Travelogue ~ My Journey into Kongi’s forest by Adamu Usman Garko
The night before the trip I didn't sleep a wink, perhaps I found a stranger in me and he wasn't feminine. I couldn't close my eyes, not because I didn't want to, but thoughts of morning's arrival kept my eyes bereft of sleep. I prayed and when I get tired of praying, I would gingerly go outside peeping through the window, my mind in awe of how I made it among the eighty four finalists from all over Nigeria who would breath for four days in Lagos and in the Abeokuta home of Nigeria's only Noble Laureate as participants of the 2018 Wole Soyinka’s International Cultural Exchange programme held annually to marks his birthday. As the night steadily opened into morning, I saw how owls made night a solace for their songs and how everything died for a new birth. Although I'm used to staying late at night before going to bed, this was the first time I vainly stayed awake for the whole night, waiting for morning, because when it was morning, dream would come