It was August 26th 2009, I was rushing to get into Ukraine before the start date of new academic year. We had spent everything we had and flight ticket was one of the most expensive as you needed an open ticket of one year duration to enable them return you back to Nigeria at no extra cost.
As I arrived Kiev (my first time on a flight and travelling abroad), I was asked to wait at immigration, I didn’t speak any single Russian or Ukrainian, as other students passed, I was made to wait and finally taken to the little detention room in the airport hallway.
Apparently, my HIV certificate was to expire in 2 weeks and they wanted me to return to Nigeria and do another HIV test and then buy new flight ticket and come back.
I didn’t know all these as no one spoke English, I cried as village people don finally catch me, I said the rosary as fast as I had and still ever have, but in the face of all these stress, the song “One step at a time” by Jordin Sparks was playing nonstop on the television. I loved the song as I heard it for the first time but I was in deep shit to appreciate it.
Since that day, any day I hear this song, I remember my ordeal in Ukraine and what I passed through in the hands of immigration officers!
Life is not a bed of roses, everyone has a story.