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When it comes to natural disasters, we all agree they’re not something anyone prays for, especially floods. They come without warning sometimes, and when they do, they don’t just take water with them; they destroy peace, comfort, and dignity.
There’s something I’ve seen, and I feel the need to speak on it.
Behind my workplace, there’s a canal. And every time the rains come, that canal overflows. It’s not just water either it brings mosquitoes, trash, human waste… everything you don’t want to see or smell. It gets washed straight into the open drainage system, eventually flowing into the ocean. It’s as horrible as it sounds.
But the most heartbreaking part isn’t the dirt or the smell it’s what’s on the other side of that canal.
A group of people lives there. Yes, people. Families. They’ve built makeshift shelters and turned that flood-prone area into what they call “home sweet home.” Most of them are Fulani quiet people, hardworking, trying to survive. But when the rainy season comes, their peace is shattered.
Last year, I witnessed something that has stayed with me since. The floods came so heavily one night, that they chased every single person out of their tents. Water soaked their mats, their clothes, their food, their belongings everything. People were standing in the cold, their homes washed out, children crying, adults trying to salvage what they could.
It didn’t stop there. Even those going to work couldn’t reach their offices. Roads were covered, houses surrounded in the vicinity even the well-built ones with proper structures were affected. Tenants couldn’t step out. It was a mess. And yet, these people the ones whose tents got destroyed didn’t leave. They stayed.
That’s the question that keeps coming to me: why do they stay?
Do they not care? Or is it that they simply have no other choice?
Some might look at them and think, “Why don’t they move somewhere else?” But where do you go when you have no money, no land, and no one to take you in? For them, staying isn’t stubbornness it’s survival. They’ve adapted to pain because pain is what life keeps giving them.
It makes me wonder how many others are living like this. Forgotten by society, ignored by the government, invisible to those passing by. People who carry on, rain or shine, flood or not because what other option do they have?
This isn’t just a sad story. It’s a wake-up call. A reminder that while some of us have roofs over our heads and the ability to “stay indoors” when it rains, others are praying their homes don’t get carried away by the flood.
So I ask again: is it that they don’t care, or is it that they’ve accepted a reality we would never survive?
Maybe it’s time we stopped judging and started caring.
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