THEATRE OF THE ABSURD

Saturday November 22, 2013

It’s all about theatre. Today’s visit to the juju doctor seems a smoke and mirrors scam. Ok, well maybe not smoke and mirrors. The setting is magnificent. We sit under a thatched roof outdoor space. Strips of cloth, bird nests and unfamiliar what’s its hang from the rafters. Each of these  fetishes I’m told, “have their own secret, their own work, their own spirit. They all have purpose.”

Red powder (paint?) lies in strips before the bench where we sit. To the left in front of us is a mermaid carving draped with native beads, splattered with red and grey powder. A small African figure flanked by two small totem-pole-like carvings and wax candle remnants rests at the base of this strange goddess.  Beyond this shrine is a small enclosed room full of unusual things. While Ivor prattles on about nothing special the doctor busies himself with a thick mixture resembling mud. He works it with his hands, adding secret this and thats, forming small balls in a manner that illicits memories of my Italian grandmother making meatballs. “Cleansing soap,” he explains, pointing to a printed poster extolling the magical properties of Hindu’s Good Luck Soap. Hindu is his working nickname, a handle used by all juju practicioners. One of his virgin daughters prepares the mucky muck, he adds in the magical mystical properties.

Eventually he asks what I seek.

“To know where life will take me next.”

“Ah” he nods knowingly.

But my star energy is not clear enough for him to answer. I must bathe to cleanse and brighten my star light.

“At 6:00am you must bathe and pray for good luck. At 12 noon you must bathe to wash away evil.  At 3:00pm you must bathe again and pray for love and romance.  Then, you come back to me.”

He will go to market to purchase the ingredients for this ritual but needs N20,000.

“I cannot pay that. I am just a volunteer. I do not have such money.”

“Okay, then N10,000”

(SorryO. Ain’t gonna happen).

I ask if he can speak to those who have passed on.

“Oh yes. Dead speak. Yes.”

I must make another appointment for that.

The keeper of secrets then goes to the back enclosure and returns with a large gourd flask and a small plastic bottle filled with clear liquid. He uncorks the flask, sprinkles black sooty something into his palm and then into a glass, adds the liquid, takes a sip to prove it’s okay and passes it to us.  This concoction is supposed to energize but quickly subdues. The taste is that of kai-kai and charcoal.  As we react to the burning sensation moving down our gullets to our guts the doctor licks his hands clean of the black soot.

“I have a difficult question for you,” I begin.  “Back in my home country, back in the west, many people suffer from deep sadness (depression). Can you tell me about this?”

“That is a difficult matter. Witches are everywhere. Every country has it. In any family where they have a witch, the family is not safe.”

Translation from Ivor: anti-social behaviour is a sign of witchery, a bad heart.

But what to do about it? The good doctor never says.  I suppose that will require another appointment too.

Some 45 minutes of absurd exchange and N2,000 later I thank him for sharing his time and invite him and his wife to come visiting. “I will cook flavours you have never before tasted.”  This pleases him.

We leave not any the wiser. Ivor shares that he tried the ritual bathing.

“And?”

“I’ve millions in the bank and more beautiful women than I can manage.”

Not

…although there may be something to be said about millions of Naira in the bank (1M naira =$6666 USD) and an inexhaustible supply of Nigerian women seeking the status and company of this oyibo man.

Parallel Thinking

Tuesday November 19/13

Professor I of Epke expertise is back in town offering to introduce me to the world of ju ju, the dead and the power of earthly forces. His contact, a traditional healer in south Calabar will be waiting for us this weekend. Professor I regularly visits this seer for research and personal divination and has seemingly made a positive impression.

“It’ll be interesting to see how he responds to you.”

I think he’ll like my energy, I tell myself.

“He knows his stuff and likes hard liquor.”

 Should I bring him something?  Gin?

“No, pay him N400 and he’ll buy what he likes.” 

Western psychics claim to connect with the spirit world of those gone before us, so there’s a parallel here, no? 

Professor I has never consulted a Western psychic. He reserves comment.

“Just don’t tell the driver where we’re going. Okay? They get freaked.”

