Little Mary...Easter Weekend 2013

Not so little Mary (centre in white t) December 31, 2013

CATCHUP: FINALE

Date Unknown, (Actually, Monday January 27, 2014)

Second day back in Nigeria, err Calabar. It’s a melancholy feeling.  I can’t pinpoint it exactly. Perhaps a month of socializing has upset my solitary rhythm. Being back in Calabar I’m seeing things afresh. The garbage is disturbing. The people though are wonderful. I’ve heard “Happy New Year” atleast three or four times in the past 24 hours. “Happy Sunday” greetings. Big smiles. Hearty laughter. Helpfulness for the sheer sake of being helpful. I suppose the melancholy also comes from knowing this is all very soon drawing to a close. A year-long vacation if you will. Twelve months to put this Canadian mind on a shelf and leave it there.

Thursday February 6, 2014

Emotions are raw.  Twelve months in a strange land and the thought of leaving it and its people brings me to the edge of tears too many times a day these days.

Nigeria taught me to laugh out loud again.

But I will weep when it is time to leave.

Today people dance in the streets as a car with speakers bungee-strapped to its roof drives by blaring Niaja music.  Damn, I should have bought a CD from the two guys walking alongside pawning pirated recordings for N100.

Today 14 year old Happiness returns the book I lent a few days ago. Read, critiqued, ready for “the next storybook.”  She’s asked me for Oliver Twist, the novel featured on her grade X exam.  I will market for it, buy it, and maybe a whole bunch of others. 

“I want you to go to school, to learn, to be successful at what you love and to be rich enough to come visit me in Canada.”  Sometimes her mother holds her back from school. The family stall needs manning. 

I’m hoping mamma acquires respect for her

daughter’s education.  Should anyone be my benefactor-ess, be it Happiness.   I love to see her draped over her school work. She shares space for her pages of notes with piles of bananas, and groundnut shells and shaved green oranges.  I love to see her huddled at the back of the store hut immersed in the pages of the storybook of the moment.

There’s no library in Calbar. Imagine.

Happiness only gets to read what she can get her hands on through school.

Anyone wanna send some books through the Concern Universal address?

Her family street shop is on the corner just outside the compound wall. 

I haven’t ever seen her father.

Her mother is a tall, strong woman with striking cheekbones and broad smiling lips that sometimes scowl at Happiness.

Monday February 17

Comedy of Errors

This UN Benin workshop thing is a string of mis(sed)-communications.  It begins by finding out last minute only after asking UN peeps, that a Visa is needed and then discovering it can only be gotten in person from consulates in Abuja or Lagos – no downloadable online applications available.  Next, reps from within the same UN programme responsible for hosting this international journalists’ event decide to come visiting in Calabar for the same time frame, which causes the new CD to question my commitment to even consider being away and why I’ve even been invited to participate when my placement ends less than a week later.  And then the headaches associated with arranging travel, accommodations and logistics in Lagos: a) flying in on Sunday; b)needing to head to the consulate first thing Monday 9am c) coordinating a pick up time thereafter to drive from Lagos on to Cotonou Benin with unknown-to-me other attendees who all want to leave early; d) a French-first Benin based coordinator who makes initial plans, neglects to explain these extenuating circumstances to others or the driver taking us and then gets twisted when asked for clarification – language barriers at play; and now e) a driver who somehow thinks he can expedite travel by showing up at the hotel to pick me at 7:15 am. Seriously?  The consulate doesn’t open until 9.

RANDOM LAGOS ...

local barbing salon

And the flight an experience in itself: only moments after takeoff the cabin crew are instructed to prepare for landing. What the?!  I sit cross legged and begin to ease my mind.  Best to be calm, icicle cool.  As the ground grows closer I reach out to the man sitting next to me and ask to hold his hand.  It’s that need for human touch.  He’s confounded but obliges. Turns out we’re making a pitstop at Uyo airport; somehow I missed that announcement and think we’re making an emergency landing in the middle of nowhere.

Cotonou Workshop et al:

 the high table

tuned in to translation

chillaxing afterwards

BENIN: Of Border Crossings and Road Rage

Friday February 21, 2014

It seems innocent enough, stopping roadside on the outskirts of Cotonou to pick up fresh smoked fish, but 20 minutes of price haggling really sets us back. Then comes the crossing saga. Every Benin border official is on the take. Fistfuls of Naira are squashed under paper stacks and stuffed in pockets. Journalist Sen is hounded three times and acquiesces twice. Oddly I’m left alone until the last guy on the Benin border rung asks me for N500 for no good reason. I refuse, snatch my passport out of the sleazy guy’s hands and march onward. What the hell, I’ve already got my Benin exit stamp. Back “home” in Nigeria all seems tickety boo. We’re processed and stamped through. Our cab is stopped a few yards away by a Nigerian official who wants to see immunization papers. The other two cab companions haven’t such documents, one doesn’t even have a passport. No wahalla for them. I pass documents to  Mr big-sense-of-self knowing full well everything is in order. He puffs out his chest, “This is not right.”

“What? Are you serious? You’re looking for dash aren’t you? Well guess what, you’re not getting anything from me.”

He doesn’t like that. My Nigerian compadres explain that I’m not Nigerian (kinda obvious, the white skin and all) and that I’m not going to be dashing him cash any time soon.  They play into that great big bruised ego, even stroke his arms. We’re off.

Two hours later it’s dark. The highway is crammed with traffic and people. Driver Ismael snaps at Sen to shut off his laptop. 
“This is bad.  This is very bad. Being here in the dark is unsafe. There are criminals. They use the traffic to rob cars.” Ismael explains how he has seen armed robbers squeeze through the metal congestion touting AK47s and armloads of take.

Lagos traffic here means literally inches between vehicles – front, back and at the sides. The car passenger mirror scrapes against a truck, nearly ripping off. Driver I’s anxiety is contagious.  I pull on my cap, sunglasses and tuck my hands into my sleeves to try to hide white flesh.

Come morning my Arik flight – surprise – leaves at 7:30a.m. rather than 11:00am as scheduled.  No notification.  I’m fortunate enough to get a seat on a flight to Uyo, a city  in Akwa Ibom, a state unsafe for oyibo travel and grab a cab from there for the 90 minute drive to Calabar.  It’s on this drive that I learn the stretch of road we travelled the night before, between Lagos and Benin is notoriously unsafe.  Meh. We made it.

Backward Bound

Tuesday February 25/14

I hesitate to say homeward bound, as home is where the heart is and these days it’s been here in Nigeria. 

