A Road Trip and Friendship
Dear Fellow,
From Friday, 26th January to Friday, 2nd February 2024, a couple of friends and I spent fifty hours on the road to and from Badagry. This would be my longest road trip yet, and it was nothing short of memorable.
The complete story of this trip is a whole lot to share in a single despatch. However, I will focus on a key lesson from the trip, and direct you to where you will find a series of reflections I wrote as soon as we returned.
Now to the story of friendship.
Last year, my friend Feyisayomi Ayo-Akwe, the person behind The Torch, told me about the trip in a conversation. I didn’t quite get the details correctly. Normally you’d expect her not to bother bringing it up after two trials. But she did the opposite—she continued to bring it up whenever there was room for it. Eventually, she asked one of our mutual friends to persuade me to join the trip.
Initially, I was worried about going on a trip I could not afford. I was so concerned about the cost implication that I didn’t get the information. I missed the part where my friend said it was an all-expense paid trip. Despite resistance on nearly half a dozen accounts, my friend persisted in her plea.
You wonder why the persistence. Each time she mentioned the trip in a conversation, she emphasised the benefits in store for me as a writer. She was so passionate about this part that I wondered if she wasn’t an angel herself on a mission to ensure I didn’t miss that part of my becoming. I travelled, and it was worth it.
We toured Badagry, a major slave site in Nigeria, located at the edge of Lagos State, and bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. We visited the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), in Abeokuta, Ogun State, on our return trip. We also paid a visit to Olumo Rock, a site special to the people of Abeokuta in Ogun State, and finally a visit to Tai Solarin University of Education.
I told a friend yesterday that I cannot relate to the negative sides of relationships that people lament today. I cannot relate to betrayal or denial. I have been involved with good people for most of my life. But evil, and evil people, do exist. Yet, in a fallen world, plagued by wickedness and every kind of evil, it takes intentionality, even as a response to the grace of God, to find people so committed to love that darkness becomes so obscure.
Lengdung Tungchamma of Little Ends is also a major part of this story of friendship. You must have seen me mention his name several times on this platform. Depend on the previous testimonies of my relationship with him, and let this single mention reassure you that he is another light in a world too familiar with darkness.
Dear Fellow, I hope today’s despatch inspires you to be light in your little corner, in that person’s life others do not know about. Love is the way to be light!
Your LetterMan,
Tongjal, W. N.
My recent experiences mirror yours, experiences that seem too good to be true. I must confess, at a point I became suspicious at how selfless some people were.
There are genuinely good people in this world, not to take away from the fact that there are genuinely evil people too.
I'm glad you can't relate to the negative side of friendships, I pray you won't get to.