Too Close For Comfort

The evenings of our first few months of moving into Lekki were filled with sporadic gunfire in the area as it seemed to be the season for armed robbers,so maybe we got a bit desensitised to hearing the noise and went into automatic pilot locking the doors,putting the lights out and staying away from the windows making sure the security men were locked into the compound with us and so on.I heard my first detailed eye witness account on Xmas day, we had an open house and lots of guests.The last set of guests came in early evening and recounted there near miss experience at The Palms a mall just down the road from us.Apparently they drove past the armed robbers who were on their way to rob The Newscafe Restaurant and bar were they proceeded to strip everyone of there money jewellery and mobile phones. From there they headed to shoprite on the inside of the mall and robbed them of all there takings and terrorised shoppers.I remember sitting there and thinking how insane the conversation sounded as we drank champagne, it seemed as if we were discussing the weather.

The mall was robbed again last weekend,and my daughter reminded me at that exact same time I was pressuring them to get out of the house and go to the mall to watch a movie.I thank God they did not give in to my trying to get them to go out and have a good time.They tend not to go out as much as they did in England,there is just not that much to do out here.
I was out the other day getting some groceries from shoprite trying to Ignore the bullet holes on the walls outside and just get on with it,as everybody does out here,when a wall of fear hit me so strong it made my eyes water. I had to sit on one of the benches in the mall as I felt nauseous.Here we all are going about our normal lives with fixed smiles on our faces and we are living in a war zone.
Last night was a little too close for comfort,I had just finished settling the little ones to bed at about 8pm when the gunfire started it sounded like one of the robbers had gotten hold of an automatic weapon and the gun fire went on for about 10minutes.They were robbing the local restaurant a mere four doors down from me. four doors down!,and yet we wake up get dressed and act like nothing happened,is this healthy? I don't know....are we as a nation too cavalier in our easy going attitude when it comes to our lives on the line?or is it that we have no choice but to be cavalier, because are we not just here by his grace?