Today I take 14 year old Happiness and her six-year old sister Blessing to Drill Ranch. Liza has agreed to share her books with this voracious teenage reader.  Happiness is chattier than I’ve ever seen, talking about the books she’s borrowed and their storylines. When we walk through Drill gates, the sisters’ eyes widen. Blessing lunges for my hand when baby chimp distresses.  We visit the Duiker with butterfly ears for a few minutes before all eyes glue to the Drill enclosure. Lady Lazy sprawls atop a tall wooden beam, deep asleep. Patriarchal papa sits with belly full, babies swinging from ropes and from  perches.  Grown male and female chimps rest quietly in portable metal cages. Sedated? Baby chimp screams and howls, holding face between feet, contorting in emotional angst.  She doesn’t understand what is going on. Delightfully, it turns out this chimp clan, held in a small enclosure for three too-long years, are finally moving to Afi Mountain.  Departing within 24 hours.  How fortunate to have caught them on their last day. 

When Happiness steps into Peter and Liza’s home and spots shelf after shelf, stuffed with books, she is on them in a flash.  To decide is overwhelming until Chimamandu’s Under theYellow Sun. 

“The first book you gave me to read was Purple Hibiscus. I loved it and this looks so good. I will have it done in a week if my homework is not too much.”   Walking slowly from the compound, she reads front and back cover, thumbs pages, caresses her new treasure with a reverence that’s magical.

Now here I sit keying this last entry from Calabar as a CUSO sponsored communications specialist. Back to Canada bound.

CATCHUP PART III

 January 17, 2014

Farewell Uganda.  We are in Mr Milton’s car travelling to Kigale, Rwanda.

We leave two hours later than scheduled; African time.

Kigale is stunning clean. Modern, manicured boulevards, lots of construction. Our hostel is bustling with interesting characters. It’s expensive by hostel standards ($30USD/night), then again Rwanda is noticeably more expensive. 

Megan, Sarah and I visit the National Genocide Museum. Intense. Heartbreaking. Powerful beyond words. Each of us cries. Not silent trickling tears, but audible sobs. How ca humanity become so mired in mass psychosis? Lemmings to insanity. This unfathomable evil repeats: Armenians, Jews, Croats, Huti/Tutsis. There’s a genocide waiting to happen in Nigeria – Muslims vs Christians

We mingle with a group of locals and a couple of expats associated with Agis, an organization spawned by Rwanda’s past but from my point of view too idealistic, too removed from reality; such is the downside of operating out of an urban locale and having headquarters in a European capital. They talk corporateese. When I push about what can be down to stem the slippery slope in Nigeria, it’s all about “networking with parliamentarians.” ReallyO? Come on now.

We join this group for clubbing at Horizons. Music is ex hip hop. Glasses or Armarulo and lots of sweaty Nijai style dancing late we discover Sarah’s purse with passport is missing. Kate, one of the Agis expats, has also lost her handbag. We pile into two cars and head to Kigale police headquarters. A suspect comes along. Endless hours later, the suspect having been smacked up the side of the head a few times, we are uncertain if anything has actually been accomplished, leave, and collapse into bed.  Three hours later Sarah’s alarm pulls us from sleep. It’s only when we ask for coffee from reception that we find out we’re an hour behind Uganda. Its 7am. Damn, we could have snatched an extra hour of shut eye. 

This entry now is being written at Discover Rwanda Hostel where we’re chillaxing,  weary, listening to a local reggae/folk local band.

Is today Saturday?

We’re on the Rwandan Riviera. Staying at L’Eglise Presbyterian Hostel, basic but clean, set in a well tended garden just down the street from Gisengi Market. Our accommodations are a whomping 10,000 Rwandan francs (around $8-9 each)

Neither Sarah or I are able to determine how we feel about Rwanda. The people are reserved. No one on our bus was helpful. As we walked to the beach here, we were stared down, sometimes with visible hostility.  This lakeside town is one of the genocide flashpoints 20 years ago. I’m sure the memory is vivid for many. Our taxi driver tonite, Habib, is 29.  He’s lived here all his life. I can only imagine what he remembers. Back in Kigali at the Genocide Museum, the rooms of skulls and other human bones is palpably haunting. The Children’s Room, the family photos, the sculptures all echo a feeling of ghostly energy. Despite its sordid past, Gisenyi, where we now find ourselves, is beautiful. Lake Kivu laps at sandy beach. The Congo border is just minutes away, its shore visible to the south and east. The architecture is different. Clay tile roofing, pointed tin roofing. People pepper the highway shoulders, their numbers large for this small space.

We walk to and along the beach, stop in at a posh lakeside hotel, find out from the cabana girl about a restaurant further down the way called Thai Jazz. The owner there takes a fancy to us. He’s a colourful character, large Java-the-hut ish  “one quarter Congolese, on quarter Belgia and 50 per cent Indian,”  wearing a cowboy hat and scarf.  Amarulo arrives at our table, compliments of Jamail. He offers to send us adventuring with his driver. Id’ like to head to the Congo border to see if I can get my passport stamped.

Oh, and lest I forget, Sara found herself in a pissing match with one of the police officers who had helped her with the passport issue when we were in Kigali. Part of the process involved providing a number in the UK. This guy has called Sarah’s parents’ phone number in England 20+ times since 6 am, professing his love.  “Why do I always pick such dickheads?  I’m SO angry about that!”

DAY TWO IN GISNEYi

One more day of adventuring before Wednesday and a Thursday 2:55am departure.

Jamail holds true to his word. He sends us on our way with his driver – heading south into hillside villages dotting the coast.  It’s gorgeous. People walk the edge of the roads much like India; I love the activity. As we move deeper into the hillside, clothes become  dirtier, bare feet become more prevalent.

Some observations:

Sitting lakeside at Thai Jazz in the evening, waves crash into shore. How many people remember?

Children with faces far beyond their years

Children having children; such young mothers

Gisenyi fishing boats with long poles – lanterns hang from the bamboo poles as boats bob in the night luring small sardines to surface

YAY!!!!  GIANT fruit bats sweep into the dusk.  Locals don’t know the word “bat; say mouse with wings and they understand.

Plastic bags are banned in this country with hefty fines for those who defy the rules. Same applies to tossing trash.  It’s brown paper bags, and only when required.

Tonite Jamail wheres a hat with crocodile teeth. His wait staff lifht buckets, similar in a way to antique milk buckets with lots of charcoal. The heat is wonderful. Easterly winds force waves into shore.

