What I’ve Learned Since Taking a Raft from Africa to Europe to Find a Better Life

It’s been six years. Here are the lessons I plan to always carry with me.

“What are you saying?” My mom shouted. “You’ve rejected the idea for years!”

I could barely look my mom in the eye. I was tired. Tired of everything. I’d lost my father. I’d lost my brother. My career wasn’t going anywhere. It’s a scary feeling. Knowing that nothing’s working. Knowing full well you’re wasting your life.

“I’m done,” I said softly with my best friend Eddie standing next to me. “Eddie and I are leaving.”

My mom, who’s never short on words, saw the look on my face and decided not to fight. She knew I couldn’t be persuaded.

This past April marks six years since I had that conversation and made the decision to embark on what we in Africa call “The Journey.” My dear friend Eddie and I were convinced that if we made it out alive, we’d make something of our lives. I was excited. The idea of a new beginning gave me a spark that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. But like all great adventures, it didn’t come cheap. As we made our way through Agadez, the desert, Gatroen, and Saba, before finally crossing the sea from Tripoli, the fuel that initially charged me began to fade and my thoughts soon turned to anguish and regret.

I learned a lot during “The Journey.” I’ve also learned a lot in the subsequent days that have passed. Maybe my learnings will one day fill a book. But for now, as I sit here in a café in a small Sardinian town 45 minutes away from the very coast I once kissed some six years ago, here are some of the lessons I’ll always carry with me.

The best people carry spare blankets

When people think of “The Journey,” they envision crashing waves, people huddled together for dear life. In short, they imagine the sea and all its lost souls and stories. But it’s not only the sea that kills. It’s also the desert. The Sahara is not a nice place to be.

During our journey, we got lucky as we only spent a week there. Me, Eddie, and over one hundred women, men, and children traveled in a caravan of three Helux’s across the massive sand sea towards the one made of water.

I’m Nigerian and I’m used to the heat. But man was the Sahara hot. Burning days and freezing nights. We wore face masks to protect ourselves from the sand. Our nostrils dropped rocks of coagulated dust balls. Our eyes turned red from the constant barrage of dust-filled wind. Our lips dried like leaves falling from a tree. Scattered bones and stones in burial places for those who’d died. Sights that leave you praying to whatever god you believe in. Yahweh. Mohammad. Buddha.

It was just Eddie and me when we left home. But soon we became three, and then six — a guy and three other girls who were barely 20 years of age. They clung to us like family. We became a family.

Like all journeys, you need friends. People to learn on. People to draw hope from. People to gain courage from.

We looked out for each other. The six of us. The young girls became all of our responsibilities. As I said, the desert holds a lot of untold stories. There are so many things that can happen to them with rape being the least.

“You can’t sleep out in the cold, under an open sky!” we warned. “You’ll freeze to death.” To make matters worse, one of the girls wasn’t carrying any blankets. But Paul — our third male wheel on our journey — had brought an extra one — “Here,” he said to the girls, “Take mine!”

I think of that moment often. I think of Paul. Him thinking other people may one day need something to try to keep warm. Him being the man he is.

I’m grateful for the friends I had during the journey. I owe my survival to them. I’m sure the others can say the same.

Together we became the courageous six heading for Europe.

Anytime can be 6 o’clock

“If you have good weather on your journey, God Bless. If you have bad weather on your journey, God rest your soul.”

We were huddled up in a secret building for months. Waiting patiently for the weather to clear. Receiving news of boats capsized at sea was a common occurrence. Each time it happened, it sent bolts of fear straight through our souls. But no matter how hard it hit us, it was never enough to deter us. Our minds were made up — we were going to Europe.

“Stay alert!” Anytime can be six o’clock!” Charly — the connection man — the man we paid money to ship us across the Mediterranean often said.

Any moment could be the moment we’re told it’s time to board the raft and set sail. We had to be prepared. Not only our bags, but also our hearts and heads.

That simple phrase — “Anytime can be six o’clock!” — has stuck to me. I have seen its relevance and application many times. Today, it reminds me of an opportunity I had many years ago.

A wealthy man was standing before me. “Can you code?” he asked. At the time, I couldn’t. All I could do on a computer was use Microsoft Word. “No, I can’t,” I replied. He gave me one piece of advice before walking away — “Get some skills, son!”

I later learned that man ran a successful software company. He was looking to help out a member of our church. He was looking to help me. I lost that opportunity because I hadn’t yet learned the lesson that Charly had taught me. I hadn’t yet learned that it’s better to be prepared and not have an opportunity than to have an opportunity and not be prepared. In short, I hadn’t yet learned that anytime can be six o’clock.

There’s something deeper than happiness

It isn’t happiness that gives life meaning. I’m pretty certain if it was, I’d still be back home in Nigeria today.

When I stood on the beach, with the tides coming in and greeting my feet that were too scared to get on the raft, it wasn’t the pursuit of happiness that gave me the courage to finally step aboard. At that point, happiness was too weak. Almost none existence. It was something deeper that propelled me forward.

At a certain breaking point in a person’s life, it’s the desire to give meaning and purpose to his existence that pulls him out of despair. The will to make something of himself. To prove to life — and to himself — that he’s not a failure.

