Life After Lagos

I have now published all the diary entries from my first trip to Nigeria in 2000. Looking back through them for me has been an interesting experience, many events I had forgotten, and some of my thoughts surprised me. I only vaguely recognise the person that wrote those notes.

Obviously I had to edit a lot of the details, some things would only be understood by my friends and family in the UK, so I cut those bits out. I removed names of everyone except public people, such as the chap who ran Planet 44.

Things changed quite quickly after those early days, Money was restricted so that we no longer enjoyed late night partying catered for by the company, My pay was set at a level somewhat lower than I was expecting. The same with my per diem. Working with Canadians proved quite difficult with different time zones, having to wait until 9am in Calgary before we could contact anybody which would be 5pm in Lagos, just when we were thinking about going home.

In 2001 I contracted Malaria, just after visiting our Canadian offices at Easter, and suffered with it for over two weeks. This was despite taking the anti-malarial drugs as directed. At that time I hadn’t heard of Artemisinin and did not question the doctor giving me quinine based drugs. The drugs certainly shifted the Malaria but gave me terrible itching of the utmost discomfort.

In the end, the project I came to Nigeria to work on failed in 2002. Not because we couldn’t do the job, but because we lost a LOT of money in a Bank Fraud, only a small part of which was ever recovered. For 2003 I was working in the UK, until march 2004 when I was called back to Nigeria to work with another company, established by my British colleagues from the old Canadian company. I started work on the project that I am just finishing now. This project too has had it’s financial problems but nothing on the scale of that first project.

Basically, to summarise, I think now I do understand life in Nigeria a bit more, I feel more like a resident than a visitor, despite my UK tax status which still says I’m a UK Resident. I enjoy the challenges of living here, Every day is different. The Nigerian people impress me with their ability to believe a dire situation will improve. Now, I believe it will improve, given enough time and people whose interests lie away from the goal of fantastic wealth.

There is wonderful beauty in Nigeria, if you can tolerate a whole heap of Ugliness that’s in the way, you can find it.

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from December 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Friday 15th December 2000

5:30 my alarm went off, it was dark outside. Thankfully the water was still working now and I could get my last shower and pack my wash bag into my suitcase. I had a knock on the door from M3… who wanted to check I was up. I went down for breakfast at 6. After breakfast I brought down my bags and J3… took them out to the car for me. D… told be to keep N1000 in case I had to bribe my way through customs and split whatever I had left over with M3… J3… and M4…. I had N1500 so that was lucky. So I thanked M3… and M4… for looking after me and handed them N500 each. they wished me a good Christmas and said they looked forward to seeing me in the new year. I got in the car with D… and we were off to the airport. It was getting lighter now and I recognised the roads I’d travelled nearly four weeks ago on my way in.

We got to the airport and were immediately hounded by people trying to carry my luggage (in exchange for a tip) but J3… shooed them away and handed my luggage to me and D…. I gave J3… his N500 and waved goodbye.

And so to check in, I had my suitcase checked, they wanted to know what I was carrying, I had two folding tables inside that D… wanted me to take back for him. They wanted me to prove that I wasn’t stealing African art treasures. In the end they gave up, I think they worked out that there weren’t many folding tables around in pre-colonial Nigeria. After that it was plain sailing to the cafe where I got a coke and then went to the boarding lounge. Before we boarded the plane we had to go out onto the tarmac to identify our suitcases before they put them on the plane. I don’t know why they do this, but if you don’t identify your luggage it stays in Nigeria. This happened to D… on his first trip.

While I was waiting to board I had a talk to another British traveller who was about my age, the first I’d seen. He was impressed at the number of bars I’d been to since I’d been there, he was also impressed that I’d stayed for nearly 4 weeks on my first trip. He’d only ever stayed two.

We boarded and I had a window seat near the very back of the plane in row 51. It was a better plane than the one that brought me here, it had individual TV screens for every passenger in the back of the seat in front. I could choose what to watch now. There’s also a handy map channel that shows you where you are and other information like altitude, ground speed, outside air temperature (-59C over the Sahara, I had frost on my window) and Estimated arrival time.

There was a patch of bad turbulence on the way over the Sahara and we climbed to 39,000 feet or nearly 12 Km. There’s not much to see when flying over the desert, I think I saw a herd of wildebeest but it just looked like a rippling black blob so it could have been something else.

Eventually I saw the white cliffs of Dover and there was only 60 miles left till Heathrow. It was darkening now and while we circled over London waiting for our turn to land it became night.

This side, customs was a breeze. I skipped past all the Nigerian immigrants and went straight in to the queue for EU passport holders. There was only 5 or six in the queue, a quick scan of my passport and I was welcomed home. I found a seat to use while I waited for my suitcase to come around, It eventually did and I was out of there.

I needed to change my Bus Ticket so that I could go from Heathrow instead of Gatwick like my Ticket indicates. I found the Coach Ticket shop and had my ticket changed, it cost me £1.50. I was told to look out for the 202 bus arriving at 18:10. It was only just 17:15 so I went wandering around the airport for a while. I bought some snacks to keep me going and then headed out to the bus shelter. It was very cold out here, I opened my suitcase to get my fleece out and put it on. It made things a little better but not much. I was missing Nigeria already.

