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The days in Yola, a Pre Teens Memories
The aeroplane landed in a near-empty airport, a walk on the tarmac to the main building where the luggage awaited us and off we went to our new dwellings.
Now imagine this.
Three large homes were built with tin roofs, literally in the middle of nowhere.
The whole area is surrounded by six feet tall wild grass as far as you can see.
A few Baobab trees growing sparsely with their strange fruit.
Papaya trees with sweet fruit growing all over.
Stray cats, scorpions. a variety of insects, mosquitoes and yes, pythons slithering abound.
My first day had a surprise waiting when the local guard who was called Magardi in the local Hausa language called me out to see something. It had been an invitation to see a spitting cobra devouring its breakfast, a fat rat.
There weren't any large game left in the country by the time we had reached but I still remember the cattle with a huge set of horns.
I yearn to go back to Yola, the clear skies with the horizon opening up at night with a full show of the universe. You could just raise your hand and touch the stars.
