Up and down the stairs

They say in all things, give thanks to God and that is exactly what I plan on doing.

_{Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel}

I live at the topmost floor of a two storey building which I call my hostel, and most times, having to go down the stairs to get whatever it is you need and then go back up can be really stressful and tiring, so what most of us do is that we make a list of the things we need for that day and just try to get all of it on one trip in order to avoid us having to keep on going up and down the stairs.

But even at that, there are days where we feel too weak to even make that single trip, so what we do is we wait, we wait until we see any of our neighbours and friends who is about going down the stairs, then we plead with them to also help us get something, it doesn't have to be everything that we need for that day, but something we probably need urgently, we give them money and then they help us buy whatever that thing is.

Today was one of those days for me, I had woken up feeling a bit tired and couldn't go downstairs, so I had waited to see if any of my neighbours would be going to get something for themselves so that they could also help me get something, but after waiting for about twenty minutes with no one coming out of their rooms (probably due to the fact that it was raining a bit outside), I had gone to plead with one of my close friends to see if he could help me.

But he too had claimed to be exhausted and wasn't ready to go downstairs yet, so I did the only thing I could do, I gathered my strength and began walking down the stairs. What I wanted to buy was some water and seeing how tasty I was, I knew I couldn't wait any longer, it was either I got it myself or risk dying of taste.

About three minutes of me leaving the hostel and getting to the shop where they sell water, a mini bus drove past me and parked right in front of my hostel, armed policemen marching out of it and into the hostel. Now seeing something like that wasn't entirely new to me, but it's been two, three years since I last saw officers raid an hostel like that unless they were working based on information which I later found out they were.

It turned out that someone had snitched on a guy who smokes weed regularly and stays at the hostel. So the police had gone straight to his room, arrested him but they didn't stop there. They had arrested every young guy they saw at the hostel too, probably because to them, every guy is a potential weed smoker.

Unfortunately my friend who I had begged to help me go buy water was one of the guys arrested although he doesn't smoke. They all had been placed in that mini bus and driven down to the police station. Luckily for them. These were corrupt officers who were only interested in the bail money and nothing else, so the moment they got it, they freed everyone.

I remember standing at that shop, watching everyone of them get into that mini bus and just thanking God that no one had helped me go get that water, that I had decided to go get it myself rather than to keep on waiting for help. And although it was sad what happened to the boys because they all spent money they didn't really have, I was glad it didn't happen to me.