English 1010
Memoire
The accident that almost cost me my life.
Like every Saturday after a long week of school and work, my friend and always meet at the café in my neighborhood and set up the plan of the weekend. But that Saturday something , an special event was going on in my city cotonou. It was the 11th of may, the celebration of the death of Robert nesta marley (bob marley) . on that day something happened in my life. It help me change the way I perceive things and grow my faith. I wish It didn’t happen but at the same time it was a good experience.
Every Saturday night in cotonou, is amazing. In the whole west Africa, cotonou is known as the city that party the most in the weekend. I am from that city and I used to love partying a lot till an tragic event happened in my life, a traffic accident. Let me explain a little bit how it happened.
I was only 19 years old. Early in the morning around 8 am, I called my best friends kader and biggie. I asked them to meet me at the café which was the routine almost every saturday. I was already there, and while I was waiting on them I ordred the breakfast. When they got there we start setting up our plan for the night, and together enjoyed the food. Couple hour later around 10 am , I went to “missebo,” a outside clothes market 30minutes far from my house and bought my outfit of the night. As soon as I left “missebo,” I went back home. My mother was with her husband at a weeding party , so I took her car and drove it to kola’s house another of my best friend. At this time I knew how to drive very well but I didn’t have my driver licence yet. I picked kola up and we drove to another city “alada” which is 3hours far from cotonou. We went there because I heard about a restaurant that cook the best rabbit meat in the country. So we went there and we had a lot of fun. On our way back, we almost had an accident because I was tipsy. But we made it home safe, I parked the car and took a nap. Lattely in this afternoon I went to spend time with my girlfriend at her house. Then I went back home and got dress.
Most of the young people in my country love to ride motorcycle and I was one of them. I wasn’t a professional rider but I was good enough to be one of those best rider in my city. Anytime I was ridding, I feel like a bird in the sky that nobody could stop. For me riding motorcycle was like doing mathematics. If you know the rules you get the answers, I was a good student and I always knew the rules until that night. So I met kader and we took the road. Like I said earlier a special event was happening in the city, The celebration of bob marley death. Young people, followers of reggae music was going crazy on the road , it was similar to Hawaiian carnival.
I was following kader, we both were on high speed on the road. We were doing 110km/h on a road that allowed 60km/h. when suddenly i saw kader skipped a back of a construction truck that parked on the middle of the road, but it was to late for me. I hit the truck and felt on the road. The impact was so violent thjat I couldn’t move for a minute. At the moment that kader heard the noise of the impact, he knew that was me. he pulled up on the side of the road and ran to me. When he came to me I was sitting on the middle of the road and I told him: “kader I’am ok lets take my motorcycle and go celebrate bob’. I just got some scratches on my knees.” He said “ok.” He handed me his hand, I grabbed it, and when I was getting up , I realize that my right leg was broken. It was at this moment that I realize what happen was serious. People came from nowhere and with kader helped me sit on the side of the road till the ambulance come and get me. Kader was talking to me to make sure that I don’t loose my mind. I asked him to call my mother and tell her what happen. He did it and he didn’t want to tell me how she react on the phone. But the only thing I was scared about is that my mother goes crazy and maybe get a heart attack.
After one hour, the ambulance came and took me to the emergency room at the university hospital of cotonou. They were a lot of people laying down next to me, some of them were dying because they didn’t have money to pay to receive the first medical assistance. This is the system in my country, like someone said ”money run the world.” couple hours later, my mother arrived at the hospital but the nurses was already taking care of me because I had money on me. I had enough to afford the first bills. The next day I woke up in a room with people without legs or hands. My mother didn’t go home. She was there with me all night to assist me. A little bit after, my brothers came in the room with the doctor and they came to talk to us. The doctor told us that after he took a look at the x-ray, the only possibility to save me was to cut my legg off. When I heard that, I felt on tears and was so scared. My mother, a strong woman, didn’t show any emotion because she didn’t want to scare me more. The next day my mother found a private clinic that could help me. I was going to have a surgery if not I would never walk normal again.
For this type of surgery , I needed a lot of blood. So it tooks one week for my parents and the clinic to fin enough blood to get the surgery done. Finally it happened and I spent 3 month at the clinic for my rehabilitation. When I got out of the clinic, I stopped going to school, I stayed at home for a year and half. It wasn’t easy for me, who like to party, have fun, be wild, to stay at home that long. My days were like the heaven and my night worst. after coulpe months, my girlfriend couldn’t take it anymore and she broke up our realationship. my family, kader and some of my very close friends were the only persons who helped me go through the situation. Sometimes when I was alone in house, I used to overdose my medication to kill myself because I couldn’t take it anymore.
But one night I had that dream talking to my father who had passed away. he told me to believe in god and to keep pray because some people had worst than that. He also told me that to consider what is happening as a sign god. The way I was trying to live wasn’t the right life for me.