In March 2013, I carried my luggage and bid my family and friends goodbye to go serve my fatherland in the one year compulsory National Youth Service in the north central region of my country. It was my first time visiting that part of the country. The whole journey was roughly 14hours by road.
I arrived the motor park as we fondly call it to board the Peace Mass Transit bus going to Abuja. I was eager to see what the future held for me in the next one year. The journey started around 6am and I sat in front of the bus with another young woman. Few minutes into the journey, I started feeling funny in my tummy. I was feeling nausea and felt like vomiting. I managed to hide it for a while and before we even got out of the city, I had a massive uncontrollable throw-up. Guess what, I vomited on the lady beside me.
How that happened, I can’t explain till today.
I expected the worst reaction ever from her but I was surprised when she asked the driver of the bus to put off the AC and get the glasses down for me to have fresh air. She said the AC is not circulating well and I may be having motion sickness. She got tissue papers out of her bag and cleaned her dress and the floor of the bus. She also got me a cellophane bag to hold in case I wanted to vomit again.
She was so nice that the driver was looking at her deeply once in a while. In a nutshell, I vomited throughout that journey in the cellophane bag and the lady shifted for me each I needed to stretch my tummy. I was so weak that I did not get her name or contact when we departed but I ensured that I mastered her face.
Two years after, I was driving through a community in Ibadan and I saw a lady struggling to pull her car out of a muddy terrain. I felt I could help. I pulled over and rolled my trousers to enter the mud. Men and brethren, it was that lady who helped me two years ago. She was now married and her baby was in the car. I asked her if she could remember me. She was so happy to see me again and was also impressed that I could remember her face after a long time.
I thanked her again for her good gestures towards me two years ago. I asked her to get her baby out of the car. She stood away from the car and I took the keys from her. I was ready to go to any extent to get that car out of the muddy hole. I knelt in the mud and got my trousers dirty in the mud but I was able to get the car out eventually with the help of other passersby.
I am sure many thought I was the husband of the young lady, they never knew that two years before, she had taken my vomit and now I was simply taking the mud for her.
What are the lessons here:
1. Doing good to people no matter how small is a seed. You never know in what measures you will get it back.
2. Doing good is the best investment in this world especially when you do it without expecting anything back. You will reap it in thousand folds someday.
3. Help people going through a mess and you will definitely not lack people in your own muddy days.
Clean somebody’s mess today if you can without judging them.
Oluwaseun David ADEPOJU