Ohhh kaaaAay, I nod, ear plastered to the phone.

Never mind the driver; THIS is going to be a freak’n wild personal adventure. Question is what burning question/s do I want answered?  Note to self:  make sure phone is fully powered to record visit. And o yeah, wear hair tied tight in a smooth pony with no lose strands left behind.

Saturday November 16, 2013

I’m caught in a downpour so fierce today it sweeps the flip flop right off my foot carries it in heavy currents across the road and into the ditch to wherever. I trek single shoe-d til my laundry folk pals give me a plastic bag to wrap my barefoot for the walk across the messy muddy laneway into the compound. Happy to advise: seriously soaked is cooling to skin.

So Many Perfect Moments

Tuesday November 12, 2013

Today’s afternoon training moves outdoors under mango tree shade. A cocky rooster wanders into the triggering practice session, pecks at pseudo piles of shit and leaves a watery poop of its own. Perfect. 

Goats goad and cavort like playful kids. Pigs snort through mounds of garbage. Three barefoot boys come to watch, their legs ashen from soot. Two older boys laze on a nearby bench, entertained by the adult roll-play.  I ask if they live nearby. One has a house directly behind us, a round mud hut with thatch-roof. 

Can I see inside?

“Yes, of course ma, come come.”

It’s a fantastic Bunkie alternative.  Smooth painted walls and floor, electric outlets, queen size bed, posters and comfy cool – not too hot, not too cold, j-u-s-t perfect.

After training and a brutally honest post mortem, Lady L and MistaM take me for a trek. We pass giant pigs passed out in sand, suckling piglets at their belly. Collection upon collection of round houses where smoke wafts from communal fires. Curious children giggle and run when the camera comes out.  Dark descends on dusk while visiting with a woman brewing a batch of beer, “Brukutu.” She uses grains from a wheat that towers 16 feet or higher – known locally as guinea corn. Boils it – but only at night. Pours it into large hand-turned pots and leaves it to ferment in the cool of her round house kitchen, ready for quaffing four days later.  

Dinner is taken on Logo’s main strip, dimly lit by chop house fires. Street eatery sisters Dowaisa and Dowaisi fry yam slices and bean rolls and eggs served with a side of super spicy hot pepe and onion sauce. Mmm yum. The tab is less than 35 cents. Holy moly perfect. A different chop stand brings a chunk of tender fresh stewed catfish while another brings a plate heaped with rice and beans.

Happy bellies later, MistaM, the scarred for life Muslim from north Nigeria leads us to his home compound, the place where he and his eight siblings grew and where he and his brothers and their families live today. We pass the local mosque, meet the Imam and hear the evening call to prayer. We step into the extended family kitchen complete with giant mortar and pestle (to pound yam) alongside gorgeous rakuu style cooking and storage vessels.

Whilst we walk and talk MistaM tells of a friend who lived in Canada.

“He came back because he hit his wife and she complained to the government and he was

afraid of what they would do. Can you believe that? She disrespects him.  She provokes him. So what if he hits her? What is the problem with Canada? There are too many rules against men.”

Teeth bare down on tongue.

He briefly mentions his own wife and two daughters, hastening, “but I will try for a son.”

Why?

“Because you need a son. The girls just go off to their husband’s family when they are married. The man picks his wife, she does not pick him. But a son, he stays with you.  I pray that my wife brings me a son. It is for divorce if the wife does not bring a son.”

Ah ha, but the sperm that comes out of your body, your sperm that meets the egg in your wife’s belly is what decides if it will be a boy or a girl. It is the man, you. Not the wife. That notion brings a belly laugh (and probable silent: yeah, right).

Interesting conversation, finally tasty Nigerian food and the friendly hospitality of people who sport crisp clean whites even though they live in round, thatched roof houses made of mud - how perfect is all that?

Friday November 15 2013

I leave Logo with heavy heart. I’m finally touched.  While I fell in love instantly with India, it’s taken a while for ju ju magic to cast its spell in Nigeria.

