Dinner fixings: fresh prawns,
with garlic butter.
Dessert: merry fruit (aka leechi)
Bedroom springs a leak.
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It’s a rainy day in the
neighbourhood: daily and/or nightly. We’re definitely into the depths of rainy
season and these little red boots are making a splash. People look at my feet now
instead of my skin.
Local critters seek refuge from
the rain: Ms Snail clings to an amply sized Bird of Paradise leaf
Mr. Salamander hangs out on the
porch screen
The house is upside town. A new
mattress is purchased to replace the insect infested one and upholstered
furnishings are moved to the porch with hope the sun comes out long and strong
enough to bake the bugs.
Neighbour Nancy gives me an
unfamiliar fruit: ndyia. It has a light paperish skin.The edible magenta flesh is
crunchy like a firm green pear. It’s about ¼ inch thick and protects a large
unedible nut. Breadfruit?
Neighbours John, Dianarose and Victor, the boy who aspires to marry Leah-Leah, pose outside the laundry shop they call
work. I bring my sheets and pillowcases for an iron in anticipation of an
insect-free house.
A couple of phone calls from
Calabar to Canada bring me to the local recharge card lady, Essenowan, for some
top up time.
Happily! a favourite smiling face missing from the regular run-n-hug kid crowd appears. Joy and her family have moved to a new place literally down the street and around the corner.
She brings me to the new Inyang
family home where I’m greeted by David (the little guy with the enormous grin who’d
come running wearing just a shirt to lay on a high-five), stylish sweetie Oyeb,
Mom Martha and Dad Obaji.
Back at the compound some of my
other young pals come calling for balloons: George, Patricia and Genesis.
Four months in it’s time to do
something about the ol’ hair. Two packs of hair extensions? Check.
Saturday morning the fumigator for the house is
running on typically late Nigerian time. Why not check out the beauty salon
newly opened around the corner and down the street from recharge card lady? It
turns out Sara’s Palace is open for
business with a free chair. Perfect oh. Let the transition begin.
The
young girl in pink tights is having hair pieces glued and stitched onto her own
short hair already weaved tight to the scalp
Stylist Debbie brushes out the first package of nylon hair and cuts it into the lengths she intends to braid into my own mop
.
Five hours and some 88 braids
later my new $20 do is done.
Meanwhile back at the compound the
fumes from the fumigator are beyond bearable. Hezzy kindly invites me to join
her and Pandrillus co-founder Liza for a girls’ night. Woop woop.
A truck load of armed forest
commando guys show up.
Liza and Hezzy obligingly pose.
Then it’s “chore” time. Three baby
something-something mongoose need feeding. They chirp like birds and cuddle
like hamsters. Full grown they live in forests and eat snakes. We use syringes
to feed these cuties.
Chore two: visit time with Atim.
She’s a newly arrived baby drill who loves to cuddle.
In the kitchen she scrambles away
from Hezzy and scoots up my leg to have a look see.
I love this place. Pandrillus is a
rescue sanctuary for drill monkeys and chimpanzees, alligators and crocs and
large biting lizards, miniature antelope, parrots and eagles and furry spotted
creatures that look sort of like ferrets.
Even the bathroom is home to displaced visitors.
We have a yum dinner deliciously
peppered with stories a plenty.
Come morning I visit with Lady
Atim. She coos at me with soft click-clack grooming calls.
Obligingly I pick her coarse fur through the
bars, tickle her belly and under her chin and stroke the soft spot just above
her nose. She likes that.
She grooms me too: touching my
eyelashes, my braids, picking at and licking the soft hairs on my hand.
Morning also means warm tea in
sippy cups for the chimps.
Ohhh dear. On my Sunday walk back to Pandrillus I pass this!
Note the blood in the gutter.
404 is code for dog meat. This
place is on the regular walk from home to market. I’ve noticed skinny dogs and
chubby puppies in cages and wondered half heartedly. To see hunks of hind leg
roasting on the bbq, music blaring, people milling around and leering guys
cat-calling (pun intended) sets me off kilter for hours.
Canada Day at Concern Universal
