Horray! I’ve arrived in Lagos. It was a traveling adventure with thankfully minimal hiccups and, now that I’ve been here for a little over 12 hours, I feel as though I can start to collect my thoughts. However, getting these thoughts posted to the internet anytime soon is going to be a challenge. The fabled internet is being capricious today… as it has been the last few days and, more than likely, the next few days to come.
So my biggest thought or, I guess you could say “observation” so far is about the traffic. Keeping in mind, I’ve lived and traveled around a fairly decent chunk of Africa and I have never, ever seen traffic so bad with one exception: Cairo, Egypt (which most don’t even consider Africa so I guess that still makes Lagos the worst). In fact, I would say, traffic here is almost exactly like traffic in Cairo. Obviously, if you’ve been to Cairo, you know exactly what that means. If you haven’t, imagine a road designed to take 2 lanes of traffic. Now imagine that road jammed with 4 -5 lanes of traffic all of them honking and jammed together, trying to squeeze past one another without getting into an accident. On the road from the airport, I saw one accident right after it had happened involving a bush taxi (mini bus), packed with people, that had gotten its door ripped right off from whatever passing car or truck had tried to squeeze by with not enough room. I would certainly not want to drive myself around here… Let alone ride in a bush taxi.
In other news from my travels, flying from London Heathrow to Lagos was a special experience. I was one of 4 Caucasians on the plane but didn’t at all feel out of place. This might have been for a few reasons:
1. Apparently the average Nigerian carries onto the plane at least 2 fully packed suitcases in addition to at least 1 large plastic bag of something they’ve purchased in the airport such as 4 pounds of Cadbury’s chocolate. This of course presents challenges when trying to fit everything into the overhead bins and everyone on the plane was so focused on this task that not only did hardly anyone notice how out of place I was but we were 20 minutes late leaving Heathrow.
2. I have never seen so many people deeply immersed Duty Free while in-flight. In fact, until this particular journey I don’t think I’ve ever seen even ONE person buy Duty Free from a stewardess. In my section of the cabin, every other person purchased something from Duty Free… At least, every other person TRIED to purchase Duty Free. Apparently, Nigerians buying Duty Free all want to buy the same thing which leads to issues of supply and demand.
On the plane I was seated next to the sweetest couple: a Nigerian man and his South African wife of 40 years. He is a retired Probation Officer from London and she is a retired Social Services Worker who used to commute to South Hampton and they both had such lovely philosophies about people and life. At the end of the ride, the woman, who asked me to call her “Mami,” fussed over me and how I was getting home from the airport and who was meeting me and where I was going to be staying etc etc. She started to give me all this advice about how to handle baggage claim and what to say to the customs agents and so on and so forth until she got to her piece of advice on handling my luggage. She insisted that I rent a cart in order to make sure my luggage could be rolled around with me to prevent theft and, when she realized I didn’t have any Niara (Nigerian Currency) on me, she opened up her own wallet and gave me 250 Niara (the equivalent of just under $2) “just to be safe.” I tried to give it back but she continued to insist that it was the only way for me to handle baggage claim safely and effectively. … I certainly felt “mom’d”… As it turns out, the cart rental people accept both US dollars and Niara so I would have been fine but what a sweet lady and what a kind gesture!
Of course, not every encounter has been so pleasant. I had to show my passport and entry card to no less than 4 different agents and was stopped at the exits by no less than 3 men, all of them either un-uniformed or too lazy to get up from the passenger chairs, who all wanted to check different kinds of paperwork. One of the men, apparently in charge of checking my yellow health card, was annoyed that I hadn’t filled out my name throughout the form (for those of you who are unfamiliar with the form, there is a space on the front of the card for your name as well as on the inside of the booklet). He decided that it was simply unacceptable that he had to check my name on the front of the booklet and then open it up to check my documentation on my yellow fever vaccination and so he made me stand there in front of him and fill out the entire booklet.
Sigh…
Our apartment accommodations are a lot nicer than I was expecting although you wouldn’t know it looking at the house from the outside. The place is still under construction and something new is fixed or added each today. Yesterday, the generator was fixed and we had the pleasure of sleeping under a fan (until it died again at 6 this morning) and today we got curtains put up in our room. They’re a curious shade of lime green but they give the apartment a very home-y feel which is certainly appreciated. On the downside, even with the fans working, having to share a bed with someone is certainly a sticky situation in this climate… I’m hoping the air mattress arrives soon so I don’t have to worry about rolling over and sweating onto one of my roommates in the middle of the night.
Anyway, before my internet cuts out, I’m going to try to post this. Thanks to everyone for all the positive thoughts and well-wishes for my journey!
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