Our trip to the south to be with family was one we both looked forward to and dreaded at the same time. Ofcourse we were happy we were spending time with our loved ones having not been together for two years, but we were also wary of all the discomfort the South comes with.
There's the issue of the very terrible electricity situation which we got to experience in Yenegoa and Warri. Back in Kaduna, we sort of lived in a bubble where we had more electricity than we ever had our whole lives and we were able to do basic things even when the electricity was on only a few hours a day. At home in the south, there were days we were consecutively in darkness and fuel is too expensive to use generators.
To worsen the situation, mobile data network was so bad, it is a frustrating experience for anyone who works online. Another thing was living out of a box and not having our usual routine. It is hard to create a routine that works short-term with our living circumstances and all the mental gymnastics surrounding our relocation.
Then there was a lot of 'billing' which my husband suffered because apparently, certain people choose to think we have money to spare even when it is open knowledge that we earnestly need loans for our travel process. Despite all of these, seeing family definitely warmed our hearts and it began to feel like three weeks wasn't enough as the days suddenly flew by much faster than expected.
I cried a lot of times and each time we said a final goodbye to a family member, my heart sank. First, it was my husband's parents, then @young-boss-karin and @ebingo, my parents who saw us off to the airport for our local flight, and then my brother whose house we stayed at before coming to our hotel. We've had a lot of repacking to do so far and we're not done yet, it's kept me busy enough to not have a chance to cry for some hours.
We played eight ball in the hotel gym and I beat @belemo as usual, finally, a game I'm better at 🥹 Anyway, wish us luck with repacking our entire luggage.