Until we find what goes deeper than happiness, we’ll never explore and reach the depth of what we are truly capable of doing and the person we are truly capable of becoming.

For me, to summon the courage to climb onto that rift that chilling May night, I needed something that was bigger than happiness.

I needed something that was more meaningful than my very existence.

Death is not as powerful as we think

“If anyone has not made peace with death, fear becomes his companion, mediocrity his roommate and unfulfillment, his eternal abode.”

I wrote those words when I was trying to imagine what was going through my head that day our raft finally touched the sea. I was shaken to my bones the night I faced the Mediterranean. My heart failed me. I begged to go back home. But home was far. Very far. “Was it easier to go back after all we’d been through?” I asked myself over and over again. “Or was it easier to keep moving forward?”

It’s a weird feeling to know that either decision could result in death. I could die going back or I could die moving ahead.

I’d heard many stories of those who lost their courage at this very moment and made the decision to go back. For a long time, I understood it. But at the same time, I didn’t understand it. Today, I know why.

There’s this story of a scientist who was sent to investigate and establish a relationship with a local bush tribe out in the jungle. After spending months hiding for fear of being killed by the local tribesmen, one night, he tossed and turned in his bed, unable to sleep — he questioned himself what brought him to this place?

He had a choice to make. He could either go back home a failure or risk winning in the face of death.

I too faced this dilemma that night. In the end, the same words, which the scientist said were the secret to his success were the same words I felt. The words that helped me close my eyes and put it all on the line —

“When life can no longer threaten you with death, what else is there?”

If you lack purpose, you’ll go in circles

My routine today consists of a lot of browsing through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter; saving some quote images for reposting on my WhatsApp status; replying and responding with the same messages, to the same people. In short, conversing a lot about nothing.

The older I get, the more these things bore me. “I’m getting tired of social media,” I often say to my friends whenever they press me on my lack of enthusiasm in chats. I’d rather have a 60-second call than a 60-minute chat or Facebook scrolling.

If you wake up in the morning, with no sense of purpose or direction, you’re most likely to end up recycling your unproductive habits. Purpose, the cure to life’s greatest pandemic, ‘wasted lives.’

Usually, friends that are going nowhere want us to go with them. It is the moment we put in front of us something that’s worth aiming for, that we start to get a sense of direction and value from our life. We become quick to notice our mistakes and wrong habits when we have a target we are trying to hit.

I am not proud today of many decisions I’ve made. I acknowledge, however, that it was the desire to give my life meaning that forced me to leave home. As we like to say —

“We left home to feed home.”

And I don’t know about you, but that’s a pretty good purpose. It snaps me out of circles of unproductivity. It serves as an important reminder that I have a chance to do what I can to care for those who can’t.

What we seek is within

Six years and one month. That’s how long it’s been since I crossed the Mediterranean into Europe. I was 25 when I arrived in Italy. I turned 31 today.

What have I learned? What has changed? What would I have changed? Would I make the same decision all over again?

I’m afraid I would not.

“The thinking that has brought me this far has created new problems that this thinking can no longer solve.”

Einstein said that. I think about his words a lot.

What he means is, at any given time, we operate out of certain sets of knowledge. All we do is simply the product of all we know. Our actions and decisions are forged from how bright our mind shines.

And if we do not know better, how can we act any better?

There was a set of thinking that made me leave home. The thinking made me believe success is far away. That happiness can be bought with enough money. It gave me the mindset that, all I had to do, was get to Europe and the money would start flowing.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Getting to Europe, I realized, the same knowledge I lacked that kept me poor and unhappy, is the same knowledge I needed if I would make it anywhere. It reminds me of a saying my people have —

“If you take a pig to America, it is still a pig.”

Success and happiness are not in some faraway land. They are in every place. It takes knowledge, discipline, and consistency to make one’s life worthy of living. Tell me where in the world, these basic needs of success aren’t applicable?

After all these years, I’ve had a longing to go back home. I realize now, the monetary success I sought and the future I yearned for, I didn’t need to get on a raft to get.

What I truly needed was not to cross the desert and sail the sea but rather to expand my mind. Acquire a new skill. Be focused. Put my back into everything I do. Set goals and live each day like it was my last. These are the secrets to which I seek. They’ve been breathing inside me this whole time but I didn’t have the courage to look for them.

I don’t know how to end this story as I’m still living it.

But for now, I will end it with this — we all have experiences in our lives which means we all have stories to tell. But stories are worthless if we fail to pick up the lessons those stories were meant to teach us.

Whatever you’ve been through and whatever you’re going through has contributed to making you who you are today. Keep going. Don’t stop. “Whatever doesn’t kill you, will make you stronger.” I know it’s cliché, but clichés hold truth.

I’m still fighting to find my way through life. I do not claim to know everything. That’s why I hold on closely to the words of Albert Einstein, that what we know is like a teaspoon and what we do not know is as big as the ocean.

Today’s my birthday. I don’t have an email list but if you enjoyed this story, it’d be a great gift if you’d follow me as writing is really helping me to find my way.

Thank you and have a blessed day. — George “Blue” Kelly (and yes, I’m a Chelsea supporter;).