Another Story of Survival

I tell my story for two reasons.

The first reason is to remind us that whatever we are going through right now, it is okay to go through them as long as we have life and breath.

The second reason is a gift at the end of your engagement.

It was on the 14th day, on Saturday evening of November 2015.

As I and my brother Richie Ochonogor took an airport taxi to our residence at Auckland Park, Johannesburg, South Africa.

It was the day I almost lost my life in an armed robbery incident.

That day, I lost experimental data, draft chapter 1 to 3 of my PhD thesis, unpublished articles, laptop and computer hard drives that contained valuable materials, international passports and my brothers’ valuable items as well.

It was the same trip that I met my wife for the first time, that day would have been the last day of my life.

I heard a gunshot “a loud bang” but I could not figure out instantly where the bullet had gone to until I saw my blood dripping out of me after the horrible experience.

It was my brother who called my attention to my dripping blood as I suddenly realize that the bullet from the gunshot I heard earlier passed through me.

The bullet ripped through my muscle at the back of my left shoulder. I feel the scar when I touch the spot.

My brain was too busy to notice that the bullet passed through me during the robbery.

The sleepless nights of hard work of trying to get my experiments done in the laboratory all of a sudden was going to be taken away from me.

I thought hard, I thought losing all and end my PhD programme.

Confused as I was at that moment and did not know what to think, how to act and what to say to my terror, I never thought of the danger in thinking too much during a dangerous moment like this.

I could not think about the risk of losing my life as a result of thinking too much.

I thought of losing everything and negotiating my way to get my computer hard drives while they take all they wanted and this made me delay handing over the hand bag I thought to be my destiny bag.

My hand bag that contained all my effort was eventually forced out of my hands and I fell suddenly to my knee, to receive a gunshot gift.

I am still surprise to date how the bullet did not touch my bone, it would have ended as a sad story but I survived.

There is another part of this story but I don’t want to make it too long for you. Let me reserve it for another day.

I learned the hard way, Cloud computing, in particular cloud storage.

Most people are still guilty of this to date.

Do you make effort to cloud compute?

I mean to store data/information in the cloud where you can retrieve them should anything happen to your hard drives?

Just like what happened to me that day. It can happen to you but I pray you never experience such.

I relied on my personal computer hard drives and I lost it all but I am thankful to God for the Grace I carry and I am alive to tell my story again and again.

I am grateful to all who have been praying for me from my childhood, my father, my friends and particularly to my mother who happened to be praying for me, for us during the time of the robbery incident.

Thanks to Richie Ochonogor for driving me to Helen Joseph Hospital in Auckland Park, Johannesburg where I was admitted for a night and I also appreciate my friend Ken Ken who visited that night.

After that day, I lived in fear for a while, it is okay to live in fear sometimes as long there is life.

It is okay to lose it all and start all over.

Whatever you are going through today, it is okay as long as there is life.

Since that day, I have lived each day with intention to always do my best to support humanity and leave a legacy behind which brings me to the second reason.

I try to impact life positively in any way I can and I have continued to do this since the start of the pandemic under a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) known as Glo-Cal Lineage.

We have a free virtual event and a paid event that will come up later during this year.

Glo-Cal Lineage is organizing a free virtual event on:

1. Working from home tips, tools to use during this difficult times.

2. Because change is going on in terms of life style, jobs and businesses, we will also discuss the future of jobs, possible businesses to start from home, during and after these difficult times.

If you would like to be part of this discussion in any way to help humanity, kindly contact Glo-Cal Lineage and let us collaborate.

You can also comment to indicate interest.

I wish everyone a Love Down Friday.

Volunteer: Dr. Onyeka Franklin Ochonogor (PhD)