Humans of Hera: The Excursion

Phy 311: Energy Physics.

In this course, we were taught the sources of energy and the fact that it could neither be created nor destroyed.

And now, we were about to take the lessons to another level. We were about to witness how energy could be transformed from one form to another. 

Along with a team of other lecturers, our level adviser planned a 2-day field trip to the Omotosho Power plant in Ore, Ondo State. Each of us contributed 10,000 Naira for feeding, accommodation and transportation throughout the trip.

When the D-day came, my friends and I (and probably the rest of my classmates) were excited to finally go on a trip. I mean, who wouldn’t love a legit reason to skip school?.

By 8 am on Wednesday, we all assembled in front of the department, waiting for the buses to come. We waited for hours but nothing happened.

No bus. No communication. Nothing.

We had no idea whether or not we were still going on the excursion. Some of my friends and classmates had walked away for one or two reasons – probably to get lunch, buy something or simply take a stroll.

A few minutes after 1 pm, two buses drove into the faculty, a Coaster bus and a Marcopolo bus. 

My friends and I immediately positioned ourselves in the Coaster bus and reserved some seats for other people we cared about because we decided that the coaster bus would be more comfortable.

And we were right. Due to the size of the Marcopolo, our lecturers decided that more people should sit there, leaving just enough space for the rest of us. They split themselves into two groups, some sitting in the Marcopolo while the others on the Coaster bus with us. 

Just before we left the school premises, they apologised for coming late, mentioning that they had run into a little hiccup with convincing the school authorities to allow us leave with two buses as they had initially only agreed to one. 

We got some food and headed for the road.

Some minutes into the journey, we began singing and gyrating. My bus was fun, our morale was high and honestly, we felt like nothing could possibly go wrong.

We were wrong.

When we got to Idofian, a small town in Kwara state, few towns away from Offa, the Marcopolo had brake issues.

The driver and the mechanic on board insisted that the brake pad needed to be changed. So the mechanic had to go back to Ilorin to buy new brake pads and this set us back by a few hours. 

We all came down from the buses, walked about and basically did whatever we wanted while making sure everyone stayed together for security reasons. 

A few hours later, the mechanic came back, we fixed the brake pads and the excursion continued.

Weirdly, just as we got to the front of the Offa polytechnic, the Marcopolo we fixed minutes ago had another issue. 

Again, the mechanic checked and this time, he said the brake pads weren’t the issue so he would have to go buy some more parts or probably get more help. Annoyingly, this meant that he had to take yet another trip to Ilorin.

It was starting to get late, we had wasted so much time fixing one thing or the other and we were already considering booking hotel rooms in Offa to spend the night and continue our journey the following day. But our level adviser did not agree because he had paid in advance for hotel rooms in Ore so we had to get there the same day by fire or by force.

As we continued the excursion after fixing the bus, we were low on energy and most of us were already dozing off. I had fallen into a deep slumber before some people chatting about a famous war between the Yoruba and Fulani tribes in the 20th century woke me up. Apparently, we had just passed a town called Erin-Ile and some people thought to give us a few history lessons.

Exhausted, I tried to go back to sleep. But a few minutes after, I opened my eyes to ask if we were at Ore yet. We were not. Apparently, we were just in Osogbo, a town in Osun state.

I took a deep breath, sighed heavily and tried to go back to sleep. Again, I looked up a few minutes later to ask if we had gotten to our destination yet. Again, I got a no. We were just in Ife.

By this time, it was late in the night and I could barely recognise anywhere because I had never been to all the places. But I could tell we were in Ile-Ife for sure though because we just passed the massive Oduduwa statue the town was popularly known for.

I noticed that there were no other vehicles on the road and we could literally hear crickets and toads chorusing loudly. I wondered what time it was and found out that it was almost midnight. That surely explained why the whole city was shut down, everyone was probably asleep.

Not long after, we entered the Ondo city gate. We were in Ondo state and that meant to me that we were at least close to our destination because we all knew Ore was in Ondo state. It was my first trip to this part of the country so I wasn’t sure exactly how far we were to Ore, I had no idea the direction we were heading and to be honest, I couldn’t be bothered. 

I went back to sleep assuming we were in good hands and that nothing could go wrong this time.

I was wrong.

The sound of people chatting woke me up again. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know the way to Ore. None of the drivers, lecturers or anyone else did. 

These guys took a bunch of young students out of Ilorin on “vibes and InnshaAllah”, but no one had noticed since because we all trusted the drivers.

At that point, we were at some sort of dead-end in a ‘forbidden forest’. We could tell because there were inscriptions everywhere with drawings of skulls to scare people away.

