THE EVENT THAT SHAPED MY P E R S O N A L I T Y personal essay David Akindipe // 12 It was a normal Saturday morning in Ikorodu, Lagos, Nigeria. The weather was very hot and there was no power to operate our cooling system. My family had just finished praying. My dad was at work and my mom was taking care of my sister and me. The heat inside the house was unbearable, so I took a walk outside. Our neighborhood had a very deep well next to my house. That was how we got our water to shower because, let’s not forgot, this is Africa. The well wasn’t covered, leaving it exposed. The well had always intrigued me, just like Winnie the Pooh and his delightful honey. My parents did not allow kids to go near it because of the danger it presented. This was my opportunity to see what my parents were trying to hide from me. I did not get it at first until I looked down the well, and my heart sank. All of a sudden I started to hear an echo and, as a 5-year-old kid, I was so intrigued. As I looked down, all I could see was how dark and deep it was. Then, all of a sudden, I had fallen into this abyss. It was like I was looking at myself as I was falling. My head was hitting the surrounding areas, causing me to lose consciousness. Then all of a sudden it was like a fight between the demons of death and me. I remember a bunch of creatures similar to demons scratching me and my clothes, and leaving me for dead. It was like a movie and I was floating around in the water and all of a sudden a gigantic hand lifted me up like something that can only be seen in sci-fi movies. I then came back into reality and
all the casualties that happened while I was unconscious were there in reality, causing me to think that some part of the thing about the demons actually happened. My neighbor had to find a way to get me out. As a five-year-old kid, I was really terrified. All I could hear was the sound of my mother and other people in the neighborhood screaming in fear, causing me to panic, and then all of a sudden it all went black. I was taken to our general hospital. I then woke up with all these tubes attached and it didn’t make sense to me because I had never been to the hospital other than when I had jaundice. I had just woken up while they were injecting something into my wound and I had never felt something hurt so much, other than a rejection, of course. There I had family friends come and visit and it assured me that people still cared. I was in the hospital for three days receiving treatment. The last at the hospital I had to get an x-ray because I broke some bones in my foot and had some dents in my skull but all I cared about was that I was okay and I didn’t die. I was too young to understand how lucky I was, but I was glad to be back home. The major problem that this event caused for me was trauma. I had never been so fearful in my whole tiny life. I was afraid of the dark, driving, even leaving my house. Growing up it made me an introvert. I never tried talking to people about my experience because it made me sound insane. This incident caused people to use my middle name (David) more because the story is about a little boy who beat the odds
“I had never been so fearful in my whole tiny life. I was afraid of the dark, driving, even leaving my house.”
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clarity
