Travel Journal Entries Part 2
Enjoy…
Thursday, September 22, 2011
After sitting in Cairo airport for nearly 10 hours, we finally got on the plane headed to for Abujah, Nigeria. When we landed in Abujah is when the real adventure began. Upon arriving we had to fill out forms indicating where we are from and where we intend to go. Next we headed through immigration- which was scary. A rather surly stern faced woman barked in thickly accented English, “Come!” We approached, presented our passports and visas so that she could examine them. “Papers! Give me your papers.” I had no idea what she was talking about since we’d already handed her what we thought were our “papers” and at first Kurt didn’t know either until he remembered all of the papers that were sent with our visas by the Nigerian government. He presented them to the surly woman who only then seemed satisfied because she then gruffly directed me through the turnstile and over to a man in uniform. He then began politely asking me several questions including if I was traveling alone. When I said that I was here with my husband he immediately wanted to know where he was. You should’ve seen the look on his face when I pointed to Kurt. Pure confusion or something (yeah, that is definitely gonna get a lot of comedic or confused mileage here). Anyway, he let us through after questioning Kurt too.
Once we had collected our baggage we were ushered toward Security. This was by far and away, the scariest thing yet as all of them, 12 in total, standing in 3 rows, 4 men deep and each no more than three feet away from one another, were heavily armed and very stern. We had to walk past a row of them as each demanded to see our passport/visa. This was very odd since again, they were only about three feet from one another but, not wanting to incite anger or trouble we did exactly as directed and gleefully made our way through the doors to relative safety.
At this point, it was about 12:30a. We were in a mostly empty airport terminal and must wait until our contact arrived; a contact we had never met and didn’t even know his name. Our friend/boss who was the reason we had embarked on this adventure, had only told us that once we arrived in Abujah we would be taken care of. We had to trust that that was exactly what would happen. This was huge. Claude, our friend/boss, had said that the contact would hold a sign with our names on it but at this point we were the only people in the terminal that didn’t work there. So we waited.
In the mean time, I had to pee something ferocious since I hadn’t wanted to endure another turbulent tiny lavatory experience like the one I’d had on one of the previous flights so I had held it until then. Off I went in search of a restroom. Okay, remember my realization about toilets in Cairo? Well, yeah, same deal here. What I found could hardly be call a rest-room; it was more like a room with a few toilets in it because it was several hours and several gallons of bleach away from being clean, had no toilet paper (I know, shocking) and there wasn’t any paper towels or even a hand dryer. Oh, did I mention that there were no doors on the stalls? Hmm, must’ve been too distracted by the odiferous emanations wafting from some unknown source. But here I was, in desperate need to pee. Gentlemen, I will spare you any further details and will now speak in code. Ladies, suffice it to say that I had to employ a very carefully executed version of the Public Restroom Technique. VERY. CAREFULLY. Thank God for having the good sense to have stuffed a grip of napkins from the Hagendaas café into my pockets earlier… or yesterday… I don’t remember. TRAVEL NOTE: If you plan to visit me, you’ll want to start working out and strengthening your leg muscles now or, have a catheter installed because there will be a LOT of squatting in your future. Just say’n.
After that horrifying experience in that place (I refuse to call it a restroom or even a lavatory), I returned to discover that Kurt had been found by our contact, Yusef. He warmly greeted us, then immediately placed a call on his mobile and handed the phone to Kurt. Apparently, Claude, our friend/employer, was not yet in Nigeria so he had his accountant, Tarun, arrange everything and speak to Kurt as soon as we arrived (actually Tarun is oh so much more than an accountant; he is super assistant extraordinaire and should really wear a cape… more on him later). Tarun explained to Kurt what the plan was… We were to stay in a hotel in Abujah for the night. The following morning we would return to the airport, board a flight to Enugu, the nearest city with an airport to Abakaliki, and then a different driver would take us to Abakaliki, our final destination.
With plan in mind, off we went into the dark (not a street light in sight) headed toward parts unknown under the direction of a guy we had not yet met while in a car with a guy we’d only known for 5 minutes and only because he was holding a sign with our names on it… Admittedly, under different circumstances, this is what is known as a very bad plan. I mean, really folks, if this had been a movie plot, you’d be safe in betting that the two idiots in the car would either be killed in the first 30 minutes of the film or been through hell and back requiring several years of intense therapy by the end of the film. Believe me, I know how it seems and yet, I really wasn’t worried. This is huge. Y’all know me, I’m pretty high strung but I wasn’t worked up at all. Okay, I might have been a little worked up but really, that was more about the toilet experience. On the other hand, Kurt, otherwise known as Chatty Cathy when he’s nervous or concerned, begins peppering the poor man with 20 Questions about some of the most inane topics. This, of course, is annoying the hell out of me so I kick his chair and give him The Look. He quiets up but to be honest, because of the timing, I think he was silenced by the sight of a machine gun carrying police officer stopping us on the road. (Okay, at this point, I’m starting to feel like the idiot in the movie.) The officer speaks to Yusef. Yusef responds while thumbing over in Kurt’s direction. The officer looks at Kurt, nods his head and then waves us on. That was it. It sure did cement the fact that we were vulnerable foreigners though. The rest of the ride was quiet, dark and uneventful.