But for some reason, those were not enough red flags for these people. Before long, we saw a tree with human skulls hanging off it. It was really dark but our headlights were as bright as ever and we could see that this was a no go area.

Flashes were coming from the forest, almost as if they were warning us or just letting us know that we were not alone.

There was a car right behind us and it had been on our tail for a while. We decided to ask the driver about the area: where we were, how we would get out and how we would get to Ore.

He evidently had no idea because he said that he had been lost for a while too and decided to follow us thinking we knew our way or at least a way out. 

No one felt safe anymore and everyone started panicking. Why on earth would these people take kids on an excursion to a place they had never been to or at least knew how to get to. 

Some simple research would literally have prevented all this so it made no sense that they had put our lives in so much danger.

We decided to turn back and bring out our phones in an attempt to use Google Maps, but there was no network. It was a nightmare but I knew I didn’t want to die yet; at least not this way.

Thank God for someone who had a sense of direction. He directed us to turn back and helped us trace our steps back to the city gates which is a popular landmark. By that time, I was very awake; I wasn’t putting my life in these people’s hands anymore. I had to be responsible for my own destiny.

The network became better and we could finally use our phones to access Google Maps. We were back on track, following the map, but the drivers didn’t trust the technology or the fact that it was students who were telling him where to turn and all. 

He kept looking out for anything that moved to ask for direction. Shortly after that, we approached some officers. It felt off though because since we started the excursion, we had not come across a checkpoint.

Where were these officers when you needed them though? The city was asleep and so were the protectors. We all need to be sleeping with only one eye closed because it appeared that security agents were never there when necessary.

Anyway, we slowed down to speak with the officers and ask if we were on the right track to Ore. They said we were and simply went back to doing what they had been doing before we got there. Why on earth were they not curious? The least they could have done was ask us some questions to see if everything was alright, but no. They just could not be bothered. 

I started asking myself questions. What if we were all students that had been kidnapped and our kidnappers were in the same bus posing with us? Why were they not curious to find out where we were coming from, where we were going at that time of the night and why? These guys didn’t care one bit and it was obvious.

Thankfully, my panic level had reduced since I was sure we were on the right track and had the Google Maps technology to guide us through. We were now on the highway, Benin-Ore road.

As we drove on, we approached some more people who flashed lights at the buses but didn’t attempt to stop us. We could not tell if they were policemen or local vigilantes

A few minutes later, we approached another checkpoint with people. Again, we couldn’t tell the difference between policemen, vigilantes and robbers. So we slowed down and stopped to ask them for directions. Before we could blink, they opened fire on us, shooting and throwing stones. They wanted to rob us and they needed a way to put us off our balance first, we immediately took cover, bowing our heads to avoid getting hit. We were in their territory and they kept attacking us from every angle with everything they had. 

My friend tried to cover me as much as he could as I had my head on his lap (men are the best). But I was so scared and just kept praying that no one would get hurt.

We managed to escape narrowly but that didn’t mean we were out of danger’s way. The driver was driving with his head down and didn’t even mind what he was hitting or what was happening.

READ: Humans of Hera: My First Time

For all we knew, there could be more of them and because we didn’t want to take any chances, we kept driving at full speed till we saw some lights. It was a 24/7 petrol station with lots of vehicles parked there so we decided to stop there, thinking we would be safer in the crowd. 

Other people had also been attacked and some vehicles coming from the opposite direction stopped at the petrol station as well, to avoid getting attacked by the robbers ahead. 

People came together to form a watch group, telling everyone that cared to listen not to go that far and preparing themselves to protect others if the robbers came to where everyone was. 

Some vehicles had been successfully infiltrated and the people in them described the robbers as Fulani men; from the language they spoke to the way, they were dressed and the kind of weapons they had. 

Turned out, we were the lucky ones because the bullets in their rifles had been exhausted on shooting another vehicles. Women were crying, people had been shot dead and some were injured. All I could do was thank my stars that we had not gotten there sooner because that could have been us. 

I was mad at everything. I hated the idea of the excursion. I didn’t feel safe. I felt anxious. I could not stop panicking. I saw everything as a threat and my body was shaking uncontrollably.

We all tried to calm each other down but truthfully, we all knew at the back of our minds that we were not safe and that those dead people could have been any or all of us.

And for what reason? We wanted to see and learn how electricity was generated.

Well, we had learnt something alright. But it definitely was not about electricity.

One thing we learnt was that the speed of light is 3 x 10^8 m/s. But when a bullet travels towards you at 2736 Kilometers an hour or 1700 miles an hour, electricity becomes the least of your problems.

Another thing we learnt, the really hard way, is that no one is completely safe in this country. Not a single soul.

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