This is on my mind today and I have tried to put it out of there but it is not working so I have decided to blog about it.
We lived in the north of Nigeria which is very politically and religiously unstable. My parents were missionaries of a theological college and my Dad was the principal of it. We were white ppl in a black community and christians in a muslim fundamentalist area.
One day we got word that there were ppl coming to attack the college. I could not understand why we did not flee, instead we went to the college chapel to pray and I got into trouble for having my eyes open as that was not considered proper praying.
We then went back to the house and waited there til my Dad said we had to go upstairs and started closing all the downstairs shutters.
Next thing I remember was being in my parents' bedroom with a tea chest agaainst the door and sitting on the bed. Ppl were shouting in Hausa that they were going to kill us through the door and my Dad was shouting back. I understood what they were saying.
I remember hearing splashing of liquid but did not know what it was. Then being told to lie down on the floor by the bed - I was worried about scorpions. i remember the room filling with smoke and my parents talking to each other.
We decided to move through to me and my sister's bedroom and my parents told us to hide under the bed. I later found out they were worried because we had flammable and explosive material in the house.
After some time I remember my Dad saying that they were leaving and showed me - in the maize field in the distance I could see a bunch of teenage boys running away. Turns out the local village who were Muslim had managed to call them off.
We had corrugated iron gutters in our mud house and we climbed out onto them and were handed down to ppl to rescue us. I remember being worried about not having any flip flops on as we could get bugs in our feet.
I remember seeing the hen house explode as we stored kerosene in it.
We had to say goodbye to everyone and I was made to go and say goodbye to my abusers. One put his hand in my knickers and did some bad things.
Then we spent the night in Zaria before being taken to the British High Commission in a bullet proof car. We spent a week with them then flew back to the UK.
Cracked