Dinner on the first night in Akure - Greg, me, Lucy and Jumoke and Titi below
Don't be fooled by the camera flash - it was very dark with only the oil lamp to light the room
The banana tree in the garden
Welcome to Nigeria! A bad section on the main road from Ibadan to Akure
The three hours on the floor in Lagos airport have got to rank as the worst attempt at a night's sleep I have ever had. We were lying near to an ATM that pumped out words and music all night and made sleep virtually impossible. At 5am I gave up and got up! Gregory had experienced much the same problems - Stella, very wisely, had gone to sleep in the car. We went to joint her, and about 6am - just as light was beginning to streak into the sky, we left Murtalla Mohamed International Airport, and headed into the Lagos traffic. I had thought that we might be spending a couple of days in Lagos but in fact we are going to do that at the end of the trip. Today we were heading towards Gregory's home town of Akure via Ibadan where we were due to have breakfast with some friends.
Lagos was already busy and it soon became apparent that the guide book is right: it is a chaotic and overcrowded city with a seemingly interminable traffic problem. Luckily for us, most of the traffic was heading into town while we were heading out.
The journey to Ibadan took about three hours - most of it through the outskirts of Lagos. The roads were not as bad as I had expected and my first impressions were that the country was cleaner than I had expected. Both Gregory and my guide book had warned me that there were piles of rubbish "everywhere" - but that is not true and therefore it was quite a pleasant surprise. There are frequent stops at semi-roadblocks manned by soldiers and/or police. But at every one without exception we were waved through. The main purpose of them seems to be to enable the police to collect their 20 naira from the minibus and taxi drivers. This is called DASH.
One of the striking features of the journey was whenever we slowed down near any town or settlement every vehicle is mobbed by hawkers selling bread, eggs, "balm" and a whole host of things that I have yet to recognise. It is quite an experience. Stella bought some bread from one of them.
We got to Ibadan somewhere around 930am and the first stop was a Bank to meet Stella's daughter and to collect some new wads of Naira. I am beginning to get my head around the money. One pound sterling is worth about 250 naira. The government have apparently just issued some new notes and both Gregory and Stella were keen to get some wads of the said notes to replace their old and dirty ones. Lower denominations are apparently more useful and Stella came back to the car with a wad of crisp 5 naira notes (worth 2p each) and also 10 naira notes.
Ibadan is another huge city with a bustling mass of humanity. Although I was half asleep, I was immediately struck by the vividly coloured and patterned clothes worn by both men and women - both the colour and the cleanliness contrasting sharply with the environment.
We headed to the office of Gregory's friend and mentor Mr Frank Akadiri. He is a warm and hospitable man. I was struck by the fact that Stella knelt as she entered the office - a mark of respect (more about Yoruba traditions later!).
We then went to the Akadiri home where Mrs Akadiri produced a breakfast of rice and sauce with spinach and fish - the fish having been farmed in their own fishery. Their home is a spacious farm house - but like most homes over here appears to have sporadic electricity and no running water. I had a very welcome shower with a dish and bucket; they switched on their own generator so that Gregory could charge his mobile phone.
I slept soundly for about two hours and only woke because it was getting very warm. It was about 1245. Gregory had taken Stella home in the meantime and was ready to leave. We made our farewells at the home and office and soon Gregory and I were on the road to Akure.
Having slept a little more I was slightly more awake and aware than on the first leg of the journey. Ibadan to Akure took about four hours. I was struck by how green and beautiful the country is - I had not expected it to be so verdant. As we got further east it was more undulating - with smaller hills compared to the flat and featureless landscape around Lagos and Ibadan. The roads were mostly very good but can sometimes almost disappear due to subsidence and lack of maintenance. For this reason you can imagine that driving is very stressful - you have to have your wits about you as there are the most horrendous pot holes in the road at any and every point and you have constantly to dodge them. There are no rules about overtaking and so cars pass on every side. You can be driving down a perfect dual carriage way at 90 mph and over the next brow will be a jam because the road has gone, there are huge ruts, and passage is possible only with the most careful negotiation. We passed a huge lorry on its side which had obviously not expected the ruts it had encountered.
We passed through Ile-Ife and Ondo - both pleasant enough towns surrounded by bush land and some interesting looking hills/small mountains. We arrived at Akure just after 5. Gregory was obviously relieved to have got us home safely and before dark: everyone apparently wants to be at their destination before nightfall.
The roads in Gregory's part of town have got to be seen to be believed. They are sandy roads - not paved - with valleys cutting across them - much much bigger than ruts. You would not even attempt to take a car along them in the UK. But Gregory negotiated them with apparent ease and we were soon at his home and the gate was opened by his daughter Titilayo (Titi for short). She has been watching over my shoulder for this whole post and is correcting my spelling. It looks as though we are about to run out of time so I will end here.
We have now sorted out that problem so I will continue. I met Gregory's wife Lucy and his other daughter Jumoke. They live in a pleasant first floor apartment in a block of four. Again, there was no electricity when I arrived and no running water (I discovered today that they have not had the latter for 15 years). But the bedroom is excellent and once again I had a very welcome shower with a dish and bucket. It goes dark around 6.30 and the electricity had just come on about 7 when we were ready to eat. It went off almost immediately so my first meal with the Braimah family was eaten by kerosene lamp. It was a delicious dinner of fish and stew, vegetables and pounded yam followed by an orange. I went to bed about 8pm as I was too tired to think - and as I was going the electricity came back on. This apparently is the norm and there is seldom electricity during the day but it comes on later in the evening and stays on for about six hours. Nevertheless I was too exhausted to stay up and watch tv. I read for a while and put out the light before 9. I was woken intermittently by cheering people who were evidently watching a football game on TV, and by the heavy and prolonged rain that came during the night. But I slept - and that was what I needed the most.
No comments:
Post a Comment