Hiya,
Hope you've had a good week. Here's my 7th month blog, crowned with a visit to Abuja!
Thanks as usual for all your emails and comments!
Happy Reading!
1. At the weekend, I decided to warm up a bit of food and forgot all about it. As I wanted to leave the house, an instinct prompted me to just check the kitchen. I did and realised that I had left the pot on the cooker for over half an hour. Strangely, the gas had gone out so the pot wasn't burnt neither was the food warmed. The whole kitchen however smelled of gas by now. Seeing that the food hadn't warmed up because of the gas going out, I still wanted to do this before stepping out. I reached for the lighter, as I was about to ignite it, I just had this unction not to - then I came to my senses that the kitchen was already filled with gas. What would have happened? Or imagine if I hadn't gone to check the kitchen before going out, what could / would have happened. I so thank God for his mercies!
2. Read some news in the dailies that Naija ministers and legislators are the highest paid in the world! How amazing! Dem dey earn more than una jand PM! Habi make I change job?
3. Went past the Chinese embassy the other day and the amount of people in the queue was unbelievable! Naija people dey go anywhere go-able in this world o!
4. Oh, before I forget - My weekend gone was almost like a simulation of living in jand! I practically had un-interrupted power supply over the weekend up until when I left the house on Monday morning! Such was this wonder that I watched TV / DVD from 7.30pm Friday evening until Saturday 2.30am! What a wonder! It just has never occurred in my entire 7months!
5. Picture this - Day 151 to 155: An Abuja Special!
I made a cab reservation to the local airport for a 5.45am Monday morning pick up. At the scheduled pick up time, I called up the cab driver to enquire of his whereabouts. He told me he was still home, meanwhile my flight was at 6.50am! I was instantly annoyed wondering what he was playing at. I asked what time he intended to reach me and he couldn't answer, instead he told me that he wasn't going to come pick me up anymore. He went off on one that he was not my mate so I had no reason to query him blah, blah! For someone who wanted to collect premium rate for the service, I couldn't understand his actions. Anyway, I got off the phone completely disoriented! How was I to reach the airport? As I left the house contemplating how to make the 20minute walk to the nearest point of civilisation from my abode, I saw my neighbour leaving for work and got a ride to the nearest plausible place to get a cab. I got off but it was all still pitch black. My God, I was a bit scared as the danfos came and went; people hopped on and off; conductors stopped / shouted in my face hoping that I would get on! Flagging a cab down was difficult as I couldn't see much coupled with the fact that I had my laptop and a luggage to hang onto. My ordeal finally ended about fifteen minutes later when I boarded a cab. I managed to make it to the airport at the nick of time and even had some few minutes to dig into my nicely packed yam and egg brekkie! I sent the cab driver a text message before deleting his number!
The flight and service was good - I was very impressed! It was my 2nd time of ever flying anywhere within Naija!
On landing, my colleagues and I headed out to get a hotel. One of the hotels taken to was a 'christian' hotel and the first criteria on their list was that you had to be 'born again'! Meanwhile the hotel was crap! After they checked out a couple of hotels, they decided to settle for the xtian one. My search continued. After checking out the 4th one or so, I decided to just take it so that we could proceed to the program we'd come for.
At the end of a long and tiring day, I went back to my hotel and the horror of my choice began to unravel before my very eyes! The room stank of this terrible incense / odour or something. I felt nauseous and disgusted immediately; developed a sore throat too. Then I noticed that the towel had been placed on top of this brown sticky substance on the table. Then I noticed how grubby the room was, with filthy and misplaced blinds; rusty and unclean windows! Then I noticed the torn pillow case! Then I noticed the black grouts! Then I noticed the unclean walls! Then the light went and was told the generator usage was timed and wouldn't come on until much later!