I saw a bus come in around 18:15 numbered 201. It said it was going to Cardiff but since it wasn’t the number I was told to get I assumed that it didn’t stop in Newport. At 19:00 I decided that I’d better check with the ticket shop again because my bus hadn’t shown up. They told me that the bus had been and gone at 18:15. The Cardiff Bus. I complained that it said 201 but they said it should have been 202 and there was nothing they could do. By the time I’d paid another £1.50 to get the next bus, it had arrived and gone, it was early this time. So I had to change it again and get the next one at 20:10. They let me have this one free though.

So eventually I got a bus and I was so cold I could hardly move. Luckily the bus was quite warm and I managed to sleep a little on the way. I hardly noticed a thing between Reading and Bristol.

I had arranged for mum to pick me up at 9:15, I finally arrived in Newport at 11:15 and had to phone her to get her to pick me up. Eventually she came and we sped home.

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from December 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Thursday 14th December 2000

Today was my last day at the office and there wasn’t a lot to do. D… had his press conference with 100 expected attendees with the Commissioner for Information. I had been invited to give some moral support but I had enough of meeting government officials in the first week I had here, and I didn’t particularly want to be in the newspapers or on the TV.

This was also M1…’s last day here, he was leaving tonight, and we both went to the British Airways office on VI together so I could confirm my ticket for tomorrow morning and M1… could check in. D… had been unable to find his ticket after his recent move and wanted me to enquire about replacing a lost ticket.

In the afternoon D2… came around again with his laptop, and wanted me to go with him to his house to see If I could get him connected to the internet, he’d been unsuccessful so far, and had no trouble when he connected at the office. So J3… took us over at about 3pm and I was expecting somewhere pretty decent for a solicitor, but no. It was a huge, ugly block of flats. We couldn’t get the car into the car park on the first try because there is a speed bump outside that would require a JEEP to get over. since the Lumina we were in is very low to the ground we didn’t really want to risk getting hooked up. The other road around to the car park was almost as bad with potholes that should be called craters. Eventually we make it and I go with D2… to his flat. The heat in here was very bad, no NEPA and no AC anyway. I was taken to his office and sat down. I picked up the handset of the phone and immediately realised what the most likely cause of D2…’s problem was. The line was very noisy, like radio static and sometimes it took two or three tries just to get a dial-tone.

I tried hooking the laptop up and while it dialled it made some of the strangest noises I’ve ever heard. It got nowhere of course. Eventually I gave up, by this time I was sweating all over. D2… offered me a drink but since he’s fasting for Ramadan I thought it polite not to take it.

So at around 5 I got back to the office, D… had come back and had now gone to the house, M1… had arranged to have dinner at 5 so that he could eat with us one last time before leaving that night. After dinner we saw him off and went inside to shower and change. D… had decided to move into M1…’s vacated room tonight so that he could be here to take me to the airport tomorrow morning.

So it was decided to have one last trip to Planet 44 – we did the Original Sins, B52s and the E… ice-cream thing.

So we went back to the house for sleep in preparation for an early 5:30am start and a goodbye to Nigeria and my good friends.

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from December 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Wednesday 13th December 2000

Today was the Christmas party at the office. Since E… was leaving today and needed to pack, D… was called upon to conduct the award ceremony where those who have been with the company x amount of years get an award. We’ve been too busy to sort out anything special so the awards this time which were all for 5 years service were just a simple $100 bill. They seemed very happy with it though. for 10 years they get a big screen TV.

The staff all seemed to enjoy themselves, M4… and M3… had brought food from the house and served it out for us.

Cosmas turned up during the party to confirm that the delivery of computers would be on Friday, too late for me to supervise.

All the staff at our office in Akure, had come to Lagos to join our party. Last year D… and M1… were working in Akure where they butchered and barbecued a goat (not themselves obviously) to celebrate Christmas. No goat this year thankfully. Just Pork Chops, Chicken and Rice, there was free beer that had been brought from our house for everyone. E… likes to tell the tale of him working on the expenses sheet and having to type in, “one goat”. He was wondering what sort of response would arise in Calgary but nobody noticed. Probably because it was so inexpensive. There seemed to be a bit of confusion with M4… and he didn’t manage to get the food to the office until 2pm and we didn’t start eating until 3 because they wanted to get the award ceremony out of the way first. We decided that having a final meal with E… at 5 would be stretching things a bit far so we cancelled our dinner with M4… and arranged to go out.

At about 4:30 I went back to the house to see E… go back to Calgary, about an hour later we had a phone-call to say he’d made it through customs and was now sitting in the bar in the departure lounge drinking a pint of becks.

At 9pm we went to planet 44 for a snack, we were all pretty full from lunch. I had an egg burger which was more of a meal really. E… had left a cheque for us to take to Ranni to pay our bills for the last few weeks. I looked over one of them and we had spent N20,000 (£120) in one night on drinks. No wonder Ranni is always pleased to see us.

