-deep trenches for fiber optic cables which allow you a connection to friends, family, and world news and provide opportunity to conduct market research for your writing and shop for your next pair of sandals.

Women and children cluster around a well near the road and you think of your small work—funding water projects, health care, literacy, education, and income generation. A lot of these projects directly benefit a handful of Nigerian’s women who work from predawn to dark cooking, farming, hawking, gathering firewood and water, and serving their men in silent obedience.

“Do Not Kill Yourself, Drive Slowly”

You think, Ah, this too could also be a motto for life. Drive slowly. One of the things still true about Nigeria is that overall—despite madly rushing vehicles, the constant ring and beep of cell phones, and a work schedule that never relents—life moves slower here. People still take time to stop by and greet. Normal life stops for weddings and funerals. Babies are picked up and played with. You are truly befuddled by the pace of life as you read about it in online papers or experience it when visiting the United States and you wonder how you will readjust to chock-full schedules, the endless quest for productivity, and the technological revolution that had you just recently learning how to master a cell phone.

You have spent some but not nearly enough time trying to learn Hausa, the local trade language. You have not gotten very far, but you can greet, bargain at the market, and work your way out of a pinch if absolutely necessary. You still think and dream in English.
However, you think in Hausa when you are scared. “A hankali” you say when Mark looks to rev just a little too close for your comfort to the car in front, or when the kids go careening down your lane on their bikes. CAREFUL or SLOW DOWN. The kids even know what this word means even though they know little Hausa.

You pass through Bukuru and view, once again, the burnt buildings and vehicles from the latest crisis, the one where before-peaceful Bukuru lost significant sections of its neighborhoods to violence sparked by an event in Jos. You know that each crisis ruins more lives and livelihoods. Few buildings are repaired and little hope is being constructed from these charred remains. 

Your organization, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) works at peace building, especially interfaith dialogue, trauma healing, and viewing all development work through a peace lens. You like the sound of this very much but you know this is long-term (endless really) hard, brave work and that the odds right now are against peace.

You see now how killing is quick but healing is slow. You think of Sani, one of the peace workers you have recently interviewed, and how he spoke quietly, tears welling up in his eyes as he told of his desire to be known by his pre-school-aged daughter for his persistence in working for peace even amid signs of impending and greater violence. How despite his awareness that he may not survive this arduous journey, he carries on because wants those he loves to live.

“Slow Your Driver Down Before He Kills You: Accidents Claim More Passengers”

You smugly smile at this one because the driver is a “he” and you know that more men are responsible for these deadly car accidents than women. You are grateful that “your driver” is usually your spouse on this road, that he and you share the front seat and that you trust his driving instincts, steady hand, and ability to take the wheel for long hours. 

You think your eagle eye is important. But you have to admit that you usually doze for part of the trip and that really, your finest contribution is remembering the snack bag full of water, peanuts, crackers, and fruit. 

Still, you think of friends who must rely on public transportation. You think of how they are ridiculed when they ask the driver to be more cautious, how they are at the mercy of others who do not necessarily believe in car maintenance and driving congruently with the conditions of the road, which, in this case, are terrible.

Skull and Crossbones Sign

You think of how you were taught at an early age that the skull and crossbones means danger, death, poison—and you know all of these things are true about this road.

You also know that with careful, defensive driving, your odds of dying are still pretty low. You wonder if this quote from Helen Keller is applicable not just to this road but to your life in Nigeria: “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” 

You drive into Jos and turn into your compound. The guard at the gate welcomes you and asks, “How was the road?” 

“The road was fine,” you reply without hesitation.

You head down the red dirt and deeply rutted lane to home. Your home. Where somehow you belong. Your dog hears your car and runs behind the car, tail wagging in furious greeting. Your neighbors wave as you pass. Your kids spill out of the car, rush to pet the cat, rub the dog’s belly.

There is only one route home, and so you take it. You need to be on this road. You can’t understand it but you know it to be true. Your life here is quite a ride and there’s a pulsing energy, a life-giving rhythm, a thrill that goes with it. And so far you’re safe. And well. Neither you nor God can guarantee that for the future but safety is relative, and what better place to be than a road with your name on it.
—Brenda Hartman-Souder, Jos, Nigeria, serves as co-representative of Mennonite Central Committee Nigeria and, along with spouse Mark, as parent of Valerie and Greg.