 Culture in Logo, Benue State is different. Tiv people are hospitable, caring and real. What you see is what is. Period. Tiv culture is inland far from the sea. The slave trade did not impact these peoples like it did in what is known today as Calabar and Cross River State. And colonization came much later. Tiv culture covers a large geographic area unlike Calabar where cultures and languages change from one street corner to the next. There’s a pureness and richness here.

We visit villages some 45 minutes+ deep into rutted back roads where the children have never seen white skin. Some cry and run away in fear. Others edge closer bit by bit to take a closer stare.  Mothers place their issue upon my lap; an honour for them and their children.  One chubby little guy looks searchingly into my eyes, touches my earrings, stares more and pokes at my skin. I place my sunglasses on his face. He sits quiet. A smile forms. He lifts the glasses from his nose and peers into the sky, places them back over his eyes, lifts again back and forth a few times. Mother stands nearby and clicks her tongue softly  in delight “lulululululululu.”

Before formal triggering gets underway in this community we dance and sing; turns out to be a welcoming song to me. Older children sway and move in a traditional ballet-ish style that defies written word. Limbs contort in slow motion as bodies dip and bow to the ground. Women tongue roll in high pitch unison.”Luululululululululu,” I respond in Tiv “Nsu, nsu,” hand over heart, deep bow. “Thank you. Thank you.”

These people draw filthy murky water from a nearby creek and drink it without boiling. Come dry season there is no water to draw. The creek bed is dry. They travel great distances and use the few Naira they own to buy water from town. I question how the Global Sanitation Fund programme will succeed with hand washing hygiene messages in villages like these where water is such a precious and hard earned commodity.

When it’s time to return to Calabar, Logo local government CSLT trainees bid farewell with hugs. Many present photos taken of us together. More perfect moments among so many.

Driver Eja and I talk about trekking up a craggy small hill near the Benue cloth

weaving spot visited on previous journeys. Mr Patrick overhears our discussion and cautions against it. Ju ju stories begin.

Seemingly this hill takes the lives of those who attempt to climb it. Just recently five young men died after ascending for a night of youthful cavorting. None made it back down. They died one after the next.

 “You will see a man or a woman there and when you look again, they are gone. I do not ever like to speak of such things.  And neither should you. Do not mention it again.”

Pressed further Mr P share a fine ju ju story:

He is travelling with a good friend and his sister-in-law. During travels N25,000 goes missing. Mr P’s mother-in-law is furious and decides to out the thief. She takes them all, her daughter included, to a traditional doctor in a neighboring village.

“There are people who have very big power. This doctor is one. He lays two sticks parallel on the ground. One at a time we are told to place our hands between the sticks. Then we are asked if we stole the money.  If we tell the truth, the sticks move further apart. This medicine man asks me and the sticks move apart. Mother-in-law is asked. The same. Friend is asked. The same. When sister-in-law answers the sticks clamp together over her hand. Yes, she admits it was her who took the money.”

This deep set fear has no seat at the plastic table we gather around outdoors under a bright moon one club night at the hotel. Music blares. Bass shakes the hotel’s tin rooftop. A local police officer joins us with his AK47. Comical exchanges lead to photo ops lead to group dancing. “I like your moves” is the height of any compliment I’ve received thus far in Nigeria. It comes by way of a woman facilitator in our group and reinforced by the rest of our partying entourage. They like MY moves? Hah. Go figure.

In Flanders Field and Logo Land

Monday November 11, 2013

Thinking of (papa) Alf on this date. While we lest not forget in the West, it’s forgotten if not completely unknown here. The date is meaningless.

Training travel continues; hotels I have known part X - Gabriella Guest House in Logo, Benue State.  It’s an utterly enthralling location quite literally down a rain sacked road, smack dab in the middle of a community of mud and thatched-roof houses. Unbelievably those thatched round houses have electricity while this guest inn does not. Room 112 has no running water.  No mirror. A giant TV that doesn’t work. And bug accoutrements for extra ambience. The mattress is comfy but my torso is itchy as all hell. The linens are fresh. But I think I’ll lay out mine just because.  Primitive

Voodoo? Who do?