Pomegranate tree on site at L’Eglise. Exotic-to-us flowers of many varieties. Orchids I’ve ever seen before.  Yellow lilies, white canalilies, Yellow and alabaster white angel trumpets, yellow and fushia and purple and pink bouganvaelia, birds of paradise…

 Another Day

Ahhhwwsomeness. Another perfect place, several perfect moments. We are at Kingi Guest House in the valley cradle of Musanze Volcanoes.  Our lodgings are exquisite. I’m so very happy to be spending this wind-down day in such surroundings. We’re a five minute walk to National Volcanoe Park Headquarters. The gardens here are fragrant. Beautiful. Big heads of blue hydrangea, yellow angel trumpet trees, eucalyptus trees, trimmed hedges, volcanic stone pathways. It’s off season here, as it was in Gisenyi. We book a four room dorm that’s all to ourselves, complete with wood-burning fireplace. 

This is Dianne Fossey territory; high enough in the mountains that cold frosts our breath. Lush green, incredible fields of daisy-like flowers (used for herbicides), hedges of cannalillies, ragged peaked volcanoes around us, all for RfR 10,000 ($1USD in total). Gorillas are in the mountains beyond. To be so close is close enough for me. It’s exhilarating to know they’re nearby. Gorillas in the mist. Sarah and I walk to the Park gates, inquire about our options and decide for a nature walk into the rainforest. 

We visit an artisan shop chock full of colourful baskets woven by local women. As we leave, two women call out to us from the workshop and invite us in. Jacqueline and her baby, Mary and her huge smile.

We turn right on the dusty road, rather than left back to our lodgings, and find ourselves surrounded by exuberant laughing children. Their parents watch, bemused. Shoe repair rasta-man and his posse of lady friends offer welcoming smiles. The jolliest of the women nearly falls off her seat in laughter.  The children walk us along the village thoroughfare, a rutted lane framed by eucalyptus and dark lush vegetation.  The two eldest boys attach to Sarah and me. Both want to be Gorillia Guides. Both want to learn as many languages as possible. Any time we pull our our cameras the children scramble for a place in the scene. It’s SO perfect. We exchange names, hear stories, listen to dreams, discover that police will beat the older boys if they’re seen with us. When we part we do so a good distance before the village town centre, safely out of sight of police eyes.  During this return walk a snotty-faced, tear-stained toddler of two or three wails. His wee legs are too short to keep up. I grab his hand and let him set the pace.  Our collection of kiddies wave goodbye as we cross the bridge back to the other side. One young fellow follows us, picks flowers for us. Magic. Children are magic. If only we could all retain that innocence somehow, what a better world this would be.

Two memorable friends:

Joseph (my older companion) and Ben – the young one.

OH!!! I nearly forgot…someone found Sarah’s passport. How amazing is that? They called her Mom in the UK.

ADVENTURE’S END

At Rwanda’s Kigale airport. My African adventures are fini. C’est un bon vacacionne. Je parle Francais beaucop and surprise myself to be able to get main messages across. Damn. The mozzies in this airport are plentyo.

So, today was another early starte, up at 5:45am. Oddly an outfit that boasts conservation isn’t so conservation -oriented when it comes to insisting all park visitors come by hired 4x4.

Our hike is all uphill for the first 90 minutes and our guide is more interested in making time than making happy customers. Thankfully a porter comes along, grabbing my hand and pulling me up over the steeper stretches. Gawd I am so seriously out of shape. Heart pounds, shortness of breath. We slow the paces coming back, snap pictures of fields of flowers (who knew irish potatoes have such lovely pink and purple flowers). We encounter stands of bamboo. Nasty stinging nettles. The views are fantastic.

It’s interesting to see the terrain where our planet’s last 800 remaining silverback gorillas live, eating those nettles, bamboo shoots and other not so nice prickly plants.

After the hike we stop at the women’s shelter. I gift my zany pink ‘n yellow hi-cut runners, purchase a peace basket for Michelle. On return to Kigale Sarah checks into a rather gross Catholic-run hostel. Then to dinner at Cactus Restaurant which overlooks the city. A quick goodbye and here am I, batting at mozzies, waiting for a 2:25am flight.

CATCH UP PART II

On the Road to Find Out, Again.

Saturday Jan 4, 2014

Oh my, I suspect this is going to be an adventure in the practise of patience. Firstly, my flight from Calabar to Abuja, scheduled for Thursday January 2^nd at 3:55pm left four hours earlier, without notice. I was told to return the 3^rd  for an 11:40am departure. Arrived at 9:00am, couldn’t be checked in until 10:30 because the network was down. Then THAT flight delayed until 1:30pm.

Today just as I stepped up to the international luggage check-in counter system crashed for a good 30 minutes. Then I had to back track to obtain emigration and currency declaration forms that hadn’t been issued at earlier checkpoints. I’m now in the Abuja lounge, 12 Noon.  Thought  I’d confirm my reservation  in Entebbe but phone credit ran out and the desk officer at the Entebbe guest house wasn’t fast enough to confirm yes or no. Here’s to hoping a WhatsApp message gets through to Sarah to arrange for pick up at the airport from Entebbe Backpackers.  If someone from the Airport Guest House shows up, too bad, so sad.

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Ethiopia – Addis Ababa airport, first impressions:

Faces are longer, leaner, oblong with big toothy smiles. Women are slender and beautiful. Colouring is lighter. Coptic Christianity is pronounced. Women wear head scarves, carry Chanel and Fendi bags. The traditional wraps of Nigerian men are nowhere to be seen. There’s a definite Indian/Asian influence: thick black hair, squared jawlines, tiny Hitler-esque moustaches. There’s lots of white skin again. Sign boards feature English alphabet and Ahramic Egyptian script. And it’s cold. I wonder if I’ve packed appropriately. Those few long-sleeves that almost got hauled out of the lone small tote are going to be well worn methinks.

The journey from Ethiopia to Uganda finds me sitting beside Gerry, a  handsome, grey pony-tailed  gent from Marseilles, France. He’s with the UN, posted in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s conflict zone.  Gerry’s role is to provide supplies to UN peacekeeping forces. Procurement.

“Are women posted in these kinds of environments?”

“Why yes, of course.”

 Over the last weeks, Gerry tells me, some 70 people were massacred. Women tend to be shifted out of these violent zones to concentrate on substantive issues – human rights, gender.  Kaleigh should apply to this arm of the UN he suggests.

Sunday January 5, 2014 in Entebbe Uganda

“That mother-fucker, man I don’t give a shit! Yo, I swear bitches…”

Good morning Uganda. My hostel (hostile?) roommates are exuberant Netherland/Ugandans with wanting vocabulary skills.  These boyz are educated and monied. The especially foul-mouthed one is studying international law. Alrighty then.