So, here I sit in our “hotel” for the night, writing and reflecting on the last four days. I find myself feeling very scared and excited. But mostly just scared- maybe more nervous than scared. It’s pretty sobering to realize that you- me- I am the foreigner here. A stranger in a strange land. Kurt, my only family, by my side and a whole lot of trust in my heart. WOW! What an adventure I’m on. This must be what foreigners feel when they first move to the US. Perspective is an awesome thing; I highly encourage everyone to gain some at your earliest opportunity.
SIDE NOTE: The air here feels like warm silk on the skin. No, really. I’m not trying to wax poetic or create prose here, I’m serious. The air feels like warm silk being wrapped around you- it’s amazing. Frankly, I thought it would be muggier but it’s not. It is warm and it is humid but it’s not suffocatingly so. Also, the air has the most intoxicating perfume to it reminding me a lot of Arizona after a summer rain. Yet here, there is just a tiny hint of something just a little spicier. It’s about 1:50am and still very dark outside. I can’t wait to see everything in the daylight. Oh, Kurt and I did check out the local TV channels here in the hotel before he finally passed out. Uhm, Nigerian soap operas are a lot like watching 90 minutes of nothing but the non-sex portions of an amateur porn video- same bad lighting, bad sound and odd camera angles too. (Dad, if you’re reading this… We’re both adults. We both know that as adults we’ve likely seen more than our fair share of porn. Let’s just move on now, shall we?) The “hotel”, had it been in the US, would not have been anywhere I would have stayed on purpose. Hell, I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to stay here now and it IS on purpose. However, it was the only hotel open at this hour so here we are. Okay, let me describe things for you: There isn’t a paved driveway leading to the door- just a whole lot of mud. Once inside the hotel, things didn’t really improve. There was no elevator, very poor lighting and even in poor lighting and at night, it didn’t look very clean. However, it did reek of the oh so familiar stench of Pine Sol. Our room isn’t very promising either. It has a queen sized bed which has an extremely shabby looking bedspread on it that looks like it had been purchased second-hand from some now long defunct by-the-hour motel in the US. The “closet” is a broken down less-than-Ikea cabinet with one door that creaks and another that is hanging off of the hinges. Forget about BedBugRegistry.com because the possibility of there being bedbugs is likely the least of our worries. Oh, and last but not least, as we were shown to this wondrous room, we were instructed to call down to the front desk in the morning so that they could bring us a bucket of hot water (yes, I said a bucket) as the plumbing had broken recently and there was no running water in the hotel. Yes, folks, we are in the Belagio. No wonder I am still awake at 3:45a.
Friday, September 23, 2011
WOW! So much has happened in the last 24 hours I may explode with information and experiences. First, Kurt and I finally did sleep some that night in the hotel in Abujah (pure exhaustion is my only explanation). Not much, but some. When we woke and finally got a look at the world in the daylight, we were surprised to discover everything was very lush and green with rich rusty terra cotta colored soil. For some reason, unknown to both of us, we had always thought of Africa as being a brown dry place. This place was far from brown and dry. It was a jungle; a jungle with houses and buildings dotting it. Like I said, expectations are a bad thing.
Yusef, our driver/contact came early to take us back to the airport. The drive back was a wild experience in the light of day. Because Abujah is a large city, there are as many cars as there are people. Driving here is a full contact sport!!! There are no rules but only a very thin sort of etiquette to it all which includes a lot of honking and swearing in a thickly accented dialect of English. Traffic lines/lanes are merely suggestions when they can be found at all. The turn signal, though present, is optional equipment and rarely used. The boys of NASCAR wouldn’t last a second on the road. With all of this going on, one might be distracted from all of the activities taking place along the sides of the road: people in every sort of attire from traditional Nigerian to western clothing are marching with purpose in the direction of their destinations; children are walking hand in hand in uniform heading to school while others are trying to hail a motorcycle cab or find room in one of the many minivans serving as taxis or public transportation. Life in Abujah is loud and colorful and busy. On the way we passed many machine gun armed officers or soldiers waving drivers along but that was the extent of their presence. Also, I noticed several signs saying things like, “Parking in reserved areas is prohibited. Be law abiding.” Or my favorite, “Urinating in public is prohibited. Be law abiding.” After every rule the reminder to be law abiding was placed as if written by someone’s mother and could have easily been replaced with, “Be good.” I found it rather amusing.