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from December 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Tuesday 12th December 2000

Aside from the fact that I had absolutely nothing to do there was only one thing interesting about today.

I GOT PAID!

I was handed £xxx to cover my travel and medical expenses and $yyy ($zz for every working day including travelling days)

I’ve never seen real $100 or $50 bills before and now I’ve got $xxx of each. When America finally makes up its mind to elect George W Bush as president they expect the dollar to get stronger for a while so I’ll get more pounds that way. Woo Hoo, last time I checked it was 1.4547 $/£ which means I take home about £yyy. which isn’t bad for 4 weeks work I think. I should have my rate increased when I come back so that should be even nicer.

D… was paid his as well, He’s asked me to carry some of his money home for him, I’m a bit worried about customs searches but D… thinks it’ll be OK

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from December 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Monday 11th December 2000

This week is meant to be my busiest week according to D… but I’m still not sure exactly what he means. I’ve got to wait for the PC’s to arrive and then all I’ll be doing is setting them up unless that. I’ll no doubt have plenty of help. The problem I think we’re going to have is that D… wants to put PC’s on every desk and some desks just won’t take it, because they are already full with drawings and paperwork. It looks like they want me to install the network rather than get someone else to do it. I’ll have to work out some measurements of my own before I leave so I can get the right amount of cable, for when I return in January, that is if I can get a new visa. The visa I have is valid for three months but only for one trip, so unless I stay here over Christmas I’ll have to go to the Nigerian High Commission in London to explain. I have every intention of returning on Friday.

Things are so frustrating here, when I went to Hyperia last week I checked out when two of our accounts expired and they showed me the date on the system to be expiring in April 2001. Today, we get a message when dialling in that our passwords are not correct. We phone technical support at hyperia to discover that our accounts expired yesterday. I got one up on them though because I discovered I could dial in with the username and password of the account we created a few days ago for D2… and check the email accounts that were meant to have expired. Hah, email for free now.

You get such unbelievably bad service from them it’s hard to imagine that they are the best available in Nigeria. It makes us want to set up our own ISP here that charges a lot less, provides a solid 24hr service with excellent connections speed and full net access on all accounts.

D2… came in complaining that the Laptop I’d set up for him wouldn’t dial in so he could check his mail. I took it from him and tried it. It worked first time. I even tried it on an analogue line we have in the office just in case it was the fact that there is a digital exchange on this particular line that was making it work, but after a while the analogue line worked too. So I told him it was probably line noise at his house. It wasn’t anything to do with me using his account earlier because he was trying it last night.

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from December 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Sunday 10th December 2000

Breakfast

I got up at 8:30 to go with D… for breakfast with D2…, but D… didn’t show up until 9:30 which was too late for the breakfast outing. Never mind.

Sunday lunch on the beach

Afterwards we headed back to the house to change out of our sweat drenched clothes and get ready to go to the beach for lunch. By the time we got our food it was 4pm. Neither me or D… had eaten for 20 hours, longer than B2… that’s for sure. Barbecued Chicken and Chips on the beach for Sunday lunch makes a change though. Especially in December.

B2… had been trying out the reconditioned Mazda truck we just bought by running it out to the beach we were at. It broke down about halfway to the beach so he had to get a taxi back to the house to get the Toyota Landcruiser to tow the Mazda back and then come to the beach in the Landcruiser. So he had a pretty tough time. A Nigerian woman with us ordered fish for lunch which made me feel a bit ill when I saw her eating the heads. M1… hadn’t eaten his fish head so she ate that as well, all of it. Uurgh! I finished my chicken and all that was left was bone and gristle. A small boy called me from outside the beach house and pointed to the bones. So I handed them over and he proceeded to eat them by crunching straight through. I hope he didn’t choke.

We weren’t quite so pestered with beach vendors today, I didn’t buy anything at all, I would have bought this nice Breitling watch (fake of course) but the guy wouldn’t accept my price. So I told him to go away and think about it. He didn’t come back. D… ordered his Bar that he’s having made. It’s solid mahogany with hand Carved elephants on the front. An amazing bargain at N45,000. He wanted to have a cheap shed built for a generator housing at the Apartment. That was going to be made of mahogany too. How much is a mahogany garden shed worth in the UK? It seems to be easiest wood to get here. There was some guy trying to sell me ivory statues, and another trying to sell me a sword. As if I’d even attempt to take those through customs.

I did see some interesting bracelets before, they were made of Cobra skin, and they felt and looked amazing. I wasn’t too sure if I knew anybody that would appreciate them as much, so I didn’t buy them. I think K1… bought some of them for her daughters while she was here.

The sun disappeared behind the smoggy skyline and we had 30 minutes or so to get home before dark.

For our evening meal we went to Planet 44 at about 9pm. D…, M1… and E… each had a steak after they saw the one I had last time. I had Beef Stroganoff because nobody had tried that yet. It was good, except it tasted a bit too much of cheese, which is strange because I’m sure Beef stroganoff is usually not at all cheesy.

They had rather irritating live music so we left quite quickly. and headed back to the house to watch the Matrix and then get some sleep.