Once upon a time, (ISC)^2 sent me to Nigeria. (Actually, they sent me twice. I think they were trying to kill me.) (And, believe me, I have never yet heard the end of all the jokes about knowing some prince in in Nigeria ...)
First of all, I had to get about $600 worth of vaccinations. Actually, yellow fever was the only one that was specifically required, but I got a bunch of others anyways. The malaria prophylactic was one that upset your stomach, because they figured that the one that made you crazy might have been ill-suited to me. I was definitely crazy enough already. I can't remember how many shots I had. I do remember that the preventative for dysentery was something that I had to start taking about a week in advance.
I also got lots of advice in terms of what I was going to encounter. One person, whose company had had a lot of dealings with West Africa, told me that things would definitely go wrong. Their company had a code word that was used whenever something went seriously wrong: the person who needed assistance would just tell them WAWA, which stood for West Africa Wins Again.
I was also told that, under no circumstance, was I to drink water from taps. Bottled water only, and even check the seal on the bottled water. Don't let anybody open it for you. Make sure that the seal is in fact the seal, and not just a spot of crazy glue.
This was possibly overkill. But, then again, maybe not. I was checked into what was either the best or the second best hotel in Lagos, and, even at that, there was no way that I was drinking what came out of those taps. It was a color that was closer to weak coffee than that of tea, and I didn't even really want to *shower* in it. Although that was not a choice. Come to think of it possibly it was. The last night I could not sleep, and was wandering around the hotel. I passed the swimming pool. It was clear and pristine. I kind of wondered why I hadn't found it earlier, and gone down there with a bar of soap every night.
Then there was the trip itself. Nine hour flight to London, then a six hour flight from London to Lagos. Ah, but first there was getting on the airplane.
You know how they do the boarding by row number to get on to jumbo jets? Well, they tried that. That was the instruction. They were going to be boarding by seat numbers, and the first section was row so and so does such and such. That was a futile effort. As soon as they announced they were going to be boarding by row numbers, everybody in the entire gate area got up and jammed the door. And, of course, they had their carry-on baggage. The definition of carry-on seems to be slightly different in Nigeria. I saw one gentleman with a luggage trolley that was loaded with three suitcases, each of which was larger than any suitcase I have ever seen. That was his carry-on baggage.
On my second trip to Nigeria, the boarding process was pretty much the same as the first. The gate agents, managing this latter flight, tried to emphasize the need to board by row numbers. It didn't help. There was the same mad crush for the gate, with absolutely everyone trying to be first on the aircraft, even though they all had assigned seating, and therefore all had seats.
Well, there was one other person who wasn't rushing for the gate. This was a young mother, who had about seven different bags, but likely all in support of the infant she had with her. There was the usual diaper bag, as well as a bag containing bottles of white liquid, and additional bags obviously containing baby support equipment and supplies. She was frantically trying to repack these bags. I'm not quite sure to what end: it obviously wasn't going to make the bags, or the contents, any smaller. But she was repacking the bags, and taking things out, and examining them, and putting them back, sometimes in the same bag, and sometimes in another bag. And, of course, while she was doing this, the baby was fussing.
So, I was trying to do my bit, by making faces at the baby to keep the baby entertained. And, at one point, the mother, noticing this, just picked up the baby, and handed her to me. So, I was carrying the baby, jogging the baby, rocking the baby, talking to the baby, trying to keep her entertained. And at some point, one of the gate agents came over to me, and asked if I wanted pre-boarding. I didn't want to take undue advantage of this situation, but I did ask the mother, and she shook her head indicating a lack of interest in the pre-boarding offer.
But I thought it was kind of interesting. I am Caucasian. Doesn't particularly matter what kind but I'm obviously white. It was a very interesting situation, for once in my life, definitely being in the minority in this regard. The baby was as black as the ace of spades. I don't want to indicate that there could not be some marital situation where I had taken over parentage of a child that I had not made any attempts to create. But I did think it somewhat odd that anyone could consider that I had made any genetic contribution to this child. Cute though she undoubtedly was. (As a matter of fact, the fact that she was cute would, again, count against me making any genetic contribution to her makeup.)
The flight itself was unremarkable. So unremarkable that, at one point, I realized that we have been flying over the Sahara desert for two hours. And that I should probably at least look out the window and see what it looked like.
The Sahara desert looks kind of like what you see when you are flying over the Colorado River in the United States. Only a lot bigger. And it takes longer to fly over it.
On the first trip, when we landed in Lagos, there was a similar mad dash to be first off the plane, and get to arrivals, pick up your luggage, and get through customs. I didn't particularly try to be part of that mad dash, but I did I was still affected by it, as I got to the last leg of the journey before we hit the luggage carousel, which was an escalator, heading down. The escalator didn't seem to be a particular problem, until, as I was nearing the bottom, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to get off, since there were a number of people who couldn't get off the escalator because of the crush of people in front of them. I stepped over the side.
So, I arrived in the airport in Lagos. Now, I knew, I had been told, that someone would be coming for me to pick me up at the airport. I had, in fact, been given his passport number and the number on his Nigerian identity card so that there would be no possibility of someone picking me up. I felt that this might have been a bit of overkill. But not when I got through customs, and outside.
Outside was complete chaos. There was a huge crowd. There was no signage, there was no organization, there was no possible way to identify a waiting area, or any indication of who I was to see. I went back inside the terminal.
I realized why the people in the company that was putting on the course had made such a big deal about identifying the person who was going to come and pick me up. An awful lot of people were offering taxi service, or hire cars, in a huge crush immediately outside the arrivals door. I didn't take anybody up on it, and eventually found the people who were supposed to pick me up, who did pick me up, and take me to my hotel. I eventually found out why it was a very good thing that I hadn't taken anyone up on the offer of transport when I couldn't immediately find the people who were supposed to come and get me. There was a great deal of signage, at the airport, outlining the fact that no, there was no taxi service in Nigeria and that if anyone offered you a taxi, they were probably trying to kidnap and rob you. Unfortunately, all of this signage I later discovered--in the departures lounge, not the arrivals area.
As noted, in Nigeria there are no taxis. There are "hire cars." It's a car and a driver and the driver takes you where you want to go. It's not a metered situation, and it's usually set up in advance, and it may, in fact, be a long-term arrangement. For the week that I was teaching there in Nigeria, James picked me up at the hotel every morning, and then and drove me to the office. At the end of the teaching day, James would pick me up at the office, and drive me back to the hotel.
Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/08/mgg-535-hwyd-you-do-you.html
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/08/mgg-537-hwyd-nigerian-culture.html
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