Dearest Brownite,
I may not know you personally, but we are kin in the commonality of our suffering. It has been 8 days without light and my heart breaks, first for myself, and for every single Brownite who has had to cope with the unfair hand they have been dealt. This heartbreak and concern further extends to all the patients who have had their surgeries postponed, those who travelled down for a reprieve only to be turned back, patient’s relatives who are fraught with frustration and anxiety as emergency surgeries are carried out, wondering if the light available will see them to the end. I am most concerned about, and empathize with the 2k18 Dentistry students who have had to write their final exams amidst all of these. It is certainly not a great way to wrap up their journey of about 8 years in this school. I am equally concerned for the students writing resit exams in this period, aware that a lot rides on their success, and forced to make sense out of the nonsense that is this situation.
Dear Brownite, I know that you have lived on ultra power saving mode for days on end, and even that would not suffice. Your 30,000mAh power bank that had never seen the 0% before has now never been charged full. You have had to travel distances, visiting friends you had not reached out to in a while, pleading to be allowed into establishments you do not patronize, in search of power. You have been to Catholic Hostel at 8pm each day without fail to charge for 2 hours, and perhaps use the bathroom too. You have struggled and failed to meet deadlines because your working instrument is but a box without power.
Dear Brownite, I am aware that water supply is now a luxury. You have had to travel long distances, lugging containers bigger than your frame. You have arrived at the Mosque sometimes and water finished before it was your turn. You have been at the queue at A-Block from 5am and didn’t get water until 8am, and that is a good day. On other days, your water is stolen by another desperate Brownite and try as you might to hold them in, the tears escape. I am aware that you have been eating once a day, training your bowel to move less frequently as there is no water to flush the toilet should you require its use. And on the day you are no longer able to hold in, you walk to the bathroom with your last bucket of water only to find it a mess. And again, your lacrimal glands go into overdrive.
Dear Brownite, I know that lack gives rise to burning need and need to desperation, and desperation to irrational behaviour. But even despite your understanding of this, you wish that every other Brownite manages to keep the bathrooms clean, their ogling eyes away from water that isn’t theirs, and their unpowered devices away from a charging port in use. Yet time and again, you fall victim to the irrational behaviour that desperate need births.
Dear Brownite, I am aware that this situation is heightened and made worse by the fact that over the years, you have been taught to keep quiet, never protest, bear it until you leave – a subdued people. And so each day, you struggle to find water, put on your unironed scrubs and make your way to school, forced to live out a facade as though you aren’t tired, as though you aren’t angry, as though all is well at home. You wait to hear from the management and the circular released by the hospital does not even acknowledge your suffering — it’s all deafening silence.
Dear Brownite, I am aware that these periods remind you of what used to be; how the hospital used to have constant power supply, better than any place in Ibadan; how there used to be generator time for two hours at night during blackouts, and an hour in the morning to again pump water to the different blocks; how your biggest worry was not waking up in time to meet the water pumped to your floor, yet that worry was assuaged by a certainty that there will be water in the tank downstairs; how the Universe would not stay quiet when things were falling apart, and you will repeatedly get assurance that something was being done.
I am aware that even now, while you anticipate the light being restored, a part of you forsees yet another repeat of the same problem, or worse – the Hall being cut off for some hours each day since it is not an “essential area” and you again have to make the rounds to 4th floor, backpack on, extension box and chargers in, lips waiting to plead with the workers to let you in, backs ready to pay the price of the awkward positions you have to be in for hours on end. You hope but you are still prepared for the worst – that perhaps the generator will never come on again, and the next time, it might be during your next MB exams. You consider investing in a bigger drum and a better powerbank, but surely, no drum will see you through 2 weeks of constant darkness and no powerbank will last longer than 3 days.
Dear Brownite, you may not know me, but I know that you are struggling…that we are struggling, each day more than the last. And sadly, I do not have more than words of comfort to offer, prayers and sometimes curses in your favour, and a little or maybe just a semblance of hope – pseudo-hope, you would call it, that things will change for the better, and that Brownites will never again suffer the same horrid fate. For “indeed with hardship [will be] ease, with hardship [will be] ease“.
Yours,
A Concerned Comrade.
