The Patani Experience Pt1

Patani is a Community in Delta State. It's a very small community and one of the communities beside the River Niger, Nigeria, hence heavily affected by the flood. 

A screenshot of Patani Community courtesy Google maps

Stirred by the recent flood disaster in Nigeria, Eagles Hope Charity Foundation- a nonprofit, community development initiative of the Covenant University's Alumni Association- called out to the Covenant University Community, its Alumni and friends to donate relief materials for some of the Victims of the flood (Internally Displaced Persons-IDPs). And did the materials come? Donations flooded in, clothing, shoes, bags, food, provisions and cash. A day was fixed to deliver the donated materials and Patani Community in Delta State was chosen.

A day prior to departure from Lagos, all the relief materials had to be sorted, arranged and packed by a team of six volunteers.

 For me, day started very busy. Had couple of errands to run before going to the rendezvous point. Traffic was pretty crazy and we had tons of relief materials to sort.  Not having enough hands was gonna slow us down or not.

Was expecting to get to the rendezvous spot by 12noon but as at 2pm, i was still on the road. I had to get home, park the car, get a cab to take me to Ikeja where we were to sort out relief materials before taking off to Delta on Thursday morning. Wasn’t surprised by the call asking to confirm if I was still game. LOL. (Was mentally prepared to work all night and catch a nap during the trip).

After what felt like forever, 4pm, i was able to leave my Estate and head for Ikeja (Finally ooooh!!!!!). Got there about 5pm (thanks to fair traffic and smart cab guy), and on seeing the materials we were to sort, I was overwhelmed and knew we needed as much help as we could get. So i called my ‘Fix guy’ to come over and help. Another pair of hands will go a very long way. And indeed it did.

cross section of some relief materials with Folake and Lara.

Another cross section of some relief materials with Remi, Tobi, (Ruth and Sunkanmi somewhere on the left).

By the time we were through with sorting, packing and tagging the relief materials, we were overwhelmed by the size and quantity and so afraid that all wouldn’t go into the two buses hired. We logical-ised it and came up with an alternative plans of sending any of the relief that couldn’t go; sending through someone, another team? anyone.  We even prioritized the materials! Lol.

By 12midnight, we were able to finally have dinner and go to bed. I still felt weird sort of, apparently all other members of the team knew each other and I was the newbie.

5a.m, the team leader came to knock on our door. Time to wake up! I got outside and the buses had arrived. By the time we saw the size of one of the buses hired (at a subsidized rate by God is Good Motors) our fear of not going with all the relief materials was alleviated. 
All the materials will definitely go or so i imagined. Hoped?

*******************************************************************