gaskiya
on Fantastic Voyage (Nigeria), 16/Oct/2010 15:57, 34 days ago
When we eventually returned home after the workshop which made me furiously angry, and which I blogged about some time ago, every pounding throb of my blood sang the same angry hymn: that Nigerians just want money and nothing else matters so this is all pointless and I hate everyone.It was always going to pass fairly swiftly, but it was halted as easily as a Torres run into the box by a man who passed me at our local suya (joyously juicy grilled meat) stand that evening.He wasn’t having any for himself, but insisted on paying for me (with the splendid phrase ‘I will foot your bill’ – who else has heard that in the last 50 years?) because (I paraphrase) ‘I’m a guest in his country; there is much that is bad about Nigeria, and many people who are corrupt and greedy, so it is his duty to ensure that I see what Nigerians are really like’.He didn’t even ask for a job, or my phone number, or if I knew a football manager in the UK who could take him on (the usual end points of my conversations on our road).He was just Being Nice.Which shook me– it still shakes me – and rattled me into a better place: taught me, if you will, to remember an older and more innocent song about people.And so it has been today.I’ve spent the last two months going back and forth from different places to the computer shop nearby.Each time, they’ve assured me that it’ll be mended by next week.Each time, it’s been in the same place, with ever thicker layers of dust finding their home upon its unhappy lid.Each time, I’ve felt embarrassed about being annoyed: have assumed the stupidity and patience of an ox in India and duly trotted back and forth once again, knowing that there would be no change.Why have I done this?Partly because I always would: I know absolutely nothing whatsoever about computers, and people who have passed through that arcane initiation intimidate me.I feel like a fool when I talk to them, like someone who owns a car but doesn’t know how to check its water or fill its tank.Partly I feel the British middle class embarrassment about insisting that something is done just because I happen to be paying for it.I’m intellectually rather than emotionally a socialist – but when I’m a customer being treated badly in some way, I’m taken to some kind of darkand shameful hole with which no citizen of the US could ever empathise.In this country, that latter feeling is massively enhanced by being white.If I kick up a fuss, I know it’ll be taken seriously – because of my skin and the economic privilege that it supposedly (and indeed actually) denotes.But, today, I’d had enough.Jenny and I are a third of the way through a three week separation.Not a trial separation period, you understand: but three weeks where we’re working in different places, should see one another at the weekend, but won’t at all during the week.As she’s more or less the functioning part of me, I find this rather debilitating and I’d like to be able to contact her easily.Also, as her computer is the one that works, I’d like to be able to – say – check emails and write blogs, and maybe even (whisper it) do some work.So I wanted to be able to take my working computer to Lagos for the next two weeks.Of course, this isn’t possible.Two and a bit months is far too short a time for anyone to do anything– although my friend in the shop did assure me that he’d fixed the adaptor which had been broken in the course of their investigations into the computer.(I didn't say thank you.)This all made me terribly irritated, not to say angry, and saw me striding home, pouring with sweat, returning to our NEPA-less home which is feeling less and less like a home the longer we have to be there without power.But– and this is the main point really: sorry I’ve taken so long to get there – just like my bill footing chum Solomon, every individual on the Kigo Road, New Extension, seemed pretty damn determined to show me that, just because a shop, its service, and most of the people who work there, stink of a dying elephant’s diarrhoea (thank you, Outnumbered), that’s no reason to loathe Nigeria and cry hot inward tears of desperation for home (wherever that is).First, a man who’s one of a group of men who sit around on the corner of our road passing the time of day, and who always cheerilylafiyaus when weIna kwanathem, charged at me (sweating, striding, bearing a broken laptop beneath my arm and no doubt looking like a thwarted Alex Ferguson around my brow and shrivelled mouth) to give me (actually, force into my vaguely protesting mouth) a piece of what I think was yam smeared in a gingery chilli-y powder.It wasn’t a great taste, and it was quite a weird experience – like waking up at the communion rail and having an aggressive priest thrust wafer down your throat: there was clearly some meaning to it that I failed to comprehend, and everyone besides me seemed to be fully conversant with the situation.But that wouldn’t happen in the UK.Not because we don’t have great (and interesting) food, but because the idea of ramming a piece of battered sausage down someone’s throat on the basis that they probably haven’t tried it before is likely to be some sort of crime, and certainly contravenes the First Basic Law of English Misery.Next, I was going to buy some barbecued sweetcorn for my lunch, primarily because I’m not expecting vegetables to feature largely in my diet for the next fortnight.And the lady who chats merrily and nimbly, and who’s grilling the stuff in what’s already unspeakably searing heat, and who probably won’t earn in a year what I get given as a volunteer allowance, absolutely insisted that I wasn’t to pay for it.Our discussion ended with her brandishing some kind of sharp metal thing at me to indicate that I was not– under any circumstances – to thrust the money into her hands.And so it went on.A line of four boys sat playing with bits of cardboard outside a bar all wanted to shake my hand, and the littlest felt the need to hug my leg.The beautiful barman serving drinks behind them, towards whom I always feel guilty, because I always go to the hotel opposite as they show English football, did a little hip wiggle because he knows it amuses me and shouted that he wishes Liverpool well tomorrow.The handbag selling lady who offered me a second wife a few weeks ago (if I wouldn’t buy Jenny a bag, the wonder had clearly left our relationship: it’s time for a new one.There may be some truth in this.) treated me to a lengthy exchange of greetings.And one of my favourite people– the lovely lady in the off licence (who almost certainly only likes me because we’re probably the only customers in a decade to take whiskey and gin off her hands) told me I was looking well and to be careful because it’s getting hot now.Oh, and the children next door introduced me to their friends as‘the MrOyiboand his wife’.Which is not what normally happens when I walk down the road to our home– karma is clearly trying to balance something out – but none of it felt out of place, or weird, or intrusive: just utterly joyful, and natural, and welcoming.I’d get appalling service in the UK – I frequently do – and I’d feel as angry, as impotent, and as somehow bizarrely ashamed as I do now.But I’d never have an entire community who, without knowing me at all, make my day a work of wonder simply through the weight of their welcome and good wishes.I’ve never understood why most people spend so much time and energy being utter shits to one another; but having experience the last half hour, I think I just might find it more staggering that people can be this open and real and kind.I find myself being a glorious stereotype of a boy who grew up in the 80s: Morrissey wrote it all first.‘It’s so easy to laugh; it’s so easy to hate: it takes guts to be gentle and kind’.These people have guts.I hope I’ll grow some.(I’m still angry about my computer, though.)