West Africans love mnemonics. A popular one is WASA – West Africa Strikes Again. As I tell you of the past weekend, see if you can tell where WASA applies.
One of Eriye’s friends had her white wedding (church wedding) scheduled for 30 May, so I took advantage of the off day to make a long weekend trip. I took an extra day to travel to Port Harcourt on Thursday to meet Eriye there. She had been in Port Harcourt doing her business here since early May, so we had not seen each other for some time. She had arranged for a bus from Jos to pick me at the college gate. I watched the first bus pass and called her to tell her that. She said to be patient because I was scheduled for the 2nd bus. The 2nd bus came some half hour later and also drove past. I had been trying to call the driver for some time but he would not answer the call. Somehow the manager finally got through before the bus left Akwanga, but he had to come back to the College to pick me. That was the beginning of the weekend. Other than that the trip was uneventful and I arrived in Port Harcourt about 6:00 PM. We then tried to enter the Shell Residential Area for supper but because of security issues in the Niger Delta, they are much stricter about letting strangers enter the compound – even white strangers. We had celebrated my birthday there last year about this same time but we were denied entry this time. We called my friend, Cliff, and arranged to meet him at another location and enjoyed dinner and some good conversation before retiring to our hotel for the night.
Friday we had some business to take care of. Eriye had arranged to have new clothes made for the wedding and had told the tailor that we would pick those clothes by 8:00 AM on Friday morning. We went to his shop past 9:00 and found that he had only just then started working on Eriye’s dress. We told him the urgency of completing his work, as we needed to catch a bus to Calabar by noon. He said to come back at 11:00. Meanwhile we had hired a taxi for an hour, and basically wasted most of the expense for that taxi. We dropped to see one of Eriye’s friends who has been helping with her sales. And then we went back to the hotel to rest a bit. By 11:30 we returned for the dress but it was still not completed. Again, we had spent money on a taxi but would not be able to complete our business during the time we had hired it for. We had him drop us at another friend’s house where we could wait until the tailor called to say that the dress was ready. In the meantime, I was getting more concerned that we would not get a bus to Calabar at the time we wanted it. Finally the tailor called. Eriye’s friend has a car so the husband brought us to pick the dress and took us to the bus station.
We arrived there about 1:30 and the bus was scheduled to leave at 2:30. We got the last two seats. We showed the attendant our luggage and were told that it would be okay. Past 2:30 the bus started loading. When they saw one of the bags, which contained Eriye’s products, they said we would have to buy another seat for the bag – even though others had already loaded bags of the same size. A bit of an argument followed as to how the bag could be loaded without inconveniencing anyone, but the bus line refused. So we decided to take our chances with another bus line. Fortunately all of our money was refunded, though it took some arguing to make that happen. Then we had to find a taxi that would take us to another bus line, and hope that they had a bus still going to Calabar. At various points through this, Eriye decided that we should just forget the whole thing, stay in Port Harcourt another night, and then come straight back to Akwanga.
We decided to proceed. We got to the other bus line and found that their last bus left at 4:00. It was a bit more expensive but they didn’t charge us for the extra bag. Past 4:00 we started to load the bus. About 4:30 we left. We had to enter a go-slow (traffic jam) leaving the garage, make a U-turn and re-enter the go-slow to leave Port Harcourt. Not long after leaving we entered a fuel station queue and spent close to an hour to fill the tank. Leaving Port Harcourt, we entered at least two more go-slows so it felt as if we did not really start our journey until sometime past 6:00. During all of this time, it was raining heavily. In fact it rained during the entire trip to Calabar. We were also travelling in the dark, which is not the safest way to travel in Nigeria.
We encountered several road blocks along the way. They were all official road blocks and we were usually passed straight through. There was one army blockade somewhere around Uyo in Akwa Ibom State where the officer pulled the vehicle over. He then came to the window where Eriye was sitting and knocked. When Eriye opened the window he asked me if I was safe and would not let us go until I confirmed that I was. Since we were at a road block with the army, it seemed like a good time to step down to ease ourselves (since I had felt that I had to pee since leaving Port Harcourt almost). None of the other passengers had mentioned a need but all took advantage when I made the request. And for some reason, trying to pee in this line of men made me bashful and I couldn’t relieve myself well. That took care of all the men. Only a little further down the road, the other lady on the bus asked to relieve herself so we had to make one more quick stop. We finally arrived Calabar about 9:00 PM. The lady who was keeping us for the weekend had been waiting for our arrival since about 6:00. We had told her of our situation so they were not just sitting and waiting. We called them when we landed and they came to pick us a few minutes later. They had already eaten, per our request, but took us to a restaurant and watched us eat now.
It was during the trip that we found out that she could only keep us for one night. While we ate, we asked the reason, as we had planned to stay over the weekend and travel home on Monday. Her house is a one-room, bed sit. She had planned to give us the use of her house while she stayed with a friend. But the friend had travelled so she had no place to stay herself. She had gone to a hotel room for the night because she had promised us a bed. But we could not expect her to pay for a hotel while we enjoyed her house. She is a volunteer, just like me, so hasn’t extra money for such extravagances. We did enjoy the night in her house but had to make alternative arrangements for the rest of the weekend.
