Michaels Hairdressing and Barbering
Payoff line:
"Your looking is my proudness"
Real Milk (not the fake kind, you check)
Payoffline:
"Jolliment in a bottle"
Heineken
Payoffline:
"Chairman"
(guessing that might mean 'the boss of beers'?)
Anyway enough of advertising-it is fun, one must mention.
Not so fun was being rudely woken up at 1 am in the morning choking and battling for breath in an apartment that is filled with smoke.
Turned out that some wires (one or several of the spaghetti in the roof) was smoldering away under the strain of 450 Volts ( I read that on my so called surge protectors, which aren't really protecting me as it turn out).
I fled and found refuge in my colleagues apartment downstairs for the rest of the night.
So, its now about 6 in the morning and I stagger out of D's apartment, blanket and pillow in hand, dressing gown on, to the amusement and utter disbelief (to my seemingly immoral conduct) into the carpark in the compound in full view of the 3 drivers who are busy washing our transport.
No, no it's not what you think...there was a fire in my apartment...
Yeah right-was written all over their faces.
Never mind, I survived yet another Lagos adventure just barely getting away with my little life, nogh all.
Only hours later going to a business forum meeting at the German Embassy, my driver gets arrested for wrongfully turning into a one-way street (did I mention there is no oneway traffic sign?). Easy to fix the 'black shirts' though-this is how they earn their living. And they have found their ideal prey right here in Embassy road.
Such is life in West Africa.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
A tribute to Helon Habila, Poet and Novelist
BUS STOP
The hawkers are a blur in motion
Needle weaving through metal fabric
Yellow buses that come and go
their anaemic limbs joined to each other by rust
69 seated, 99 standing
Prehensile bus conductors monkey on and off running boards
calling bus stops, places
BROAD STREET
On Broad street there are no people
Only streams of intentions
Sellers, buyers, opportunity addicts
Sidling you, flashing wristwatches, jewellery and drugs
The money-changers wait by the kerb
Catching your eye, beckoning in Pounds and Dollars
Floating from Tinubu Square to Marina
You soon discover
Here all are predators
And you the only prey
The hawkers are a blur in motion
Needle weaving through metal fabric
Yellow buses that come and go
their anaemic limbs joined to each other by rust
69 seated, 99 standing
Prehensile bus conductors monkey on and off running boards
calling bus stops, places
BROAD STREET
On Broad street there are no people
Only streams of intentions
Sellers, buyers, opportunity addicts
Sidling you, flashing wristwatches, jewellery and drugs
The money-changers wait by the kerb
Catching your eye, beckoning in Pounds and Dollars
Floating from Tinubu Square to Marina
You soon discover
Here all are predators
And you the only prey
Makoko floating slum-the Venice of Lagos
There's 100,000 people living on houses built on stilts where we stumbled across Mr Chubbey-authentic, admirable, resourceful.
He has 18 children to look after, and is always on the look out for some scheme or another which will help him make more money. He's like a character from Only Fools And Horses, buying selling, wheeling and dealing, doing dodgy deals and getting by on his charm and his luck. All that's missing is the camel skin coat.
With thanks to BBC documentary "Welcome to Lagos"
Ester-a view from the slums
Esther, 24, lives in a house built on Kuramo Beach, a tiny spit of sand attached to Victoria Island, Lagos's most upmarket neighbourhood.
"I've just finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I thought it was beautiful and exciting, and I want to read the next one in the trilogy, but I haven't been able to find a copy anywhere. I pray to God that he will provide one. I love to read so much.
"This is me, outside my house on Kuramo beach. It's a small stretch of sand attached to Victoria Island, one of the most upmarket neighbourhoods in Lagos. Everyone thinks only drug addicts, armed robbers and prostitutes live here, but they never come to find out the truth. I've lived on the beach for almost eight years. There's about 1,000 of us here. Shopkeepers, motorbike taxi drivers, even businessmen who work in banks. My best friend, Lati, runs a cinema house next to where I live. We watch Nollywood movies, and all the Chelsea matches. I could never be friends with anyone who supports Manchester United. They are the Red Devils. They are devilish. Maybe they are using their devilish substance to win all the major trophies they have been winning. I hate them. Their nickname is very bad. Up Chelsea! Blues for life!
"My house cost about £60 to build. You have to buy the wood and tarpaulins, and then pay a tax to the local chairman. I like to keep it very clean. When I was arguing with my husband, we had a big fight about who was going to get the house. I wasn't going to let him leave me homeless, with nowhere to go.
"In this picture, I'm getting dressed up for church. I'm a member of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. On the first Friday of every month they hold a 'miracle service'. Sometimes there's more than a million people praying together; it's quite fantastic, and then I know God will never give up on me ..."
Badagry slave port
Sadly there are few noteworthy relics bar a little archway through which the slaves boarded the rowing boat to the point of no return.The buildings, fine examples of Brazilian/Portuguese architecture are all but crumling ruins and the townsfolk albeit very jolly and friendly have no sentiment to preserve this important part of African history.
Chevron, who's boats we came on provided 3 armed guards to accompany us on this trip and protect us from the pirates that roam the Lagos port looking for epats to hijack.
Chevron, who's boats we came on provided 3 armed guards to accompany us on this trip and protect us from the pirates that roam the Lagos port looking for epats to hijack.
Up the creek
...by boat to Bagadry, a village 45 kms up North from Lagos.
The trip provided a welcome relief out of the concrete jungle that is Lagos City and was a reasonable interesting day.
Badagry has an interesting if sombre history as the West African slave port (from 16th century to 18th century) where more than 300 000 slaves were shipped across the Atlantic to labor in the cottonfields of the New World.
It was also a key entry port for many missionaries. The slave market was established in 1502 and the sandbar across the lagoon which stretches all the way to the Benin border is the 'point of no return'. Slaves left the mainland of Africa by rowing boat to this strip of land between the creek and the mainland where they were herded along a sand path for a few meters to the waiting ships in the sea on the other side. This was propbably the last they saw of their African homeland. Legend has it that there was a waterwell from which the slaves would drink for the last time and that this water had some sort of magical effect that made them forget everything they new.
The trip provided a welcome relief out of the concrete jungle that is Lagos City and was a reasonable interesting day.
Badagry has an interesting if sombre history as the West African slave port (from 16th century to 18th century) where more than 300 000 slaves were shipped across the Atlantic to labor in the cottonfields of the New World.
It was also a key entry port for many missionaries. The slave market was established in 1502 and the sandbar across the lagoon which stretches all the way to the Benin border is the 'point of no return'. Slaves left the mainland of Africa by rowing boat to this strip of land between the creek and the mainland where they were herded along a sand path for a few meters to the waiting ships in the sea on the other side. This was propbably the last they saw of their African homeland. Legend has it that there was a waterwell from which the slaves would drink for the last time and that this water had some sort of magical effect that made them forget everything they new.
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