TRAVELS w/P: Tales of Adventure Here & There

28/04/2013 Another steamy Sunday

Much of this week is consumed with personal and professional matters. There’s no running away from responsibilities and commitments. It’s incredibly stressful trying to manage issues continents and time zones away. Technology expectations versus realities muck things up even more. Rogers, for instance, wants me to call them about my concerns re inappropriate cell phone roaming charges. Doesn’t that involve incurring more international roaming charges to get through? Nigeria’s MTN wireless supplier is useless. And forget online service. Won’t work from here. Banking matters are another altogether different issue. ‘Nuf said.

Office occupies me with blogging about the recent open defecation triggering exercise and pulling together a comprehensive communications plan for the global sanitation fund initiative. That comm plan is taking up the bulk of my time and will continue to do so for a while yet.

Friday comes fast. So fast in fact that I think it's Thursday. Holy moly. Aishat, Sarah and I are going to a Nollywood red carpet debut of the film “Red Hot.”  Sarah, by the by, is a mid-30s HR and Organizational Development professional from the UK. It’s 4:45 and the event starts at 6:00. I scramble forgetting about Nigerian time.  Of course the premiere doesn’t start until well after 7:00. The film is a who-dunnit/soft-porn/comedy with a pretty basic storyline. Wealthy fat housewife hires a young studly to help her conceive cuz her “husband’s seed is dead”; while in the throes of the task, Mr oil baron husband comes home; murder ensues; enter comic relief cop character who sucks and chews on a toothpick annoyingly loud. Story ends in a twist of unethical proportions.

As we leave Sarah takes a snap of me chatting with Mr studly star – Uti somebody. He’s the only Nigerian man I’ve seen with hair on his head. Everyone else shaves bald. Uti tells me he’s starred in five flicks now (he’s clearly happy to take time with an oyibo – good PR angle).  Other cameras are on us in an instant.

Aishat drops home, Sarah and I kick back at my place until a call comes in from another of her friends inviting us to go clubbing at Channel View Hotel. What the hell. I’m in for an adventure even if it is after 11:00pm. The club is near empty. Leather couches and chairs cluster around light-pulsing box tables, each with a bottle or two of unopened whiskey. Sarah’s boyfriend manages the club. He delivers a complimentary bottle of red. Hyper-beat music hammers one tune after the next. Bodies heave in rhythmic gyrating motions in a way us white folk can only envy. I ask a couple of young girls to show me their provocative moves, moving them to laugher when I try to mimic their steps. By 1:30 the club is a sea of writhing bodies and it’s a good time for me to leave.

Saturday Sarah and I meet up at Crispy Chicken for lunch. Think Kentucky Fried. Meh.

 

On my way to meet Sarah I pass the local garbage area clean up.

And this oxymoronic poster, yes?

 

We walk to shops Sarah’s come to know over her six months in Calabar, places that carry exotic things like black Greek olives, rose water, smoked oysters and on the spot fresh made milk shakes. I pick up a small bottle of baking soda. Maybe it will absorb the stale fridge odor that comes with frequent energy failures. 

Skin whitening creams fill shelves and shelves and shelves.

We check out clothing shops. Most everything is nylon rather than cotton. Baffling, that. Prices are ridiculous too. N6000 ($40) for a blouse we wouldn’t pay more than $20 for in Canada. No wonder used clothing stalls are so popular around here.  

Is your old t-shirt hurting African economies?

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/12/business/second-hand-clothes-africa/index.html

I visit Sarah’s office, headquarters for Girls Power Initiative (GPI), one of the institutions I’d considered. GPI works to empower young women through education and discussion around topics like female genital mutilation, domestic abuse, rape, HIV/AIDs and the right to self-determine sexual/human reproductive matters. Facilities are big and clean, owned outright thanks to generous wealthy patrons and a giving community.

An event to send off a handful of UK 18 to 25 year old GPI volunteers gets off to a typical Nigerian start, delayed by some two hours. I meet the founder who is sadly in the early days of Alzheimer but does not realize it. She refuses to address the matter of succession planning. In her professional capacity, and personally too, Sarah is concerned, big time.  She’s tabled a report outlining organizational concerns and identifying solutions. The founder doesn’t get it and the Board so far remains hushed.

As I write this, it’s a steamy hot hot hot early afternoon Sunday. My body is glazed like a turkey.

 

Time to launder, sweep away unwanted house guests, wash floors, and read a little or a lot. (That's a Canadian beaver nickle and a Nigerian house cockroach).