Diary Game 30th January 2026|| The journey begins - Seeing the world in passing minutes

No matter how much you stay at a place, you’ll never truly know it like those who’ve been there for decades, so why try?? A pice at a time is enough for a lifetime. This is my philosophy about traveling so once our journey begins i get giddy with excitement, there will be several hours of non stop traffic, foul smelling fellow passengers who are fighting different battles in and with life but overall, I get to sit with my mind and recalibrate my thoughts, views, and how I interpret life’s play.

The time is 9am and I’m already at our convergence point. The boys and I have agreed to keep to time but like always with the Nigeria time, someone will have to wait for the others.

At the food shed.

Slowly but surely they each arrive as I inhale the aroma from the coolers of hot rice and other assortments, but as I’m fasting, I can’t eat any.
Finally they get here and just as we’re about to board our bus, an accident happens right in our faces. A speeding Corolla hit a bike man off his bike on the road. This creates a scene as other vehicles are halted in their lanes ad while everyone is checking up on the bike man, the car driver sees it as an opportunity to run away.

An accident scene.

I believe his head is filled with what ifs!! If one knows they aren’t ready for the consequences of their actions, why act recklessly in the first place??.
Anyways, the bike man didn’t look badly hurt so we continued on our way. Past cities, villages, and vast landmass filled with lush green vegetation, our journey seemed slow and uneventful, until we entered Onitsha.
For those who don’t know, Onitsha is the central commercial hub of the east and a very dangerous place to be. Here your possessions have to be guarded with all you’ve got or else even you will be taken.
One of the tell tap signs of stepping into Onitsha is this mound view.

The gold mines of Onitsha.

At first glance it looks like an abandoned refuse dump, but this is no ordinary site, as this place churns out millions of naira. Here refuse from different parts of the state are brought and dropped. As soon as they arrive , different individual scavengers start picking out reuseable and recyclable materials like plastics, metals and the like. They do this to the point that only decomposable materials are left which will then be used as sand fill.
These recyclable materials are sold to companies that recycle and everyone makes a profit in the end while keeping the city clean.
The sight may not be good, but the end rewards have been churning out a living for decades so like the saying goes, there is dignity in labour.
But like I said earlier, a piece a minute, my bus moves and that scene IG not captured is quickly forgotten in the myriads of scuffle, hustle and bustle that typifies Onitsha city
Thankfully there is no traffic as we cross the Onitsha overhead bridge into delta state, but alas, one can never run away from traffic. I wish there is a one type solution for the traffic issues in my country as it seems to get worse and wearying by the day.
Once we enter asaba, we stop to get some food as the journey is still far. I buy some watermelons and my colleague gets a roasted chicken lap. As ambitious as I am with street /local food I didn’t feel like trying my stomach as the stress of the journey was getting to me.

A mix match

Finally we arrive our destination - southern delta universityozoro. We are here for the place of rest conference Ozoro and I’m going to keep you up to date as it goes.