From the few hours layover in Ethiopia and brief glimpses of Uganda so far it’s gobsmacking to realize how messed up Nigeria is. In these few places airports are large and clean and organized. Parking is automated metering. Energy is reliable. How can a nation like Nigeria, 160 million strong, be so pitiful? The nation’s capital airport is a fifth the size of Entebbe and Nigerian crowds converge into one mass of chaos rather than file into manageable lines. To quote something I read somewhere and believe truly: “there isn’t a patch of Nigerian soil that hasn’t been pissed on.”  And the refuse is so much that the country is one giant garbage dump.  Seemingly, I’m told, in Rwanda if you’re caught littering you’re fined. And unbelievably, but successfully, plastic bags are prohibited. 

As I sit in the shade of our private Entebbe Backpacker’s guest house, some bird cackles loudly, others songbirds trill.
The sun is strong but a cool breeze dispels heat. It really would have been a shame to have left this continent without experiencing other countries; sort of like visiting Austria and thinking the rest of Europe is so.

Sarah’s noon arrival, by the by, is delayed; her flight is now schedule to arrive sometime around 9pm. SO, I’m going to hire a motorbike, hop on back and find out what’s beyond these compound walls.

Entebbe: it’s green and clean, immaculately groomed, teaming with wealth. Lake Victoria is big and blue! – no murky brown waters here. Thai restaurants, live bands, real food, no traditional clothing; all appears westernized. Enormous pelican storks with a 4-6’ wing span stand some 4’ high in trees, at the edge of roads, everywhere.  And those laughing birds, I love their cackling, they remind me of Oliver’s chortle; gotta get their name. 

Funnily, when we return to Entebbe Backpackers I notice a Buddhist symbol on the outside wall. Say what?

“Yes,” says Jonathon biker, “Frank the owner is a Buddhist.”

Now wouldn’t that be an interesting life? Running an affordable  well kept hostel,  meeting international guests ,providing gainful employment for the locals.

Ahhh, blissed. Kissed by handfuls of perfect moments.

Tuesday January 7, 2014 in Entebbe Uganda

Despite it’s bad rep plane hijacking/grounding event years back, Entebbe is a peaceful holiday hamlet. Yesterday Sarah and I wondered (spelling intended) through unknown to us towering trees and flowering bushes of the Botannical Gardens. We saw and heard more variety of birds than could be counted while lunching shore side listing to a local band in practise mode. We met hostel owner Frank, a born-again Buddhist who showered us in spittle during an enthused doctrinal monologue.  And we chatted with a Spaniard who is taking a pause in his life, a documentarian who has just finished shooting footage following a day in the life of six forgotten Ugandans. 

Wednesday? January 2014 in  Kampala Uganda

Whatever day, it is delicious literally and figuratively. Our public transport from Entebbe to Kampala is a cinch.  We check in to The New City Annex hotel across from the National Theatre. Smack in the centre of town it looks sketch from the street and sketchier still at the top of a steep staircase reception desk. But we’re taken through narrow hallways, a white linen and bamboo dining space, up a different set of stairs and into a residential quarter that’s just fine and 70,000/night clean. Two twin beds, a private bath. Works for us.

Famished after settling in we head to Crocodile Café, which turns out to be in embassy area, and feast on fresh!!! Greek and tuna salads. The ol’ tongue tingles with ecstasy. Next door is an overpriced Ugandan/African craft shop. Such a small world, who should we happen upon but none other than UN/GSF programme manager ClaraR and her mom. We exchange pleasantries, ask for travel must do tips, browse a bit then walk to the Uganda Museum.

Here we play around with musical instruments. We learn that Uganda’s Oil and Gas sector is non-existent (a wall with such a heading and nothing else). BUT they have penis and testicle holders (ancient relics), they won a gold medal for male marathon at the London 2012 summer Olympics, they had ganga waterpipes back in the early iron age (more ancient relics).   We also are informed that we are in the place where homo sapiens originated; the womb of humankind.

We pit stop at a bar, take seats on a heap of pillows and  quoff Taskers beer and shooters. Sarah takes an Amerila and peppermint liqueur combo, I opt for something called “Brain Hemorrage” with red sambucca and two other liqueurs.  Then we boda-boda (motorbike) in the near dark to LAWNS, a highly touted restaurant known for its exotic game fare. Choco martinis to start followed by Springbok steak for Sarah and a sampler medley of Springbok, Kudu, Blessbok and Crocodile pour mois. Guilt and glory on one plate.

Now back in our A/C hotel everything seems so civilized.  A few important observations:

When riding three on a bike make sure the driver is small!

Have not yet once seen anyone peeing openly on the streets

Maribou storks are those enoromous pelican-type birds

Ugandan etiquette dictates greetings ALWAYS go as follow (rather than a straight up hello Canadian style or good morning Nigerian fashion):

How are you? = oleo teeah?

I’m good = balloongee

How are you? = oleo teeah?

I’m fine = jane dee

And a few other important comments:

Thankyou = waybalee

   Lady = knee yabo

   Guy = see yabo

Well done = jaybalee

Have a good day = seeva balloongee

Ok = kayla

Goodbye = wayraba

Day? January 2014 in Kampala Uganda

Boda-boda’d to Jaguar Transport to purchase tickets for our journey from Kampala in central Uganda to Kibale bordering Rwanda to the south. Wandered through peopled chaos wonderfully reminiscent of India. As it should be – after all East Indians played a big part in building a now defunct rail rout in these parts.

At the bus depot, we spot a pygmy (little person of the south) carrying a large suitcase for a towering tall woman (likely of masai heritage or from the north near Sudan).  We’ve seen many people seven feet and taller.  We check out Ugandan Arts and Crafts markets. A limited budget and with little luggage room to spare, window, err stall browsing has to suffice.

Honestly, this country is so civilized compared to Nigeria. A few, though, have told me that political instability is a frightening possibility with Sudanese violence spilling over the northern border and Congolese bloodshed pushing in from the west.

Having slept little last night Sarah catches an afternoon nap. I walk through neighboring streets, check out Namkut, a local Walmart style supermarket, then stop for a bevy overlooking a busy Kampala street, pulling up a chair to the table of a solo gent. He eventually shares that he’s a Ugandan diplomat, second in command to the Ambassador of…, formerly posted to India, Russia and U.S. (Washington). 

Dinner is another extravagant affair at Mediterranean, a high-end Italian $50USD for two feast. It’s time to pull in the spending reigns and travel true backpacker style.

Thursday January something

Farewell Kampala at least for the next short while.  We stock up with food supplies from Namkut, a WalMartish supermarket. Arrive at Red Chilli resort mid-afternoon. This place is beyond stereotypical hostel.  Edgy décor, local print bed linens, large pool, bars, wifi, decent familiar food. If one were to find any fault it’s that there’s no real sense of being in Uganda, Africa. Even the music is western: no PSquare, Flavour or WhizKidz Nigerian imports.

