That is the reality that dawned on Mrs. Rebecca Sunday few weeks ago. The sweeper leaves her home as early as 5 am to her location in the city centre where she works until evening before retiring home to join members of her family.
Sadly, she had seen some of her colleagues knocked down by vehicles while on duty. In spite of wearing reflective jackets to alert motorists about their presence on the road. motorists still hit them. They contend with that and several other challenges .
But the real challenge came on April 14 when the Nyanya bus terminal was blown off by insurgents and scores of people killed. It was not just that people were killed, their bodies were ripped apart by the bomb.
Tears flowed unhindered down the cheeks of Mrs Sunday as she recalled the painful moment.
She said she never imagined that she would one day come face-to-face with such a heart-wrenching situation nor be asked to shift aside mangled bodies still gushing out blood nor pack human debris. She looked pale as she narrated her ordeal.
Saddened by the incidence and the number of people lost to the blast, Mrs. Sunday, alongside her other colleagues were drafted to clean the venue of the incident. At first, she did not believe what she was about to do until she was handed a bin bag to start work.
The first thing she did was to cry and ask God why the people who carried out the attack, did it in the first place and prayed God not to allow such to happen again.
After the short prayer, she began to sweep and what she saw was horrific.
Hear her, "I picked human flesh like goat meat sold in the market. goat meat is even better because the butcher will sell the quantity you want based on the buyer's order and pocket.
"My colleagues and I picked human hands, foot, neck, intestine, just name it. I picked them and dropped them in the bin bag given to me. After I had gathered the human parts to a certain quantity I would take the bag to the central point. "I saw blood, fresh human blood and packed sand to cover it.
"I saw something with these eyes. If any prophet had prophesied to me that I would one day pack human flesh with my hands, I would have told him he is a prophet of doom since I'm not a medical personnel, either do I work in the hospital".
But when it happened, I had no choice but to do my job.
"I am not a nurse or cleaner in a hospital, but all the same I had to do it. It was not easy at all, but I had to do it and by the time I finished, I couldn't do anything with myself."
The sweeper who repeatedly fought back tears with her hands continued: "So, many things ran through my mind. I cannot start explaining to you now how bad I felt.I have been hearing about how Boko Haram attack and kill innocent people , I never knew that one day I will come face-to-face with that.
"It was when the first Nyanya, bomb blast happened that I had better appreciation of what people in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states have been going through.
"All I will have to say now is to pray that God will, in his infinite mercies, protect Nigeria from Boko Haram members. From what I saw, it is only God that can get out of this terrorists trouble"
Another sweeper, Mrs Helen Elias, who said she has been on the job for two years told Abuja Metro, that even though she did not witness the first blast at Nyanya, what she saw at the second blast on May 1, was a nightmare.
Mrs, Elias, a mother of four, said apart from coming face to face with human parts for the first time, she was also confronted with the stench from fresh blood oozing from the scene of the incident. Though she covered her nose, the stench was still there.
She narrated "After the thing happened in the night, they called us in the morning to assemble at Nyanya, to work there. We got there early but had to wait to enable the soldiers and other security agents rid the place of any bomb. It was after the security personnel certified the place okay that our supervisor asked us to start sweeping.
"While sweeping, I packed some piece of flesh as if I was packing cow meat. It was really a bad sight, I have never seen a thing like that before"
"At first I was afraid to touch or pick up those pieces of flesh. They were scattered all over the place. However, I summoned courage and started doing that when I saw my colleagues doing it. I even saw one of my colleagues picking up human palm that was chopped off from the wrist area.
"Kai, this thing is too much, government should try and do something to end this kind of thing. These Boko -haram people are just out to kill poor people, if not why would they come to Nyanya, where only poor people live".
Despite their experience, both sweepers said they do not have plans to leave the job. Their prayer is that no bomb blast should be allowed to occur again either in Abuja or any part of the country.
"Every Nigerian must pray that this stops. It is bad killing people like goats, even goats are not killed in that manner", Mrs Sunday said.
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