Saturday morning we rested some but had to get out to a tailor for some adjustments to Eriye’s dress. We also had to find a hotel for ourselves and make arrangements for our return to Akwanga. We both found it very hot in Calabar, though the heat is more from the higher humidity in the south. We had a fairly relaxed morning, anyway. We got the dress altered, found a hotel just across the road from where we were staying, I travelled to the bus station and bought our seats for the next day and returned to the house. Sarah was making some lunch and then we were tired and rested until past time to leave for the wedding.
The directions we had for the wedding venue were not very detailed. We were given the name of a Catholic convent on Calabar Road. We were told that any okado (motorcycle) driver would take us there. Sarah’s friend was taking us in his car and we found no sign for the convent. People we asked didn’t seem to know where it was either. We finally stopped an okado who took us to the spot. It was hidden inside a girls school, so there was no way that we would have seen the name of the chapel from the road. If we had been given the name of the girls school we would have found it immediately. As it was, already late, we spent a good half hour or more trying to get to the venue. After we arrived, many others were still coming. So it seems that many came for the reception and bypassed the actual wedding ceremony itself.
The wedding was nice. The reception was good. The food was served buffet style. There seemed to actually be some order to the serving. Our table was finally called. There were typical foods, with the choice of entre being either fish or chicken. The lady before me took the last piece of chicken and I didn’t feel like taking the fish. The fish that was being served seemed to be all fish heads, and I knew that I would not enjoy trying to find enough fish meat to eat. There was also some beef pieces so I did get some meat. Despite this small setback for me in the food, the evening was nice. It was hot and humid. We were sitting under awnings that somehow kept any breeze out. I found a little later in the evening that it was much cooler outside the awnings where there was some breeze.
We made our way back to the hotel, then visited with our friends for a bit, and came back to the hotel for bed. Everything was good when we arrived. We had opted for a room with a fan only to save a bit of money. We were told that even if there was no NEPA they would run a generator in the night. They were on the generator when we went to bed. About 3:00 AM we both woke suffering from the heat. Other parts of the hotel had lights but our room did not. It turns out that we are on a different phase. The rooms with air conditioners are on a phase that was getting NEPA power so they offed the generator. Eriye went to complain but was told that the other phases were working. At any rate, from about 3:00 in the morning I suffered tremendously from the heat and did not sleep again. Eriye might have slept a little but she too was suffering. We had to get up and pack our bags in the dark. Just as we were leaving the lights came on. I mentioned the situation to as many people as I saw, though I did not meet the manager. Everyone explained about the phases and said they were sorry.
We arrived at the bus station at the requested time. We watched one bus board and leave at the scheduled time. It was a luxury bus going to Lagos. We saw three other buses prepare to load and finally our names were called. Our luggage was loaded and we finally left the garage more than an hour after the scheduled time. The driver seemed intent on making up the lost time by driving fast. He was a bit erratic. He would accelerate quickly and then have to jam the brakes as he came up on traffic. He would veer around cars rather than passing smoothly. He would often pass on blind curves and hills, and then have to cut off vehicles behind in order to get back in line for an approaching vehicle. He would pass fuel stations, and then decide that he wanted to get fuel so would reverse in the middle of traffic. He was a bit scary. I had actually finally fallen asleep at one point and woke as we pulled into a stop. When the driver got out, I asked what we were stopping for and for how long. He came around to the passenger door and said it was best that I keep my mouth shut. We all sat in the vehicle while the driver dropped a passenger and then wandered around the compound for some time without ever saying a word to us about what was happening. When he got back in I asked him whether we were cattle or human beings that he couldn’t tell us why we stopped. At this point the other passengers took this a permission to assert their rights. The driver continued to stop at fuel stations more often than necessary, if he was actually filling the tanks. Other passengers began to question why we were stopping and to challenge him for not telling us anything when we stopped. But we all continued to sit and do nothing when we stopped.
When we dropped in Akwanga, I made sure myself to tell them that we were getting off there, that we would have to inconvenience some of them in order to get our bags out, and that we would be as fast as we could. I don’t know if the driver learned anything, but I hope that the other passengers appreciated us telling them what we were doing.
We finally arrived home about 5:30 Sunday night. We were met by several of the kids who helped us to bring in our bags. We treated them with juice and bananas. There was no lights when we arrived, but thankfully lights returned shortly after that and we had steady power through most of the night. As I am writing this there is no power and I am sweating. But somehow I prefer this northern heat to the southern humidity.
How many instances of WASA did you count? There is no right answer to that question. But maybe it gives you an idea of some of the things that make life interesting here. We are safely home. We are getting ready to celebrate our 1stanniversary, perhaps with a goat barbecue. We might go to Jos this weekend to visit friends there before they return to the US, or we might go to Abuja to participate in a leaving party for another Canadian volunteer who will leave Nigeria this month. I think we both are tired of travelling and feel the need to save some money, though, so we just might stay home and rest.
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