More than once, boda-boda (motorbike) or taxi drivers mention how they like Nollywood flicks – “they make me laugh.”  I haven’t really picked up a sense of Ugandan culture. Hopefully that presents as we move from cosmopolitan urbanity to rural outlands.

Facial features are beginning to define place, though.  Nigeria almond eyes, pronounced cheekbones and tiny ears; Ethiopian oblong faces, toothy smiles, short stature; round Ugandan faces, lips not as full as neighbours to the west.

The white population is strikingly visible. Hostels are full of all ages; plenty of 20 to 30 somethings, several families with small children, noticeable numbers of travellers my age – couples mostly.  I’m sitting in a comfy wicker chair in the bar area overlooking the pool, manicured lawns and distant suburbs. Mozzies flit in and out of the screenless windows.  Earlier today an African tourist flopped and splashed in the wading pool, hurling herself in a determined-to-swim fashion that was delightfully comical.

(Sidebar: Far from here, I’ve just received word that Uncle Phil passed. Sending loving thoughts to Robin and Dorothy and Meg and Anne)

Back from the BIG FIVE Safari

Giraffes, hippos, elephants, water buffalo, plenty of antelope with twisty antlers, grey-hooded kingfisher, cobalt-blue guinea fowl, huge horned bills. For hours of travel. On the road by 6:30am.  Ferried across the Nile at dawn; a beautiful sunrise. Savannah catches my breath, stretching as far and wide as the eye can take in. Warthogs, hairy and tusky, are first up, followed by baboons, those enormous mariboo stork, antelope and woot woot!!!majestic giraffe. To think of them in their tiny enclosure at the Toronto Zoo is so sad. Their strides cover large stretches of terrain. It would have been incredible to see them bound but their large looming bodies against the grasslands and occasional savannah scrub will suffice.  Multitudes of antelope large and small, some this coiled antlers, others with curved.  Water buffalo herd upon herd. Hippos submerged, pink ears flapping, white heron-ish birds ride bareback, the occasional snort as this school bathes at the Nile Albert basin.  More waterbuffalo. More antelope. A couple or three enormous!!! Elephants (small tusks suggest they’re in their early 20s; they live into their late 70s). Ears fan.  Then as horse to trough, our safari driver non-stop gases it to the ferry. DoneO.

This entry finds me sitting at the Red Chilli Murchison Fall’s camp, in the communal area overlooking a spot of Albert Nile and Murchison Park in the distance.  Mariboo stork soar above thevalley, white-yellow butterflies flutter among the scrub. The occasional dragonfly flits by…on safari they escort our vehicle in droves.

The air is dry. Gritty. Cactus trees tower above palm fronds. Sausage trees bear fruit that look just as you’d imagine.  Seemingly a hard nutty inside eaten by elephants, hippos and baboons, is a kind of distilled fruit that gets them tipsy.  Odd pine forests dot the shoulder leading to this camp. Some of them look like bottle brushes. One tall solo stalk of bristle. Thorny bushes look dangerously nasty. And the birds- so very many varieties, trill and tweet, circle and hop. A family of mariboos are nesting in a tree near our tent; baby bird heads peak out every now and then.

(Official names of animals spotted:

Antelopes - Eland, Common Duiker, Uganda Kob, Bohor Reedbuck, Oribi

Olive baboon

B&W Colobus Monkey

Giant Forest Hog

Grey Crowned Crane

Day Two

Murchison Falls adventure is over. LOVED the boat journey down the Nile: lots of hippos, enormous crocs, families of African elephants and so many  exquisite birds under the African Sun.

Nicely roasted and weary from the sun. a quick beer and into the shower.  Walking back to the tent, wearing a skimpy towel, clutching toiletries in one hand and clothes in the other I find mystelf in a face off with a HUGE female warthog. Ohkaaay….I drop the smellies and back away. Two women from Spain peak from their tent, watch Lady Pumba dive for the bag, sniff and tear it apart. She gives a good snort at the small wrapped bar of soap, heads towards the tent door, pauses, then turns around and traces her steps towards the Spanish tent. The women voyeurs scream and zip their flap fast. My tattered plastic toiletry bag is saliva sticky with bite tears but everything is intact.

The stars are magnificent but I can’t make sense of any constellations. I think I spot Orion’s Belt but can’t be sure. The moon is coming into fullness. Starlight is best seen just before dawn.  From the marbioo nest a few tents away, two babies peep over the tree top as adults coo and natter. I manage to record their calls. In the dining area a largins bat sweeps up to the rafters. It’s body appears to be the size of a grapefruit. I’d LOVE to see a fruit bat with a wing span of nearly two feet….

Two mornings of early starts makes it easy to fall into bed and deep slumber. We bid goodnight to our fellow adventurers: Christian Stray from Norway; Danes Cecilie and Tina, and Germans Sonja Knispel, Enya and Arnold.

Sunday Something

We’re on the road again by 8:00am, passing countless baboons and antelopes of many variety. Our drive takes us through impoverished villages.  Children run barefoot.  I think of the Ethiopian and Ugandan olympans renowned for their speed and finesse and understand why. Architecture varies from red brick with one-sided sloped roofs to thatched roof mud huts to tin and wood shanties.  I’ve yet to taste Ugandan food. It’s all been western, well, other than the wild feast at LAWNS.  Hopefully that opportunity presents as we move south/west.

The dustry roads cake our faces, clog our noses, aggravate our throats. Some three and a half hours away from Murchison Falls area we arrive at (ZUMA?) White Rhino Sanctuary.  Our minibus takes us deep into grasslands. Our guide is armed. For our protection or the Rhinos, I’m not sure. We drive a few more minutes, traipse through dry scrub and yellowing crisp grass. Voila! Four females laze in shade. They’re docile. Vegetarian.  Those horns on the tips of their noses sell for $65,000USD per gram. A gram! Insane. So each of these Rhinos has an armed guard. Poaching has decimated their numbers. We’re priviledged to be walking amongst the last 13 White (vide..wide mouth) rhinos in Uganda. It’s remarkable really to realize they’re mere meters away. They can move at 45 km/hr. Two of the adult females are pregnant and are a week or two away from deliver after a 16 month gestation period.. We watch, snap pics, wander a few more yards to another group of six more languid ladies.  It seems rather anti-climatic. Not quite a “trek” but an experience nonetheless, that few will ever know.

It’s now broaching midnight. We leave for Kampala town centre and on to Kibale bright and early tomorrow.

Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP)- Day One

We travel 35kms along red dusty roads passing dilapidated village , filthy barefoot children, men wearing too-large-for-them suit jackets , baggy pants, tilly style hats and sporting hand hewn walking canes as tall as themselves. Amagare driver, Deo, is suffering malaria but puts up a good front. We leave very basic accommodations in Kibale around 7:30, pit-stopping at Julius (Childs!) stand. I vid him preparing Uganda’s famously yum Rolex – a chapatti wrapped omelette. Check out this YouTube link…

Rolling hills, deep valleys, clear skies, the sun grows stronger the higher it climbs. We take the “must-do” equator photos then head into  QENP crater route, driving deeper and deeper into wilderness and stunning beauty. We stop and step out of the car to take in the vista. Baboons eye us. Deo warns of their aggressive nature. They start hollering. We dive for the car.

Three hours later we’re into the thick of wilderness not visited by tourists in months. Car paths are overgrown. Route signs are hidden behind towering stalks. We get lost quite literally in the middle of nowhere. Some seven to eight hours later we can say we’ve seen very little in the way of wildlife other than baboons, water buffalo, water bucks, sundry birds and a fantastic giant brown owl.

Exhaustion finds us at a gorgeous resort – “The Bush Lodge” on the shores of Kazinga Channel, which links lakes Albert and George.  The place is lit by candle light. We’re seated at a table for two and served a four course meal (canned tom soup and some other pretty rough fare).  Arriving in the dark we have no idea how close we are to the water or what are accommodations really look like. Falling into bed we listen to snorting hippos

Queen Elizabeth National Park – Day Two

We wake to sounds of snorting hippos, leave by flashlight, pass a hippo at the resort gate and head out for an early morning safari, questing for elusive lions.  The night before we watch antelope behave skittishly to the scent of a lion hidden in a bramble of growth.  Dusk stops us from seeing much else.

This morning we pass the enormous brown owl, still perched as it was hours earlier. The savannah is quiet. Deo is determined to find, and delivers he does; a splendid male some 10 meters from our jeep. He grooms himself. Rises. Stretches his hind legs. Muscles taught, body lean, he scrapes his hind paws against the earth like Mango cat after taking a dump, then wander off into a clump of scrub.  It’s remarkable to observe life in the wild – so interconnected. Waterbuck and buffalo and warthogs and elephants commune in the same area as the nemesis lion despite thousands of hectares. Watering holes- prime real estate in these parts.

“Is it raining?”  The armed guard hiking with us, for our safety, smiles and points to the tree canopy above.  Ummm. Noooo.  Above in the tree tops a chimp pees over Claus and me. Joy! It’s certainly a good giggle. Claus is a strong 76 year old German American. We’re standing at rivers edge just a few feet from a school of hippos. Their noisy loud guttural groans echo. Sarah snaps a fantastic collage of hippo faces. The chimps meanwhile snack on a fig fruit with gummy interior. It makes them tipsy and they LOVE it. We find them by following their hoots and hollers,  picking up pace along a jungle path potted by elephant and hippo prints, dotted with huge patches of grassy dung and the occasional chimp poo that looks a lot like a human log. The chimps swing and climb and jump and fart and scream at each other. Perfect moments strung one to the next to the next.

Travelling back from QENP becomes a zen kind of practise, capturing observations and experiences and letting them go almost as quickly to move on to document the next…

Bicycles, bicycles and more bicycles,

   sometimes walked up steep inclines.

Women working road construction sites as traffic controllers

   Tres progressive.

Banana and tea plantations

   Mass production

Aunt Jemima head scarves

Flower gardens

Lots of barefoot, tattered and dirty clothes poverty

Squatters at the side of the road

   Watching the world drive by

Tethered goats

   Not so free ranging

Driving surprisingly does not include constant horn honking

   the Nigerian norm.

Men and boys wear suit jackets and baggy pants and tilly-style hats

Boys and men holding hands

Red brick houses

Most women have close shaved heads

   Weaving is rare

Stalls intonate a healthy second hand garment and accessory trade

   our castoffs, their treasures.

Tea break

Eucalyptus trees and Sarah’s story about stoned koalas falling out of trees, sometimes on top of unsuspecting hikers.

Dust and respiratory conditions

Burning brush to encourage new growth for the wildlife

   Rather than to flush out rats for eating – Naija style

The sweet taste of a fresh coffee bean

   When squeezed the pod oozes a whit syrup; two beans inside

In these parts it’s not about fashion, it’s about functionality.

   Few worry if colours or patterns work well together

Girls and women walk the dusty roads in chunky-heeled second hand shoes

Or flip flops

Or no shoes at all

Billiard table everywhere

   Under thatched roof stalls

At the edge of villages

Cracked mud houses

Brand-painted stalls (MTN, Coca-Cola, AirTel)

Fresh dairy shops

Butcher stalls

People wave as you pass

If you stop to take their picture no one asks for money.

The poverty here is greater than anything I’ve seen in Nigeria.

A bus passes; the sign in its front window:

“Jesus is the answer.”

My question to that:

Why is Africa so poverty stricken?

Discussions around  Catholic priests and celibacy

   Ugandan priests diddle on the side

Of course there’s no condom use

   It’s forbidden by the Church

So priests have unprotected sex

   They get sick with HIV/Aids

   and die.

Uganda’s current president

   25 years in power

Used child soldiers to overthrow the military

On the road to Lake Bunyoni we pass children, quarrying.

Their tiny bodies covered in grey grit.

Child labour forced by their parents

   to earn a few more shillings

Toiling from dawn til dusk

For 5,000 or $2USD per day.

I’m haunted by the girl maybe 10 years, sitting at the edge of the road with another child, the quarry behind them. Both are grey skinned. Sooty skinned. Dark black eyes stare blankly, lifeless, void of innocence, imagination, dreams.

It’s worse than anything I’ve ever seen: India, Peru…

My gut aches.

My eyes well 

I cannot speak for the rest of the drive.

 --

Now, I find myself in a sublime setting. Paradise. A private banda overlooks rolling hills, I hesitate to call them mountains, and  softly lapping lake Bunyoni.  Insects and birds call to the night. There are no screens, simply one magnificent opening, an enormous deck and the view beyond.  Tucked south are islands inhabited by pygmies, politically correctly referred to as the small people.

Birds wake us at 10:00, actually hopping into our hut. We spend the entire day dipping and dozing, dine on fine vegetarian food, have grand chats with New York Mia, and MsMegan (from Dundas - ? really? And she knows Dan Radoslav? Seriously?).