Continuing car stories. Gotta jot these down before they’re forgotten.

About ju-ju, I begin, how can you be affected if you don’t believe? In unison Mr T and Double-O chorus “I’m Christian, of course I don’t believe,” but then their stories begin.

I don’t believe, but… when I was a child someone was accused of stealing. He denied and denied and denied.  So they tied a rope around his neck and forced him to lie upon the ground. If he was telling the truth, nothing would happen. If he was lying, the rope would pull into the ground.  I saw with my own two eyes, I saw the rope pull into the ground. I was so scared that night I could not sleep.

Een henh, I don’t believe either, but…what they do in my village is they pick these special leaves and they coat them with a mixture, and then another leaf, and more mixture and another leaf, and more mixture.  They ask the person who is in the wrong to answer a question. If that person lies, the leaves go hard.  So they take a long pipe, a bamboo pole and they take some pepe and blow, just like that. They blow. And even though the person is sitting far across, they feel the pepe in their eyes, and they confess.

And then once, I had a headache, a migraine. It was very bad. I was telling someone about it and a girl heard me.  She told me to come, come with her. I followed her to a little boy, maybe two. She tells him my problem. He goes away and comes back with some leaves he picked and he mashes the leaves together in his hands then places the pulp onto my head.  My headache goes away just like that.  I think, “oh I must stay with this boy. He knows.” So I go to bring him a toy. They tell me he is not coming out today. If I want to see him I must go inside.  I see him sitting. Doing nothing. I tell him I have brought a toy. He laughs, “ I know, I saw you buy it from the big lady. I know that you bring a toy.” That frightens me. How does this small boy know? He sees my past and future.

On the plane from Abuja to Uyo my seat mate is Pastor Excellence.  He’s an evangelical zealot who speaks in tongue (I love that! he gushes). The kind who insists women enter marriage “intact. Virginal blood binds the two in a mysterious but undeniable way,” he explains.

So are you encouraging your son to marry as a virgin too? 
No response; he’s in pathological preaching mode. 
His faith, he asserts, is deliverance based; in other words Satan is behind all of life’s foibles and woes. Deliverance based faith is about casting out ju-ju demons to rid life of bad influences. It’s about removing the curses and evil others have brought upon you via the power and magical guidance of traditional healers.

PastorE is the kind who believes the Bible is the one and only true word of God. 

Have you read the q’uoran? What about Judaism acknowledging only early biblical parts?  Have you explored other religions to assert your own conviction? 

“No, I don’t need to.  I know I have the word of God. See how quickly I answer you? That is because I KNOW!”  

But how do you know that without asking questions?  Are you saying your God is different and better than the God of Islam or the God of Judaism?  Silence. 

Uncertainty.

“You ask difficult questions,” he says, slumping slightly into his seat and answering with more of the same blind faith.

For the flight’s duration I listen wearily to his sermonizing, wishing I could sit in quiet meditation reflecting on everything and nothing in my own dogma-free way.

Communication Breakdown.

...never mind breakdown. It's broken.

But first, I digress.

Being held captive in a car forces the kinds of conversations that would never slip off Nigerian tongues in regular spaces. That’s one of the pleasures of these painful five and six and seven plus hour overland drives into rural remoteness. The “dancing road” that rattles bones worse than a mogul run might be rough enough to cause a concussion. Yet brain tossed headaches and travel fatigue are worth the best car-ride stories, ever.

 

We pass and talk about a lone elephant tree that haunts locals who fear the deity that resides within. So they toss  eggs at the enormous enigma for protection from its wrath. A strange offering. Many kilometers later our eyes search a clear cut field where two giant sisters once towered. Handfuls of years ago their lumbering magic safeguarded communities from warring. Bitter feuding and bloodshed now cast a grim shadow in their stead.

Conversation shifts to the Efik culture, a tribal tradition unique to Calabar, southern Cross River state and Cuban descendents of the slave trade from these parts, where the Epke Society remains a force of reckoning. Epke is the Efik name for lion. Fierce, feared.

