MY FIRST BIG TRAVEL

There is always a first time; just like every other person, I have experienced many. This fact makes it really difficult to pinpoint what to write about. Nevertheless, I have decided to share my experience of my first big travel. It was not just a big travel; it was my first time being so far away from home.

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It was sometime in May 2017 when I travelled all the way from the city of Port Harcourt to the ancient City of Ibadan. It was not just my first time being away from home for as long as a whole week; it was my first time going that far away from home. And most importantly, it was the most significant travel I had ever made at the time.

I went for a one-week seminary interview, and I attended an interview in the Schoenstatt Fathers community in Ibadan. It was the beginning of an amazing journey, as I was later admitted by the Schoenstatt Fathers, who sponsored my philosophical studies as well as my upkeep for over four years. Beyond the sponsorship, I met a family in the community of Schoenstatt Fathers, and I am forever grateful for the impact they had on me.

There is plenty more to say about my time as a seminarian of the Schoenstatt Fathers, but saying more would cause me to drift completely from the topic of the day. I will eventually find a perfect opportunity to tell you more about my time with the Schoenstatt Fathers, but it is certainly not today.

Ibadan was quite a distance, so we left Port Harcourt for my hometown, Nnokwa, a day before. The plan was to take off from the City of Onitsha, which was less than a 30-minute drive away, the next morning. From there, the journey to Ibadan became closer. Of course, I was not alone; my overprotective mother would not let me go alone. She accompanied me from the beginning of the journey to the end, risking her own safety in the process.

It was the case that she took a bus back to Onitsha after ensuring I got to my destination in the evening of that same day. I was told that the bus she took eventually got to Onitsha by 3 am the next day, thank God for my elder brother who lives in Nnewi. By 8 am, we were already on our way to Ibadan, a city that none of us had ever been to. We arrived in Ibadan a few minutes past 4 pm, and my stubborn mother decided to hit the road back to Onitsha that evening.

It was a long and amazing journey, and most importantly, it was my first time. I was almost twenty, and I never saw anything wrong with my mother bringing me all the way to Ibadan, given how we were brought up. Hearing other candidates discuss their journeys made me realise otherwise. As a matter of fact, I was wise enough never to tell them that my mom came all the way with me, and I never told it to anyone throughout my stay in the Schoenstatt Fathers community in Ibadan.