As I found it in myself to sit on the bed, a couple of tears dropped from my eyes as I tried to envisage how I was going to survive in this place for the next 4 nights! I thought and almost decided on heading for the airport back to Lagos! Then I began to miss my days of being on the field and living it up in all those posh-nosh hotels around the UK!
In trying to engage myself, I decided to prepare for the next day and asked for an iron. I was told I had to pay for the service / pay to use the iron even if I wanted to DIY - I ditched the idea when I saw the state of the other places around the hotel and the calibre of people about the place! It was BAD!
Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore, so I went to check out and asked for a refund - thankfully I got my money back. I checked out but still had to spend the night there since there wasn't anywhere just yet to stay et al. Luckily, after sending out some SMS (Save My Sanity) messages and calls, my colleagues and some people came to my rescue to search for another place. After the 8th hotel or so, I found a really lovely place - damned the company's hotel allowance and paid the excess myself!
Anyway, I still had to go back to my horror room for a 1-night sleep! There was no water in the toilet and even if there was, you could only attempt flushing via a string that had been attached to the flusher. The rug had gone beyond colour-reasoning and I couldn't even place my feet on it directly!
I couldn't use the blanket placed on the bed, neither could I place my head directly on the pillow! I had to place my shirt on the pillow before I could put my head on it! I had to use my skirt to cover the bit of my legs that my nightshirt didn't cover!
As I lay there, a car came round about 11.30pm blasting music. When that died down about 30minutes later, I started hearing people chatting and parambulating along the corridor near my room at around 12.15am! Parambulating and hearing them flip-flopping!
You can guess that I didnt't get much sleep! Just when I was about to start dozing off, na so, I com dey hear call for morning prayers from the tannoys before 5am! I gave up on the idea of sleep! Then I saw a small roach in the bathroom tub! Though I had already given up on the idea of a bath in this place, my decision was further buttressed by this scene! The shower head was missing and all that was left for usage was a dirty looking bucket and bowl! Strangely however, there was hot water, even though there was no boiler in sight!
About 6.30am, after enduring the smell all night, I suddenly had a stomach churn with an urgent need to use the bathroom! I com dey pray say make the thing go away. This was my worst fear! I didn't have any time to deliberate as my tummy was seriously on a sudden brink of disruption! I humbly and quickly had to perch on the toilet bowl o in order to use it!
I dressed up in the previous days clothing and checked out without a thought to have a bath. I headed to the newly booked hotel and cleaned up there!
At this point I wasn't loving Abuja for a second!
The exhibition was great for the entire duration and we got fed well - very well indeed; only I went through an entire pack of Loperamide (for Diarrhoea)! Food and drinks were in excess - well na petrol money sha! The event organisers even hosted a dinner on Day 152!
Day 153 - Ooh lala! I saw LONDON BLACK CABS in Abuja! It was surreal!
Day 154 - weather was forecasted to be a very sunny day instead it turned out to be a completely wet day! Well what can I say? Even that famous British forecaster (no be Michael Fish)got it very wrong a few years ago!
We wanted to buy some 'Kilishi' (not sure of the spelling), little did we realise that parking near the sellers will invite all of them round the car literally sticking their meat in our faces! As the windscreen on my side was down, I suddenly had different hands sticking their meat in my face. I didn't and couldn't buy any from the scenario presented before me!
My best bet and outing during this trip was a visit to the market where they sell jewellery! The flight back was equally smooth but it took forever to get our luggage out. It didn't take a second for us to know that we were back in Las Giddy!
My take and highlights of Abuja - its clean, well planned, no pollution, has good road networks, good drainage system, no crazy Las Giddy traffic replicated here, no crazy Las Giddy flooding (at least I didn't see any), the place is expensive, lovely environment to raise up kids, et al.
Somehow, I found myself missing Las Giddy! I was counting down to going back home! What is it about this place called Lagos? Any ideas?
So there goes details of my week!
Y'All have yourself a restful week!
Always & Always,
Moi (Always Keeping It Real!)
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