Picture this scene:

I’m in the lobby having a meeting with a visitor when my phone rings. Thinking to myself how impolite it is  to answer, I still pick up the phone, and it’s my friend, panic stricken: Sula! Your home is on fire!

Me (turning around to look out of the glass front of the lobby): What are you talking about?

Then I see a big black cloud of smoke rising from the front of the building. I’m starting to feel a little concern for the family living above me and whatever construction work is going on on the roof of the building. So, I turn to my friend on the phone and say: No, that’s not my home. Looks like something on the roof is on fire.

Friend: No! It’s your home! Your home is on fire!

And as people start to panic, and workers begin to yell – Fire! Everyone out! Everyone out!

– I begin to realize that … maybe my friend is right. Maybe I should go and check and see if it really is my apartment from which all that black smoke is issuing.

So, I run upstairs, together with a couple of friends who offered to help me save whatever is most important to me, and true enough: the fire really was right outside of my bedroom walls. Within seconds of my arrival, security has reached my home, carrying with them 7 or 8 fire extinguishers, while everyone else is ordered out of the building.

Fortunately, the fire is already under control and aside from a little damage to my window and the other side of the wall, no real harm is done.

Lucky me to have not been home when the windows cracked and something in the wall exploded. I guess had I been home, I would have gotten more than just a little scare …