Once at the airport we discovered that the truest separator of the classes isn’t how you look or behave; it’s whether or not you can afford a private jet. Those flying domestically here, either can afford a private jet and all of the smooth personal care that comes with that elite form of travel or they are herded and prodded like cattle into this line or that. EVERYONE is treated the same whether in fancy attire or not. Whether “white man” or Nigerian. EVERYONE gets the same treatment- no one is spared. Mind you, it’s not done in a rude or rough fashion; it’s simply done as a means for keeping their version of order. Though, there were so many people in the terminal I couldn’t make heads or tails of anything remotely resembling order other than the one arm-guarded doorway that the special few passed through headed toward their private jet. (By the way, “white man” is the term used to describe anyone who is not Nigerian, including me. Funny, I know but; in context, it simply means “different”.)
Quite frankly, though we had only just met Yusef the night before and really didn’t “know” him, I was sooooo very glad that he was there. Without him we would’ve NEVER gotten to our destination let alone on time. He gently guided us to this line or that and showed us a relatively safe place to stand out of the way of things while he negotiated & purchased our tickets to Enugu. He showed us where to check our luggage and even handled going back to the ticketing counter to pay for the luggage weight overage. Once we passed through the “Ticketed Travelers Only” gate, he even found and paid a plain clothes police officer to let us know when our flight was boarding because he knew we wouldn’t be able to understand the thick accent of the person announcing over the very poor intercom system. Yusef was fantastic. I must be sure to bring him a gift the next time we meet. (He works for the company in the Abujah branch so, yes, I’ll likely meet him again) I must also be sure to thank Claude for putting us in his hands. (Little did I know that there would be oh so much more to thank Claude for.)
Again, thankfully the 40 minute flight to Enugu was not full and I was therefore not forced to be squished next to some stranger who was even less familiar with deodorant than he would be with the concept of personal space. Nigerians, I am finding, are a wonderful and beautiful people but they do not use deodorant and one accustomed to being around those who are familiar with the practice becomes very acutely aware that they must get over their sensibilities and get use to the way things are.
When the flight landed, we had to identify our luggage for a porter who then quickly loaded it on a cart and was seeking out a driver for us in a matter of about two minutes. Fortunately, a driver holding a sign with our names on it was standing nearby or I’m fairly certain the porter would’ve just handed us off to one of the more than eager drivers ready for the job. As it turned out, Stephen, our driver, was perfect for the job. He immediately instructed Kurt to sit in the front seat and directed “Madame Lady” to please sit in the back. Once there though, I had a bit of trouble getting the seat belt on as the connection portion was stuffed under the bench seat so Stephen pulled the car over and had me exit the car so that he could fix it. While outside, I was pleasantly assaulted by the sound of frogs in the creek which ran along the road. Kurt said that he couldn’t hear them from the front seat but that he was sure that we would be hearing all sorts of other interesting sounds while we were here (and how).
After Stephen fixed the seat belt and I was returned to my spot in the back, Stephen informed us it was going to be a 60 kilometer drive to Abakaliki. Stephen also told us that the drive was going to take two hours along what he termed as “too much bad road;” in the dry season when roads are repaired it only takes one hour. Stephen emphasized the words “too much” and, as we drove, it became clear that his words were no exaggeration. This, of course, made both Kurt and I realize just how big a road construction job would be here in Ebonyi State.
Okay. Let me paint a picture for you: You are riding down a road with so many potholes that it resembles Swiss cheese and as you drive down this road it reminds you of the Indiana Jones Adventure ride at Disneyland- except way more bumpy. At almost every 2 to 3 miles there is a sink hole on one or the other side of the road so big it leaves a very narrow 8 to 10 feet for only a single car to pass. Each of these sink holes or potholes is filled with red mud and muddy water and after about 15 miles you too are no longer surprised to see something or someone stuck in it… This was the feel of the drive from Enugu airport to Abakaliki.
While the drive may have been a test for the back and backside, it was also a feast for the eyes- south eastern Nigeria is beautiful! I had only seen pictures of jungle like this. The grass is so tall that it towers like a bamboo. Oh, and speaking of bamboo; there are fields and fields of the stuff! Some stalks as tall as 30 feet and as thick as the forearm of a grown man. Among the tall grass and bamboo there are wild papaya, mango, banyan, palm and several other varieties of trees- some I have never seen before and others I recognize from the US but do not know the name of (Kurt, being a landscape architect, immediately noticed the palms and said, “In the US people pay thousands and thousands of dollars for these damned things and here they grow like weeds!”). There are also fields of odd looking mounds of earth about three feet in diameter with maze, casaba or rice growing in them. As if tall thick grass, bamboo and trees weren’t enough, there are also several varieties of vines; some are thick with only a few leaves, some are narrow with huge leaves and still others have yellow or orange or purple blooms sprouting from them. This land is so lush and green and thick and vivid that any description I offer will only pale in comparison to the reality- and this is only the description of the vegetation; the people and life we saw is another description all together!
