Chapter 37: Hope
Kano state, July 1999
Julianna forcefully yanked her hand away from the one that was holding her and immediately knelt and started begging them in Hausa, pleading for her life.
"Abu, Please don't hurt me, I only want to get my daughter and leave and I promised to never come back. I won't come back. We only have each other ever since my husband died." She continually begged hysterically.
"No, no, no...teacher calm down. We are not going to hurt you. We are not part of all these bad things, we only wanted to help okay? Your church has been burnt down and nothing is left of it."
After hearing what Abubakri said, Julianna felt partly relieved and quickly stood up with gratitude on her face.
"Thank you, thank you so much...but have you seen my baby? Do you know who has her?" she asked looking hopefully at each of the boys to check their facial expressions.
"That's where we are taking you right now. They are all here, including the people from your church, and your daughter is fine too don't worry."
Hearing that her daughter was fine, she felt greatly relieved. "Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus," she said happily, jumping up with joy.
"Ehmm...sorry for the way I grabbed you back there, I had to be a little rough because we don't know who might be watching us, we don't want them coming back to attack the whole neighborhood simply because we helped...hope you understand?"
"Abubakri, you don't need to apologize for anything. Thank you very much. I thank all of you and I'm very grateful." She said to all the boys together.
"Let us enter please..." Abubakri said and led the way while she and the other boys followed.
They entered a large room that looks like it was going to be the building's living room. People were sitting and standing everywhere, both inside and outside of the room. The scene could be compared to a small refugee camp.
These are good and hard-working people who have suddenly been rendered homeless. Friends and neighbors that she had known for the past three years, some of whom were successful in their various businesses, now forced out of fear and anxiety to huddled together inside one room.
Julianna located the nanny that was in charge of taking care of her baby, sitting by herself at a corner. She quickly made a beeline to them without stopping to greet or discuss with anybody.
When she took her cutie into her arms again, she was overwhelmed with joy and nearly burst into tears of gratitude.
"Oh God thank you, thank you God." she rejoiced.
"Madam thank God you are finally here. She has been crying since and I think it's because she's hungry. I didn't feed her because we couldn't get anything out of the creche, we had to quickly evacuate the building and ran when the commotion began."
"No problem. I'll breastfeed her right now. Thank you for taking good care of her for me, I really appreciate your effort."
"Let's just be thankful to God for his mercies ma'am." The nanny replied with a smile.
Despite the situation of things, Julianna still sat down with a grateful heart on a concrete block to breastfeed her baby while she hummed a worship tune to herself.
All around her, different discussions from the people were going on and filtering into her ears;
"Where do we go from here?..." An Igbo man in his 50s who owned a house that had been burned down and three supermarkets that had been looted and destroyed lamented to his wife, who was crying softly.
"Everything that we have built for the past twenty years gone...just like that. Apart from what we have in the bank, every other thing is gone...thank God that the kids are away in school."
Julianna sighed heavily, thinking of her situation. Where would she go? She was an orphan who was living with her wicked stepmother who had no child for her father.
When she got her admission letter to study at the polytechnic, she packed all her belongings plus the passbook to the college fund account her father had handed over to her before he died and left for school, never bothered to return home again and her stepmother too never bothered to look for her.
The only family she had left in the world was her mother-in-law, who was out of the country visiting her family abroad. She couldn't have felt more scared and lonely right then for the fear of not knowing what the future holds for her.
She was thinking they would spend the night in the building, hopefully, everything would have mellowed down by the following morning when she would be able to meet with her boss for help and accommodation till when her mother-in-law comes back into the country.
'There's hope after all Julianna, in everything give thanks to God' she thought to herself brightly. Putting her now sleeping baby on her shoulder, she softly sang the hymn:
"When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul!
It is well with my soul!
It is well, it is well with my soul!....."
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