Smooth! That's what the ride was till we left Abidjan. We weren't supposed to know we already left Abidjan because the driver had done his best to keep us busy with the latest Nigerian songs online. We vibed as much as we could but stopped the moment we were off from the city.
"Time to listen to the news." He switched the stereo and thus came all the bad news we've not checked out online. Terrorists stroke the exact location we chose for the outreach just the previous day, and here we are, uninformed, driving down to the same neighborhood with our full chest.
"Did you hear that?" the vice manager asked me. She was sitting next to me in the passenger's seat. "Terrorists."
"The people need us more now," I said in response. "The wounded and the whatsoever."
"Come on, we aren't going there to treat the wounded. Most of the supplies are for women and children." She lamented, her fears weak with awe and fear.
I laughed and remained silent.
"You are not saying anything." She hollered in my ears. "We are riding into the jaws of death."
I laughed again. Doesn't she have a clue of what her job demands before she signed up for it? this is selfless service for those who love society, those who would give all they have for the well-being of others, but the lady sitting next to me, is merely doing a job and getting paid for it, and she doesn't want to die for what she does for a living.
"We are in it already, and the terrorists, they aren't coming for you." Said the driver. "The politicians caused it all. I'm sorry we have one in this car."
I scuffed. I'm a politician, but I'm not one of those who made life worse for the innocent common man out there, and I don't need to debate with the driver who seemed ready to argue over it.
"Don't count her among your big problems." Said the lady by my side. "Do you know what she has done so far to see that the common man out there gets to have a good life for himself and his family?"
The driver chuckled and continued with his bidding of gliding through the wet road. The sea isn't far, and the rural areas we were heading for aren't far off. We were getting closer, and the journey was gathering boredom.
"None of the news was good." Said the lady beside me. I had long forgotten her name, because she is not, by the way, my main interest in the charity house. Her boss was my interest, now I have her, and I needed a formal introduction.
"Sita Kouassi," I said as though I was calling on myself. "You?"
"Aurelia." She said casually.
Aurelia. She should have one native name, but she said, Aurelia. Well, that's her name, not my business. I smiled at her and swallowed what was supposed to be my words. The usual: 'That's a beautiful name'.
"You didn't know my name all the while and you were being cool with me as though we've known each other for quite a long time." She said with the best of her smiles.
I smiled once more and rested my head on the headrest. "We just have to meet and like each other, rather than the usual quick exchange of pleasantries and rants in class and whatever."
She shook her head and giggled. I don't know what's so funny with what I said, but I could see our conversation was just all about killing boredom.
"So, how long will the journey be?" she asked the driver.
"We are close by, but mind you, we still have to go long when we glide into the village." Said the driver.
"Do you have a name?" Aurelia asked him.
He nodded but didn't say his name. maybe his name is so noble we don't deserve to know one bit of it. Aurelia waited for a while, but seeing he wasn't saying anything, she turned to me.
"Is it not our right to know the name of our driver?" she asked.
"If we don't mind," I replied, but just then, the car stopped abruptly in an open compound with an old school building and five buses with people unpacking things. We were at our outreach post already.
"You know, it's not good to talk much while handling the wheel." The driver alighted before us. The old building we thought was an old school building wasn't a school building, it was an old hotel, built by the French when they arrived in this part of the world to introduce their policy of Assimilation and later Association, two things that made our own cultures sound quite bizarre and painted that of the French as the best and what we were meant to sign up for.
I saw the signpost that read hotel in French, but the names, I didn't go for that stress because it was nearly wiped off from the old signpost.
We both alighted from the jeep and edged over to others who were already packing into the long old hotel building. It would be a nice experience to spend a week in the same building that housed the same people who made us speak French as the official language.
"Welcome, our number one candidate for our little exercise, Lady Sita Kouassi." Said the manager. He was gathering a couple of things with his team. The other bus with the supplies has arrived also with so much medical stuff.
"I would have liked to show you to our team of medics, professional medics from many places in the world. We have some from Nigeria, Ghana, Siera Leon, and…"
"I've heard enough of that." I snapped. "I need to change and have something spicy."
He smiled. "Beautiful, but the hotel serves no local meal." He pointed at a lady standing by the sit-out. "She will assign a room to you, and she will show you where you can get something to eat."
"Okay." I nodded.