January 14, 2008 – 7:06am (GMT +1) – Efa Village, Akowa Ibom State
That first night was surreal I was in the world of motion pictures, the old ones, black and white, the American cowboy gone east. Not James Bond, but his precursor if he had one. Sitting in the back of a taxi, we traveled through what can only be described as poverty, a ruined world. It looked like pictures of New York after the whole city has been bombed to pieces, then rebuilt with the pieces. The city that never sleeps built with tin, and lacking sewers. On top of that there were numerous police, or guards of other sorts, all carrying guns. Not pistols holstered neatly under suit coats to be over looked and forgotten about by the general population, but large semi-automatics, slung over shoulders, or more often held with one hand, and used in gestures as though they were a part of the arm. A few times we passed checkpoints were the police made us slow down and even stop, the driver would at this point put on his over head light. One time the police were going to make us get out of the car, but the driver talked to him and finally another police came over and told his commorade to let us continue.
Now it is my second morning, and the mystery is gone. It is no longer a movie but simply Africa, no longer some place foreign to every thing I have ever experienced but simply where I am. Certainly there is a great deal that is still completely foreign, but it doesn’t seem mysterious, or even out of place. Mornings have that effect.
I suppose I should mention that I found Dave, considering where I left off with the last entry, however by the time anyone reads this they will probably already know the whole story since I don’t know when I will be able to post this on the internet. Maybe not even until I get to India. In the end I finally learned how to call America and got a hold of Jason Bailey. The act of which woke up my sister, who called my mother, who eventually called Uncle Paul, who told my mother, who told me, to get on a plane for Calabar. When I went to the airport there was Dave Koenig and Michael Essien. We were too late to catch the flight for that day, so we went to his hotel and flew out the next day. Dave had never really been too worried since he figured I would be smart enough to go to a hotel, and he thought I knew we were supposed to catch the flight to Calabar. I should have known since he sent me an email about that flight, but he had sent it Thursday as I was packing to leave, and I had not read the email very carefully at all.
That morning after writing the last blog and before I found Dave, or rather he found me, was a bit of an adventure. I drove to the airport, making inquiries there, and then across the city to the American Embassy, thinking perhaps Dave would go there looking for me, and at very least I could leave information about my whereabouts. Since the Embassy was on the opposite side of the city, I got to see a good portion of it.
Lagos is as I said before a city built by tin. It isn’t so much that the city is dirty per say, as it is that every house, to an American, looks as if it ought to be condemned, torn down and thrown out. The stores are mostly all the same and can not easily be distinguished from the houses. Picture in your mind a tiny, dusty, run-down, old book store, now absolutely cram it full of goods, piles of goods, too much to keep in the store, stacks and shelves full not only inside but outside on the street as well. What they actually sell isn’t all that different from what you would find back in America. Not including the traditional type of African clothing, most of the clothes they sell and wear is usually a little nicer looking than what I would expect of my peers on an casual day back in the United States. Even the workers out on the streets hard at work are wearing khacky type pants and button up shirts. The grocery store we were in yesterday, which was in the same vein, a tiny cramped, ill light, place, nevertheless had many things I’m used to seeing in a grocery store, Pringles, Becks, Colgate, David’s favorite soda Fanta, just to name a few, as well as many brands of foods I have not seen before. For example they have hot dogs but they come in a can. I bought a can of hotdogs and tried them, not very good. It really wouldn’t have surprised me to walk into a similar grocery store with the same items, in some remote town in the back woods of Minnesota or Wisconsin.
The roads and cars and drivers are a different matter. I think the Nigerians are attempting to make up for a lack of roller coasters. I know that my mother would refuse to get into any car, with even the most cautious driver in Nigeria. No speed limits. I don’t think I have ever seen a stop sign. I did see one stop light but it wasn’t working. The general rule of driving is stop only if you absolutely have to, swerve, gun it, even use the side of the road, whatever you can to avoid stopping. Technically they drive on the right side of the road like we do, but I think I have spent as much time on the left side of a two way road as the right. A few roads have lanes painted on them, but nobody pays attention to them anyway. If you are on a two lane road, three cars are ahead of you, well then swerve to the left gun it past them and swerve back, no big deal. I’m pretty sure that any taxi driver in Nigeria could make a fine living as a stunt driver back in the US, and it wouldn’t even phase them. I tried to get some pictures of some of the craziness, but that was hard to do from inside the car. Many of the cars I have been in don’t even have working speedometers, but then what’s the point of fixing a speedometer you don’t use anyway.
Leaving the city behind and arriving in Calabar, I was confronted full on with the beauty of the African forests. I would hardly really call anything I have driven through rural, in the sense that we are used to it in the US. Despite the fact that the electricity here in the village apparently seldom works, still I think Millston was far more rural than this village. There are just too many people everywhere to think of it as very rural. However, once a way from the city, the huts and stores are spread out enough that plants can actually grow, and there are stretches between towns and villages where you look out over hills and valleys of African forests. I also tried to take pictures of this scenery from the car as we were traveling, and have posted a few here under Road to Efa .
I could of course go on for a while but I think it’s high time to get some work down.
Lord’s Blessings,
– Matt