Centuries before colonization, the Society served as government. It continues in this informal but highly regarded capacity today. Sons, and the eldest daughters of sonless families, are initiated into the Society to ward off potential harm and become recognized members of this governing body. Initiated how? Epke in its masquerade form manifests for four days of food and drink, dance and drama. The parents of child initiates keep watch, helplessly wary.

“All the people in the village cook and serve lots of food, most of it meat. And they think nothing of poisoned food.” Poisoned as in food gone bad or intentional? “Enh intentional! They have witchcraft poisons,” colleague and village chief, Double-O explains. “It’s all about power and jealousy. Why should that boy be better than mine?”

If Efik families switch teams from secret society ju-ju-ism to Christianity, they pay protection dash to Epke village stewards when their unknowing sons or eldest daughters go visiting. Fifty naira…a few hundred…may be thousands depending on financial means.

Most Efik villages cascade outward from the heart homestead of Epke, an uninhabited-by-humans building locked, shuttered, foreboding.  

We talk about the Milky Way and the North Star. Colleagues are incredulous that you can actually see these two things.  I relay a favourite memory: lying on the dock with Leah and Kaleigh, falling asleep under the stars –but only after each of us sights a falling star. "Falling star - what is this, now?" How looking up at the galaxy of pinlight or driving through the Rocky Mountains makes one feel so small. “Oh, so Canadian men are small then?” Ummm, No.

We talk about glow worms,Nigeria’s verions of fireflies on the ground, bats the size of crows, my amazing newly-found-thanks-to-Sarah seamstress, Tina Tailor, and Calabarian December Caravan festivities.

We talk about Nigeria’s problems. It’s not corruption that’s the root cause, I’m told. It’s the institutions. It’s the institutions where nepotism favours friends and family, friends of family and family of friends. It’s the institutions where declaring conflict of interest is in the best interest of no one and is therefore never minded. So the wealthy contractor brother-in-law gets the project without following procurement protocol, because the price is right. Right for who?  Or the daughter of a project manager starts up an NGO and is contracted under her new umbrella façade to consult on that same project because no one else is comparably qualified. According to whom?

It’s about underpaid public servants, like police officers, who stop traffic under the pretence of national or state or local road security to collect illegal dash; money to put food on their tables and pay for their children’s school fees. Just a few days ago as we arrive on the outskirts of Abuja, uncertain of our whereabouts, a police roadblock pulls us over and charges that we've run a red. Mr wiry god-complex police officer, AK47 in hand, threatens to impound the truck immediately without release for two weeks. Eventually this same officer hops into the back seat, instructs us to drive up the road a tad and in between berating, suggests a N50,000 fine will make us mobile again. Forty minutes and N4,000 later, we're on our way. 

It’s about Port Authorities not releasing paid for goods because “shipper fees” remain unsettled, though such fees were never part of the equation in the first place.

It’s about asking for blank receipts from the hotel desk person, filling in a fee higher than the amount actually paid and pocketing the difference when travel accounts are reconciled.

It’s about  empowered local government employees hand-picking colleagues who share friendships or blood lines to attend workshops they’re not qualified to attend but are keene to attend to collect per diems.

It’s about people with connections who go temper ranting to the highest placed ears when funding dollars aren’t channelled through their personal accounts and financial reporting strings come attached.

 

It's about bureacrats asking in masked humour: "What of our allowances?" "What provisions have you made for me?" "What is my entitlement?"

 

It’s about subsistence-living security guards siphoning generator gas to fuel their motorbike ride home.

It’s about greed stained into the very soul of Nigerian culture.

What drives that greed?  Certainly a hungry belly.  But more so, it comes from a hunger for stuff.  Status stuff like jeeps and jewellery, trinkets and bobbles and frivolous things that say, look at me I have more than you, I can buy all these things. Look at me, I am a success. I am a big man.

