Talking about this experience made me smile because it happened recently to me; I think it was just last Saturday as I attended an event I wished I did not attend. The event was supposed to be an induction program for a scholarship program I got after a series of assessments, tests and evaluations. The scholarship I was gunning for was for Software engineering, and if I were to pay for it, it would cost me 70k US dollars which I do not have.
least I forget, the institution working on giving us this free course is ALX Foundation in collaboration with Mastercard. So last week, Saturday's onboarding programme was theme Karibu Week, and it was held in over 7 countries simultaneously. I got a mail to attend an event centre at Acme Road in Ikeja. The programme was supposed to start at 10, but another mail and text came in and said the start time had been shifted to 12 noon on the same day. So I stayed back home till around 10:30 am.
As I finished dressing up and on my way to the venue, I noticed the change in the atmosphere and the sky. The environment's temperature was colder, and I knew it would rain. I didn't know that I would not reach my destination before the rain started. The rain started as soon as I left my house and I was on the tricycle taking me to the bus stop where I would take another tricycle to stop me at my destination. The tricycle was not covered, and I was drenched while in motion. I was glad I was in motion while it started raining, but things went from bad to worse as we got caught up in traffic for 10 minutes, and the rain became heavier.
I was literally wet from head to toe while in the keke napep (tricycle), and even my bag, which was wet in the process. When I highlighted from the tricycle, I was already feeling cold, so I didn't even bother hiding under a shed as I was also wet already. I walked in the rain to the next park and boarded the next tricycle going to my destination. From that park to the location I dropped, I was wet and shivering, and in about 20 minutes, I got to my final destination. Before highlighting, the people I boarded the tricycle with advised me to cover up with the canopy-like material this current tricycle had. However, I was like it was no use; I was drenched already.
Immediately I got to my location, the rain stopped, and I found my way into the event hall. The program started a bit late due to the severe rain, and some people were still on the way. As I sat in the hall, I observed that the AC of the event was still on, and that kind of, in a way, made me shiver more. A lady offered me a sweater, and I did not know when I slept off when on the sweater. After the show ended, she works me up to inform me that the show had ended and she was going home. I went ahead to give her back her sweater, and she insisted I keep it.
I was touched because it's not every day I get to meet people and talk less than a good one. I begged for her to take her sweater back, and after plenty of pleas from me, she did take it back, but I was already touched by her kind heart gesture. Before I left the venue, we exchanged numbers, and when I got home, I checked in on her. We are good friends now, and she told me about what I missed at the ALX event launch. The genuine friend I made as the rain battered me will not make me forget it in a rush.