Scary moments....

No pictures for this post. Just a very real reminder that we live in a place that CAN be dangerous.

The other night, around 9:30 or so, Roy and I were in our room reading "Opening the Seven Seals: The Visions of John the Revelator". We aren't very far into it yet, but it is pretty interesting so far. Anyway, our bedroom faces a main street here. Sometimes the traffic and noise from outside can be quite loud. While we were reading together, we started to hear shouting. This isn't and uncommon thing here. Buses stop and pick up and drop off people right below our balcony and sometimes people will get into arguments while they are waiting for the bus. Usually the shouting ends about as quickly as is starts. This time was different though. The shouting wasn't stopping, it was starting to get louder. Then we heard a load bang. Again not to unusual. Cars are always backfiring and all week people at the Indian High Commission (just down the street) had been lighting firecrackers for some celebration. But the shouting was continuing and then there was another bang. I was starting to get really nervous and asked Roy if he thought those bangs could have been gunshots. He was starting to be a bit concerned as well. He slipped quietly out onto the balcony to try and see what was happening. At the gate to the boys quarters there was a large crowd of about 20 people, and there was a MoPol (mobile police) truck. We couldn't tell exactly what was happening. At first we thought maybe there had been a wreck with the truck and an Okada (motorcycle taxi). This happens a lot and when someone hits an Okada, all the Okada drivers swarm to defend the injured Okada driver. It can often get quite violent and out of hand. But we didn't see any Okadas in the area and no motorcycle layed out on the ground. As we were watching about 1/2 the people piled into the back of the MoPol truck and the last one in the back lifted a gun (FN FAL 308, for those gun savy folks) over his head in a triumphant sort of way and cheered and the truck drove off. The rest of the crowd started talking excitedly and using their cell phones and a flash light to look for something on the ground. At that point Roy said, "Whatever it was, it's over and I can find out what happened in the morning, because that's Chris (our driver) right down there." I told him that he should try and call him RIGHT NOW and find out what happened. At this point I was very unsettled. But Chris was charging his phone, he has to take the battery out to charge it, so we couldn't get through to ask him what had happened. I would have to wait till morning to find out. I had Roy to protect me tonight and hopefully that would be enough to help me sleep. I did manage to sleep that night, but it took awhile. The next morning Roy IM'd me with the whole story.

Apperantly, someone tried to mug someone outside the gate to the boys quarters. The crowd we saw was everone in the area ganging up on the robber (including Chris). It seems that here in Nigeria people don't take too kindly to robbery. It used to be that when someone was caught stealing, a mob would form and the person would either be beaten to death by the mob or they would tie him up and shove a tire or two over his head and light it on fire and watch him burn to death. Now days, with the economy being down and times being harder, more people are turning a blind eye. But not everytime. This was one of those times. The crowd had started beating up this mugger when MoPol happened to drive up. MoPol ended up shooting the mugger twice in the leg, (that was the bangs we heard), partly to stop him from running and to get the crowd to back off. That was when we started watching. MoPol loaded the mugger into the truck and left. The reason everyone was looking on the ground was because when they shot the guy in the leg, it broke his leg and a piece of the bone flew out. GROSS. And all this happened right outside my flat. Four stories down and on the other side of the security wall.... but still.... RIGHT OUTSIDE MY FLAT. Oh, and Roy also said that he saw a guy getting mugged on the way home from his bishopric meeting that same night. Other expats here said that robberies and things like this always increase around the holidays. I really glad that we will be home for the holidays!