There is so much life here it is truly amazing. Along the road we saw children selling wares to passersby, children playing with sticks as if they were soldiers, children singing and dancing as their adults work or watch them. There were people shopping; people selling everything from fresh fruits and vegetables, freshly killed meat from cows or goats, live chickens, house wares, meters of vibrantly printed fabrics, dresses and blue jeans, all the way to mobile phone recharge cards and everything in between all from tiny ramshackle roadside markets. There were men, women with babies on their backs and children walking along with bundles of casaba roots, dried tree branches, bananas, nuts, buckets of water or any manner of necessity upon their heads with effortless precision. We noticed houses, abandoned buildings and even mud and grass huts- YES, huts! There was so much, oh so much, much more. This country must be seen to be believed let alone appreciated.
Also along our drive, we were stopped several times by machine gun carrying police who had jerry-rigged a checkpoint out of tree limbs, old tires, boulders or whatever was handy. These particular type of police are known as MoPol (Motorcycle Police) and their purpose is to assure the safety of the citizens however their intent is to extort as much money from anyone they think they can get away with it. On every occasion during, this, our maiden trip down a major Nigerian highway, they allowed us to pass without paying them a “toll”. It was also explained to us, by Stephen, that we passed unmolested we are White Man. HUH?! Yes, because Kurt and I are clearly not from here, Nigeria, we are considered White Man (Kurt more so than myself as I look like I might be from here but exactly and all bets are off once I speak as it becomes quite clear that I am not from these parts). He also informed us that as it became known that we were residing in the area we too would be expected to pay a “toll” to the MoPol. Great. Beyond this one very educational encounter, the rest of the trip was, though colorful and scenic, blessedly uneventful.
Upon arriving at the entrance to the housing development where our new home was, Stephen very proudly announced that the trip from Enugu had only taken an hour and a half as opposed to the two hours he had warned us of. In fact, he mentioned it three times in the two minutes it took us to get from the front gate of the development to the front door of the house. I was thinking each time he said it, “Okay, we get it you drove well, but get over it.” Little did I know that that was not the correct response.
Anyway, as we drove through the development, I’m looking around thinking, “this place looks like any other middle class neighborhood in SoCal!” Then we pulled up to the gate of the house that would be our home for the next four years. The large crudely ornate metal front gate was attached to an equally large wall of about seven feet in height and; upon the wall there was razor and barbed wire. Once at the gate, Stephen honked the horn a few times and the gate was opened by a man whom I was later introduced to as our security guard, Abdullah (or we could call him Simon).
The house, as I mentioned, was a rather typical looking two-story structure with a white stucco exterior, barred windows and a metal roof which was green with patina. The house had a tall carport attached and three columns facing the large perimeter wall. The yard looked rather unkept except for the small garden toward the back of the property. Next to the garden there were clothes lines, a few palm trees and more of the large wall.
Once we pulled under the carport and exited the car, we were greeted by an East Indian gentleman named Tarun Singhal (he’s the accountant/personal assistance extraordinaire I mentioned earlier). Tarun introduced us to the house staff who were also at the front door to greet us; there was Mary, our steward (housekeeper), and Blessings, our cook. While we were exchanging pleasantries with Mary and Blessings, Stephen took the time to tell Tarun that he had made the trip in record time to which Tarun responded by reaching into his pocket and handing some cash to Stephen (Ohhh, is that what he was after?! It’s gonna take some time to get use to all of this).
Once inside of the house, both Kurt and I began to relax- we were finally, after four long days of travel, “home”. Home. What a strange word to apply to a place you’ve never lived before and therefore know, truly, know nothing about. Odd, but here we were at home.
Tarun had Mary, our housekeeper, show us to our room and help us get settled in. Our room is about 20’x16’, with white stucco walls, a metallic ceiling with floral motif, two queen sized beds, two windows, one A/C wall unit, and its own bathroom. By Nigerian standards, this house, with all of its rooms and appointments, is an estate. By Nigerian standards, the quality and beauty of the house means that surely its occupants are wealthy. The house is comfortable, secure and will serve our needs well but by US standards, the house is not made or dressed well. The little details which are so very important to the US home builder/buyer are not important here. Things like clearly set baseboards, doorways and windows that are plumb, roof insulation (more on that later), door handles (more on that later), neatly set window caulking, tubs which are set flush into the corner, walls that are straight. You know, those details. As far as decorating: matching sets of furniture, cotton sheets that have a top sheet, plates that match, lawn/patio furniture that is only used outdoors, all one color or style of tile used in the same room. Like I said, the details. In spite of all of it, Kurt and I are really quite comfortable. After all, we are in the estates and we are happy and grateful to be.
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