No. 34: God Bless the Broken Road

the hardest drive of my life and how the drive never really ended.

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In the spring of 2012, just a few months before O and I would celebrate one year of marriage, we made the trek from San Francisco to his family’s village in Nigeria. 

We had travelled together dozens of times before this. Our passports wore matching stamps from Jamaica, Fiji, Tahiti, Australia, Cabo, Cancun and a spattering of Canadian adventures. We had been up and down California, all through the Midwest, seen our fair share of the south and now split our time between the East and West coast. Trains planes and automobiles were no stranger. 

Despite this fact, no amount of warning could have prepared me for the actual travel portion of our trip to Nigeria. 

Weeks before the trip, we started getting our shots and taking our medicines to prepare our body for the shock to the system that is Africa. Malaria pills made me feel fluish and dizzy while the DTaP shot left my arm as heavy as a lead pipe. I packed carefully to have as little luggage as possible because the trip wasn’t a direct one by any sense of the word. 

I had handheld fans and Benadryl. Dryer sheets and extra deodorant. Dry cereal, crackers and enough ramen noodles to sustain an entire apartment complex. I had mosquito netting and nail clippers and sketchbooks and memory cards. My passport. My sister in law. My husband. I was ready. 

But of course I wasn’t.