Women are attracted to men who have the power and money to keep them in the stuff that makes them look fine-o, oyibo men especially. Racist thinking equates white skin with wealth.  The other weekend, sitting poolside at Calabar’s most popular hotel with oyibos, I watch two balding and paunchy middle-aged Spaniards cavort with two exquisitely proportioned Nigerian beauties. Neither is a day over 20.  The men flail and splash like pimply teens, animated and lecherous and boning for hormonal release. The young girls play quiet and subservient.  At another table, a group of brash more-than-middle-aged Americans brag long and loud about their rides. Motorbikes are a big thing among expats here. Probably has something to do with the edgy personalities that come this way and stay. Here too, these largely (read: as in large/super-size-me) unattractive men are accompanied by young Nigerian beauties who sit silent and bored, detached from the conversation, patiently waiting for the dutiful sex and money to come.  Communication of the bodies suffices in these cases.

As I write in the feeble morning light of a hotel room without power, today’s first communication glitch presents.  So I turn to this entry’s original topic: communication breakdown.

Example: Yesterday evening I visit the hotel restaurant to ask that a simple omelette and a cup of coffee be delivered to my room by 8:30am.The time of course passes this morning without room service. After sufficient wait an inquiry at reception brings yesterday’s restaurant gent to my room.

"Your omlette, ma' I prepare it now?"
No. It is passed 8:30. It is late-o. You cancel the order, now. You bring tomorrow on time, yes? So you cook tomorrow at 8 o'clock okay?

Example: Seven months into a 12 month placement someone tells me that sitting with legs crossed is a terrible sign of disrespect. The same goes for tucking hands into pockets.  People who know me know I’m a habitual leg crosser; I’ve clearly disrespected many, many folk many, many times.  Too bad this wasn’t communicated at the outset, no?

Example: Every three months volunteers receive a meagre stipend. I am one of the lucky few with a Nigerian bank account. You’d think that would make transactions easier. Not.  A long-standing VSO finance employee, of Nigerian decent, is politely instructed to make the deposit early in the day given that the transaction is happening on a Friday and Fridays are notoriously chaotic.  He makes a cash deposit at 10:00am. Come 3:30pm after standing in an ATM line up for over an hour, I find out a withdrawal isn’t possible. A bank retail marketing officer says there’s no way he can pull up account details on the computer. Becoming Nigerian, the voice rises with curt condescension.  Results start happening. One phone call leads to another. VSO finance guy runs to the bank where he’d made the cash deposit to find out it hasn’t yet been processed. Cash deposits are reconciled at end of day with all other cash transactions, don’t you know. You’d think he’d have clued into this by now. After all he’s been doing this job for what, ten years. And what’s with bank records not being electronically accessible? Where’s e-communication in this story? Turns out they in fact are. Lazy pulled rank.

Example:  Passive-aggressive behaviour makes for an uncomfortable office environment, especially when the target is you.  The principle perpetrator is respected for business savvy and diplomatic acumen.  I discuss the situation with my oga /slash/boss, tons of Nigerians, expats who might as well be Nigerian, and expats who are just as confounded as me. If there’s one thing we all agree on, it’s that if you can survive the Nigerian work place you can excel just about anywhere else in this world.  So, how to deal with the situation?

* Suggest you have inside knowledge and connections to big people without giving anything away.

* Be evasive

* Allude to your respected value outside of the conventional train of command

* Most of all, be tough. Put the perpetrator's sense of status into question. Use tone and ramp up the volume.

So I do exactly as advised and walk away from a confrontational scene – initiated by the perpetrator no less – a satisfied and for now, respected victor.

 

Yet all these ugly underbelly scars mean nothing in the end. Nigeria, as it turns out, is one of the happiest countries on this wee planet we call home. People are always laughing; the kind of big raucous belly laughs you can’t help but laugh along with.  The same goes for song.  People belt out hymns and pop tunes while working at their desks or crammed into a share taxi with five other passengers. Walk anywhere and you’re greeted by more people than you can count. Tell a Nigerian how this never happens back home and their stunned response stuns you into accepting what impersonal and detached peoples we are in the west. While we warn our children to stay away from strangers, the only strangers to Nigerians are foreigners like me and even at that, the “ MissPat! Auntie!” shouts and hugs and shy waves from children and grown folk alike makes everything right with the universe, at the very least for that moment.