Mia is an air traffic controller working with the UN in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She’s seen at least a dozen corpses littering the streets; cars pass around the bodies, pedestrians step over them No one pays heed. In the last month the airport where she’s posted has been attacked by insurgents three times. She is not allowed to walk anywhere, travel is only by secured vehicle to and from work. It’s an insular, soul-crushing experience. Mia wonders why her creative spark seems to have sputtered out? I suspect she’s suffering from PTSD and doesn’t yet know it.

CATCH UP PART I

SorryO. It's been a while thanks to vacation travel, return  to an uber busy schedule back in Calabar, departure to Abuja and onward to Canada.  So, here's catchup in snippits:

Lord of the Dance

Thursday December 26

Have you written it all down?” Dad asks.

No, but I will.

I’ve just had the best, ever! marathon conversation with family.  Mom and Dad are hosting a Boxing Day gathering of merry makers 35 and.  Kaleigh tells me she’s meeting family she never realized she had.  Well doneO.  Connection is what it’s all about. It’s that irrefutable human instinct to be part of something bigger that brings such pleasure.

While family is rekindling continents away, a few of us expats have created our own pseudo xmas family: the group’s designated driver George (Yiorgos) a police attache and Costas a Ph.D IT specialist both from the Greek Embassy in Abuja, Frank (aka Al) a VSO volunteer from the Phillipines, and Esly and Sanne, two Netherlands ladies also here on VSO’s tab. They’re a low key group, easy guests.

Today, our vehicle’s red license plates are spotted by the executive director of Calabar Carnival. We’re escorted through road barriers to VIP parking and front row canopy seats. The State Governor and his entourage take their place beside us. How privileged to watch the cultural parade in such comfort. I feel special. Television and newspaper cameramen shoot and snap away.  Enh. Nothing unusual for us oyibos. A couple of hours into the festivities the MC approaches George to ask if I’m the Ambassador of Greece. Seriously?

The cultural parade features music and dance from the country’s different regions.  There’s lots of drumming. Lots of hollowed cow horn blowing. Lots of intriguing costumes adorned with peacock plumes, animal skin loin cloth and beadwork.  Lots of crowd pleasing River Dance/ Nigerian style foot stomping, accentuated by shell and bell anklets; one troupe wear knee high metal rings. Many dance along the hot asphalt route barefoot. Benue State is the fave for most of us. Sporting Tiv black and white wraps, they dip and weave in a contorted fashion; the children I’d seen dancing similarly in one of our triggering sessions now makes sense. 

Evening finds us on Marion Street at Monic’s bush bar and then the Christmas Market. If anyone asks us, we agree to tell them we’re a delegation from Belarus. Most Nigerian’s won’t have a clue about this country. Our greeting?  “Opah!”We swap names and emulate each other’s personas. Do I really wear my glasses on the tip of my nose, wildly gesticulate and ask deep dark questions?  Ummm hell yeah.

A grand day to be sure, it’s now after 1:00 am and time to call it a night. Morning comes soon.

The morning after the day before

Saturday December 28

All of us are weary. Yesterday’s heat melted away every ounce of energy. Sweat pooled and dripped from behind knees, collected between fingers and toes, soaked clothes that stuck to overheated bodies.

Stoked and sporting festive masks we arrive for the Carnival early enough to buy seats under canopy shade out front of High Quality Bakery. That’s around 10am. The parade is meant to reach us by noon but doesn’t actually get underway until after 5pm. Crowds are thick. We think we’ve situated ourselves at one of the main performance vantage points but disappointingly discover the dancers are spent after doing their thing some yards up the road. They pass without so much as even a wave. The canopy flaps that shield us from sun impede clear sight of passing floats.  After too many hours of sticky skin drenching heat, I seek occasional breezes crossing behind the canopies. Babs and H, two of the bakery’s three principal investors/operators join me. They keep those of my entourage who drink refreshed with complimentary bottles of ice cold Heinken. By 8pm we’re back at the house cooking a fast pasta dinner. We’re told the Carnival will carry on into the wee hours, but as we make our way back to Marion a steady stream of cars suggests otherwise. Barricades have been removed. Crowds long dispersed. It’s just past 10pm?!

“The carnival was poor.” 

 “The costumes were not as good as last year.”

“This is the worst carnival.”

Street consensus is unanimous. Without a comparative point of reference it’s still fair to say we’re disappointed with Calabar’s signature event.  I bid auf weider zien as Costas and Frank and Sanne and Esly and George pull away for the long car ride north to Obudu. They’ll sleep well tonite, the cool mountain air a welcome respite from Calabar’s 24/7 humidity.

JUST LIKE THAT

Sunday December 29

How glorious to sleep in. I’ve begun to think my internal clock won’t allow that luxury, but today I don’t wake until 10:30, make a pot of decaf, fall back into bed to read and wake a couple of hours later.

Spend the better part of the day poolside at Axari’s gabbing with two new Nigerian friends and Texas Marty. As boozy eyed as ever Marty asks if I remember Eric, “the bald guy.”

Umm, no?

“He’s dead.”

Say what?

“Yeah, he’s dead, the day after Christmas. It was liver failure, excessive internal bleeding.  Four of us had to carry him out of his room. You can’t call 911 around here. There are no ambulances. You should have seen the hotel trying to figure out how to get a vehicle closer to his room. When we got to the nearest hospital they had a helicopter waiting to air-lift him to Navy hospital. But he was gone in six hours. Just like that.”

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Monday December 30, 2013

Today was nothing exceptional. I picked up a few odds and ends for the trip to Uganda and Rwanda, found a cyber café to send email and killed a few hours hanging with Tina tailor.  Hopes are that she can make a dress for Sarah before I leave to Abuja Thursday.  In between, it’s end-of-year time. What that means around town I’m not sure. No one seems to have plans other than returning to homestead villages. So I’ve accepted an offer to do the same. I’ll catch public transit from Calabar’s main transportation hub tomorrow afternoon travelling some 45 minutes north to Okurikang junction leading to the State of Akwa Ibom.  Then it’s a west-bound ride for another 20-40 minutes before meeting up with Effiom and riding by motorbike to his village, Akpap, just outside of Creektown.  This is the same area spent traipsing thru mucky-muck mango swamps Easter weekend. It’s a place where children have enormous belly buttons from botched deliveries and extended bellies from poor nutrition. It’s the neighbourhood where members of Pandrillus Peter’s task force, combating illegal logging, were nearly blown to bits by a bomb last week. A community marginalized by poverty. It’ll be interesting to see how the ending year is sent out, the New Year heralded in and where I’ll rest my head when all is done.

Books read over the last 10 months:

Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts

About an escaped convict who spends his fugitive years in Bombay where he established a free medical clinic for his fellow slum-dwellers and worked as a counterfeiter, smuggler, gunrunner and street soldier. Even though it’s 933 pages you’re still left wanting more.

