TRAVELS w/P: Tales of Adventure Here & There

24/05/2013 Friday

Gourmet dinner: Heinz baked beans with a dash of real Canadian maple syrup – mmmm M mmmm - and a glass of Austrian red. Life couldn’t be better.

It’s sweaty hot tonight. Beads trickle under my chin to my chest and from mid back down the spine. I’ve been here long enough now to appreciate the glaze for its cooling properties.

Happily today ends with the addition of a new garment: a Nigerian tailored dress w fabric and labour for a head smacking $20Cdn. Wow.  Wish we had affordable seamstresses like this back home. It’s wonderful to slip on something and find it fits and flatters in all the right places. Admittedly it helps that Nigeria’s off-putting food is putting off pounds.  I plan to wear the dress next Friday wear traditional day. If I can swing the time and funds hair extensions will factor into the mix.

Fabric here is sold in pre-measured lots of four or six yards. Distinctly African prints and patterns hang from the rafters of hundreds of market vendors or are tidily stacked alongside fresh eggs, fiery hot red peppers and packets of powder milk at local stands just around the corner from virtually everywhere in Calabar.

Hair salons are nearly as many as local food stands. Women forever change their hairstyles. One week it’s a soft-curls bob-cut wig, another is down to the waste braided hair extensions, the one after that is loose falling mid-length locks. You can tell who has limited means by their hair. A woman sporting a close cropped cut is likely cropping corners to make ends meet.

By and large the young girls in this neighbourhood have shaved heads. Several times a week they come to the compound to fetch water for their homes.  Whenever they spot me outside the compound on my way to buy onions or tomatoes or whatever, they come running: “Aunty!  Mrs Pat!” I once told them I don’t have anyone here to give me hugs, so they make sure to wrap their little arms around me. My heart melts every time. One in the bunch, a spunky boy of two or three who stands just above my knees has the greatest perma-grin ever. He comes running at me with the gang (usually wearing a shirt and nothing else) and stops short of a hug. In the last day or two I’ve discovered he likes to high-five. We’ve found a way to touch-bond. Dang he’s cute. 

Before heading out to pick up my dress I draw a hop-scotch on the dirt road outside the compound. A quick demo gives them the idea, but I think we’ll need to play a full game together for them to really understand the intent. These kids know nothing about skipping rope, or throwing and catching ball, or spending a rainy afternoon indoors making arts and crafts. They have never heard of the Wizard of Oz or Pinocchio, Snow White or the Seven Dwarves. Then again we’ve never heard of their folk tales – touché. That said, I’d love to host a movie night complete with popcorn. Will def need to look into borrowing speakers for the laptop and getting a whack of kiddie flicks sent here. 

Now about the dogs: Lola and Whiskey have been in training ever since I picked up a choke chain from Abuja during the second leg of VSO induction, say about mid-March. Each weekday morning one or the other comes for a 30 minute walk. We’ve progressed from brutal tugging to proper heeling and are now working on sit. They’re both smart pooches, and equally stubborn. It takes a certain amount of repetitiveness, loads of praise, lots of positive-reinforcement cookies and tons of loving touch to compel this momma and her baby to listen and respond.  Many folk still move from one side of the road to the other when they see us coming. Others barely shield their hunger. I’m acknowledged in their respectful Nigerian way, but their eyes shift to whichever dog happens to be my morning companion. “I like your dog” they call out looking longingly at the potential meal Lola or Whiskey would make.

Today’s walk takes me into new territory. We pass a few gated, exquisitely landscaped monster homes. Next to these beacons of wealth haphazard tin shacks link one after the next. These slum dwellers live under the sun and stars in the public eye of their neighbours and passersby like me. It’s a gritty environment, literally and figuratively.

Despite despairing conditions, men and women set out for work in clean pressed clothes. Their children laugh and chase after each other as they set out to school in tidy pressed uniforms. A few women sit together; their cotton wraps hang loosely, revealing fleshy backs usually modestly covered. One grabs a hand broom made of banded twigs and sweeps the ground shooing away a mother duck and her gaggle of fuzzy peeping chicks in the process. Across the way a group of young men exchange morning gossip before heading their separate ways. The 7:15 morning buzz.