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Nothing ever prepared me for this life I have now been compelled to live.

I was just a tourist - curious, wide-eyed, and excited to explore Africa's quiet corners.

Birnin Rafi used to be a very lively village filled with happy people who were always smiling regardless of their heart wrenching living conditions, but something unusual had hit them.

Birnin Rafi was silent the day we arrived.

It was a quiet morning in a dusty village in Maradi, Niger Republic. The sun hadn't fully risen, but the heat was already creeping in. I had woken up early, hoping to capture the beauty of rural life as part of my travel journal. But instead, I witnessed something that shook me to my core.

When we arrived in the small village of Dandaji, it didn't feel like a place that had turned its back on Allah - it felt more like a place that had been forgotten by the world.

There was no mosque, no call to prayer, no Friday gathering. The people still believed, yes... but survival had swallowed their faith. They were too tired to worship, too busy searching for water, too broken to remember how it felt to bow in peace.

I used to think I had it all - a decent income, a comfortable home, and a routine that many would envy. But deep down, something was missing. I couldn't explain it. I laughed, I traveled, I bought things I didn't need. But every night, when the lights went out, I felt this quiet emptiness sitting with me.

My name is Samira, and I was born in a small village where the land is dry, and clean water was a dream we could only think about. We drank whatever we could find – from rain puddles, from dirty streams, from broken containers left under the sun.