ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Saturday, December 1, 2013

Umbrellas are a rain or shine accessory. Today the sun is strong and it’s just the other side of dawn. Women walk the shoulder of the highway with babies slung across backs, carrying umbrellas to shield heat and beating rays. Driver Patrick is taking me as far as Ogoja, four and some hours north of Calabar, much of it on those ugly roads. Then it’s a transfer to driver Eja for another three to four hours into Benue’s capital, Makurdi. Tomorrow we take another three hour journey north west from there to Agatu. This destination is the sketchiest place yet. It’s a centre of violent clashes between nomadic Fulani cattle herders and the Idomah  people. Anger surges when the Fulani let their herds graze onto farmland, trampling everything under hoof.  At one point the violence and bloodshed spun so out of control we debated yanking the GSF project from this area and awarding it to an alternate local government.  But peace settled in, albeit through the force of armed patrolmen.  Now the area is just coming out of a recent cholera outbreak, so I’ve packed my own food and a case of water.

Armatan season has arrived in Makurdi, its haze visible in the far distance.  Ega tells me “it came yesterday. It brings cool air. When it clears, the heat comes. Mangoes grow.”

Ega loves music. He skats to Fela Kuti, grins and nods to high music, sighs when a voice or lyric or rift sounds just right. He reminds me of a kid in a big body. A naïve gentle giant.  New tunes have been uploaded onto my phone so that we can enjoy and chillax together. And to be candid, I’ve sat through his gospel music CD so many times I can’t bear to hear it once more.  Unfortunately my phone powers out and we listen to that tape run through three full times before I ask if we can please turn it off and just enjoy some silence.

Sunday December 15

Agatu is as remote as it gets. We turn onto a washed out dirt road better travelled by motorbike than Hillux.  We pass a stagnant pond where women and girls have come to collect water. Brush fires burn where men and boys have come to flush out and trap rats for good eating. Some 40 minutes later we arrive in town and are directed to the home of the Council Chairman. As we step through the threshold, women scatter and disappear. Our host through his man servants offers beverages. We sit staring at a mounted flat screen TV, eyes glued as if glancing away disrespects his Honour’s personal space.  There’s no exchange. It feels uncomfortable to me. It feels like typical Nigerian hospitality to everyone else.

I’m now sitting under a full moon. Armatan haze clouds its shine. The air is lovely and cool. And it’s silent. So quiet, so tranquil.

 Accommodations are primitive: bed in one corner, plastic chair in another. Stained and chipped walls. Stained concrete floor. No closet or hooks, not even a door handle to hang clothes. Toilet sans seat. No mirror. No sink… just a large bucket filled with murky white water drawn from a nearby well. Cholera or not it’s a no brainer: some of that bottled water is gonna be used for sponge bathing.  No mosquito nets, no window screens.  Looks like eau de insect spray time.  Light flickers and dims. Flickers and disappears.

Dogs are lean, goats are scrawny. Children run around barefoot and dirty. Lots of little boys are shirtless, many shortless - wearing tight fitting gotch. Grounds are littered with plastic refuse. The scrub is dry and brittle. There’s not much work here: men sit or lie beneath mango trees for the better part of the day.  An open defecation site is mere metres from our guest house lodgings.  Children come and go, with a few sheets of toilet tissue in hand. For some reason, like Logo, this place calls out to me. Maybe it’s the raw poverty. Maybe it’s the way people get on with life.

While training is underway I’m called out to meet someone who says he’s head of security. It’s the first time I’m asked to present my passport to authorities. He writes down details, tells me he’ll be sending this information to Abuja. “You’re a VIP and I want to make sure you have a good visit. It is my job to keep you safe. When you leave, I will call ahead to Otukpo. When you arrive there, they will call ahead to Makurdi.”  His concern for VIP me is both reassuring and unsettling.

Ega and I drive into the village centre to pick up fried yam and eggs. As we wait for our food a masquerade terrorizes the villagers. Children run to hide. Born-again Ega urges me to come away from the main road, to take a seat out of sight.  But it’s too late. I’m spotted. The masquerade heads my way. Children and adults follow, watching from a safe distance to see what this costumed spirit will do and to get a closer look at my white skin.  Before the masquerade can make a scene, locals call him off and away.

The tin overhang above our bench is supported by thick tree limbs like the power wires blatantly siphoning energy from the main lines to falling down homes. The charming round huts of the Tiv people are replaced here by basic four-wall block structures, some with windows boarded by sheets of corrugated metal.  A large brown bats sweeps from a tree, then another, and more still.  Fires burn, ground nut oil boils, yams fry. 

More expressions:

“so and so no be there”

“kai”

“wahda”

“so I came quiet”

“how you be now?’

“no problem for that one”

“we’ll follow go now”

“alright, later now”