Love In Therapy ✔️

Chapter 14

~There are some thoughts you can't avoid and feelings you can't deny.~

Javier's POV

"Welcome to Nigeria, Mr Callaghan," the chocolate complexioned attendant, with a tight bun of fiery dark curls sitting atop her head, said to me as she stamped my passport which gave me access into the country.

I smiled at her and retrieved the green square book from her hand. "Thank you," I nodded in her direction and moved forward to make way for others. I looked round the airport and sighed. I had volunteered online as a medical assistant with a charity organization as a form of selfless service. Months passed with no word of any assignment until the previous month. I got a mail stating that I had an assignment to Africa. They had gathered a group of medical personnel from all across the country and distributed them to different countries across Africa. I was one of the doctors assigned to West Africa and we were a total number of six medical personnel sent to Nigeria.

I had to take several shots from cholera, to typhoid, to hepatitis, to tetanus shots as preventive measures against these diseases. I was here to supervise the recently completed centre for the paralyzed and handicapped in Lagos. I had done a little research about Nigeria prior to my arrival and I was pretty pleased about what I saw. Although, I was scheduled to work round the clock, I made sure I found time to see the state for its beauty and visit a few of the tourist attractions centers they had.

I stepped out of the airport and looked round for my ride. I was told that a car would be waiting outside the airport for me. I was a few days late as I had to tidy up work at the clinic before leaving. I saw a cardboard with an inscription of my name written in bold capital letters. I walked over to the man and he immediately brought out something from his pocket and held it up to his face. He looked at me and I met his eyes. He looked down again at the picture and as I got closer, I realized he had a picture of me in his hands and he was probably making sure that it really was me.

"Hi... I'm Javier," I smiled as I stopped in front of him.

"Mr Callaghan?" he asked.

I grinned. "Yes, I am Callaghan."

"Nice to meet you, sir," he smiled, showing a set of well arranged dentition as he proceeded to take my bag from me. He walked over to the rear of the car and the bag disappeared into the trunk. He opened the door to the back seat and I got in. He shut the door and got into the driver side. The car pulled out of the lot and out of the airport joining the slowly moving traffic.

"Where are we headed?" I asked, choosing to engage the man in a conversation.

"Lekki, sir. That's where the hotel is, sir."

He had an accent and it was funny how he added sir to every reply he gave. "How far out are we?"

"Sir?"

"How long will it take us to get there?" I rephrased.

"Ooh... we're on the mainland. Ikeja to be precise, the capital of Lagos. Our destination is the island and there's always traffic around this time so it'll take us about an hour thirty minutes to get there."

"I see," I hummed. "What is Nigeria like?"

"Sir, you see ehn, Everyone has a different opinion of my country according to which part of the news they have read or heard. To me, Nigeria is a big country filled with highly ambitious. Our ambitions and goals drive us to do what we do and the things we do can either be good or bad. All countries have their vices and ours is just another country where people use our vices to define who we are. Majority of Nigerians are very spiritual people and we take whatever religious denomination we belong to seriously."