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, by Walter Rodney

A must read for Africans and African expats; academic slugging with gobsmacking insights.

The Marsh Arabs, by Wilfred Thesiger

Meh. An outdated non-fiction read about marsh people, tribal Arabs living completely water-dominated lives. 

Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Almost unbearable yet it somehow made the 2006/07  #1 New York Time Bestseller list. It was probably the timeliness of the subject matter: building schools for impoverished Pakistanis and Afghanis – “in the forbidding terrain that gave birth to the Taliban.”

Purple Hibiscus, by Chimamandu Adiche

Such a gifted writer who exposes the underbelly of Nigerian Christian fundamentalism, patriarchal dominance and the toll it takes on innocent children.

Americana, by Chimamandu Adiche

African American or American African, in this brilliant novel the author writes about life from both vantage points.

La Cucina, by Lilly Priyer (?)

A delightful story set in a gourmand’s favourite setting with Italian characters who discover the sensual power of kitchens and their outcomes, as true foodies have long known.

The Inbetween World of Vikram Lall, by M.G. Vassanji

A Canadian award-winner with good reason, this narrative follows the story of an East Indian born and bred in Africa and his coming unravelled.

The Question of Bruno, by Aleksander Herman

Not all that memorable since I can barely recall the storyline; something about living in Eastern Europe during a period of violence and strife, immigrating to the U.S. and recounting travails.

Monkey Luv, by Robert Sapolsky

A non-fiction look at nurture verses nature.

The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison

Winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature, this chronicle of poor black families in 1940s Ohio is heartbreaking.

Forests of the Heart, by Charles de Lint

This Ottawa-based Canadian author weaves a fantastical tale about juju and the spirit world of First Nations, Celtic and Mexican-Indian peoples.  Much of the story is set in a city besieged by a brutal ice-storm (Ottawa/Montreal 1999?). Most of the writing is palatably bad.

The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman

What would happen to planet earth if humankind were to disappear in a blink? This New York Times Bestseller examines the enormity of destruction left in the wake of Homon sapien carelessness.

The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, by Tom Wolfe

Unreadable disappointment.

Out with the Old, In with the New

Thursday January 2, 2014

To my surprise, Effiom arrives in Calabar to escort me back to Akpap Oykong for 2013/14 festivities. We catch a share taxi at MCC and Mobile late afternoon. Squished like a tin of sardines, we six passengers rattle and roll along a route just as bad if not worse than the dancing road to Ikom. Though I understand nothing of what he is saying, Effiom’s quips break fellow passengers in laughter. This is a guy who seemed so quiet when accompanying his VSO mentor, Christine A. He tells me he likes to listen and learn, to soak up what he hears like a sponge.  In his own zone he’s called the “Master” by student beneficiaries of the Mary Slessor Foundation, an organization he now manages. Over the course of my visit I come to realize he is widely known and respected by folks young and old. His entire 32 years have been lived in this place where faces are familiar and everyone knows everyone.

We arrive at the Okurikang junction and hop a bike; a threesome squish. I’d forgotten how beautiful this area is. It’s lush, peppered with fushia and mauve, deep blue and iridescent yellow flowers. Women and children walk the shoulders carrying buckets of water from nearby streams. The houses look so tidy, front yards swept clear of debris.  

At Akpap town roundabout we grab Effiom’s bike and head up the road to the house where Christine lived. It’s empty, vacant since she left.  But the children are still there and gather tentative at first.  I don’t see sweet Mary, the tiny child with piercing dark eyes who crawled into my arms and held tight on my last visit.  I teach the ensemble how to play hopscotch while Effiom sweeps and tidies.  Pineapple spines bear tiny new fruit, the fruits of Christine’s gardening. That girl loved her pineapple! It’s a wonder her mouth wasn’t one giant cankerous sore the way she wolfed them down. As I watch the children chasing after each other one of them stays by my side; she sits squatting on her feet and stares into my face.  Mary!  She’s grown SO much it takes time to recognize her.  She’s taller with a fuller face and a light crop of tight curls, still dressed in tattered clothes that don’t fit.  “I remember you,” I whisper.  She stares deeper, “yes.”

As night falls “corper” joins us, a new 20-something graduate from Lagos working at the local primary school as a teacher. The three of us take off again on Effiom’s bike, turn at the roundabout to a house with strands of Christmas lights, coloured strobe lights, Tupac tunes, platters and bottles plentyO. And so, the night begins.

Another guy, “second-son” I call him, becomes part of the four-man chaperone team that stay by my side over the next 18 hours. Effiom and his posse: my boyz. 

Feeling comfortably numb we shift to our next venue, an outdoor bush bar. The table fills fast with bottles of Star. Wrestling is airing on the small mounted TV set. Rose! It makes sense that she’d be joining me for this memorable experience. After all, we shared her last NewYear’s Eve together. I definitely feel her presence.  Nine months in Nigeria and this is the first time I’ve seen wrestling.

It’s also the first time I’ve seen chicken wings! I order a stick of six. When they arrive at our table the guys scoff.  “No really! Don’t send them back; they’re a treat in Canada.” Heavily coated in pepe they rival even Honey’s suicide version.  While we wait for midnight when the churches let out, Croper teaches me how to dance Nigerian style. Second son tells me how his wife has left him and returned to her family. He can’t provide for her. A certified welder, he hasn’t the N35000 to purchase equipment. He has nothing to present to his wife, to his inlaws. I can see where this is headed and tell him straight up that I cannot provide financially but will ask around on his behalf. He asks if I’ll come tomorrow at 7am to help with peacekeeping efforts, the first day of the new year. Seven in the morning? oooK-O.

Fireworks crack. Young women finally show up, dressed down after hours Amen-ing in their finery. We return to the happy den, call my folks, my Boyz send their greetings in Efik and Yoruba.

Highlight snippets:

Pig out on ginger rice and tomato pepe stew at 2am

Wake early to roosters

Breakfast on Efung soup (periwinkles and skin and hunks of unidentifiable meat and fish) with garri - lovingly prepared by Croper. I dip and swallow the broth, barely.

Travel by bike – our foursome to Creektown

Build an Inukshuk for Rose

Watch baptisms in murky shit-brown water

Snap pics of flowers

Pit stop for smoke

Take back roads into another village to deliver December salary to Mary Slessor security

Buy a goat leg hanging from a roadside stall.

Travel into more back roads to Effiom’s home – meet his wife and two children. The baby cries at my whiteness. The little girl plays coy, so I do the same and in no time we’re fast friends.  I watch her sucking back mouthfuls of Star and smacking her lips with satisfaction.

Bid Adieu.