Shock and Awe and Eye-stabbing Boredom

I realize that when one writes about travels, these posts should be full of excitement and derring-do and adventure and mysterious foods that one may or may not have gagged on while eating. These posts (or letters in the days of yore) help to give the reader a vicarious sense of adventure while simultaneously reconfirming the ‘otherness’ of places outside of home.

 

Unfortunately, Abuja is not set up for mass excitement.

 

This past weekend I arranged for a car to take me to Wuse Market (outdoor market selling many different types of goods), then to Abuja Arts and Crafts Center and finally to Dunes (grocery store).

 

The driver arrives promptly at 10am and it is Mohammed, one of my favorite drivers because he likes to chat and tell me about Nigeria, Abuja, and all sorts of other things. We start heading to Wuse market and he asks me if I would like him to walk with me through the market, or if I feel okay going through the market alone. I assure him that I will be fine going through the market and leave him to snooze in the car for an hour while I see what’s what. Not being a stranger to the finer points of marketing, and having a large sum of cash on me for my big grocery shopping later that morning, I’d hidden about 30,000 Naira ($200U.S.) in various and sundry locations on my person. I had money in each sock, in my bra, and smoothed into each pocket of my pants. I tucked my phone into the little pocket on the right side of my jeans. I figured that if I got rolled or pickpocketed in the market, the likelihood of all of these places being searched was pretty small.

 

Wuse market is a dusty collection of brown stalls in a loose grid pattern. Many stalls appear to sell the same things: fabric, jewelry, household goods, and toward the back of the market are the food stalls that sell vegetables, fruits, juice, pop, etc. Walking alone along the stalls I was serenaded with the constant singsong chant of “Free look” and “Come see what I have hear” and “Fwwwp Fwwwwp Fwwwp” (my approximation of the sound of teeth sucking in my general direction. This was accompanied with casual-seeming tugs on my sleeves and wrists to go to this stall or that stall. I had a few gentlemen salesmen who walked with me quite a distance trying to ascertain what I wanted to buy. African beads? African fabric? African jewels? (I find it interesting that even here, in Nigeria, among Nigerians I am asked about my interest in African arts and crafts in general, whereas in my travels in Asia I have never ever been asked if I would like Asian beads or Asian fabric, but always those goods from the particular country or region or town that I am in.) I duck and weave through the parade of men and as I’m doing so, I notice that two of them seem to be following me, but are magically following me by walking in front of me. I think that this can’t be correct because who follows ahead? So I switch direction a few times and indeed notice that they seem to be following me by staying a few steps ahead of me. Kind of magical.

 

I duck into a shop staffed solely with women and chat with them a few minutes about fabric and headwraps. They try to convince me that I would look very elegant with a headwrap, especially after the woman who tied the headwrap for the president’s daughter ties my headwrap. I think about it for a minute then realize I am not ready to be SUCH a cliche yet and politely decline. I take a trip down a few more lanes of the market then decide I’m exhausted and can’t be bothered to hear teeth sucking or ma’am or be tugged anymore. I arrive back at the car fifteen minutes after I left,  much to the amusement of Mohammed.

 

The Abuja Arts and Crafts Center is a collection of huts across the street from the Sheraton hotel. The huts are set up in such a way that as you amble around, you’ll follow a path that takes you by every single shop unless you are determined to escape the whirlpool clutch of commerce. The first shop I go into has a collection of wood carvings. The most intriguing is a crudely carved reproduction of a firing squad. At 12 dollars, I am tempted but decide to keep looking.

 

Wandering through the clutch of huts, peering in the darkened doorways, I stop at one and blink, not believing what I’m seeing. There is what appears to be a long, slender sculpture of gently gleaming white. It looks smooth and cool to the touch. I head in and it is in fact a display of carvings made from elephant ivory.

 

Stunned, I head outside and as I’m shaking my head at the blatant selling of elephant ivory in a tourist market, I look up and tacked to a tree is a dusty, rather ragged looking leopard skin. Beneath the skin is a collection of small, full-bodied, dessicated crocodiles.

 

I try to go into a few other places to see what’s what, but keep thinking about the ivory and the skin. As I get into the car, I ask Mohammed about it and learn that this isn’t illegal here at all. You can sell these products from these endangered animals no problem. But I wonder at the cost and who can afford to buy that and get it into their home country without any question. As we drive to the grocery store, Mohammed tells me about different types of traditional medicine that are used as well, things such as lion hearts, lion oil, etc. He laughs at my shock.

 

Sunday I am bored. Bored. Bored. TV is showing the same things over and over, I didn’t bring a computer, I have read all of my books. I decide to go to the movies. It is an hour walk each way. So I leave the house early, 930am, so that if I get lost (always a possibility, even if I have a map) I have plenty of daylight to find my way home. I trudge along the hot streets, winding past the Hilton and the Central Mosque (which is absolutely beautiful and covered in gold leaf and you are NOT allowed to take photos of it) and walking over fecund greenery below wide, smooth highways and make it to the movie theater. On a Sunday morning in Abuja, I’m the only one who wants to see X-Men Origins. The theater is cool and my face becomes a paler shade of red as I sip my Fanta and watch a scarily ripped Hugh Jackman roar around the Canadian countryside.

That’s it. That’s my weekend. This coming weekend, I’m going to walk to a cafe. Seriously, that’s a plan.

Abuja

My first full week in Nigeria has been interesting. No visiting of restaurants within military barracks, but interesting just the same.

I’ve gotten acquainted with everyone on the team over the course of a retreat. During the retreat, I was taught about Nigerians. Kalada informed me that everyone in Nigeria has an agenda. We came onto this topic of conversation when eating snack and getting ready for a group discussion in the afternoon. He was staring off into space and I asked him what he was thinking about. His agenda for the discussion. We had a long, involved conversation about how you have to figure out your agenda in advance of everything and figure out ways to get people to buy into your agenda without buying into their agenda. And even if you think you don’t have an agenda, that in itself is an agenda. Apparently, Americans ALWAYS have an agenda as well and their playing at innocence of having an agenda is a key component of the agenda.

Then he told me I should have a Fulani style outfit made because I have the figure for it. I suspect Fulani figures are ample in the behind. But I don’t know for sure.

The drivers who pick me up for work and take me home have been fascinating conversationalists as well. Nigeria has a poor image overseas and you would think that people from Nigeria would not like this image and would try to dispel it. I have had more lectures on how I should not trust Nigerians, how they are always trying to do things their way but not the right way, they are crazy, etc etc etc. Then they stop themselves and say, not all just most. Most Nigerians. I shouldn’t fear Nigerians, but I should not trust them either.

One driver took it upon himself to inform me that good Christians do not have tattoos. They are perfect the way God made them. In fact, good Christians do not wear lipstick or decoration of any kind. It is a desecration to the body. He then asked me when I was going to come to Nigeria full time and that the next time I went to the Philippines he would come with me, because he loves islands and the music of the Philippines. He also said that the Philippines must be very holy because it is mentioned in the Bible. You know, the letters to the Philipians.

I went on the hash (running/walking group) this weekend. We wandered all over the countryside right out of Abuja, accidentally walked through some crops, saw villages full of people (Abuja is empty and I’d been wondering where the people are. They are outside of Abuja.), beautiful scenery, and had to ford two streams. Got lost on the way back and had to walk by myself through a dark carpark. I got a little freaked out because I had no idea where I was, had no load on my cell phone, couldn’t tell if I was going in the right direction, and had men sucking their teeth in my general direction. Luckily I caught up to a group of hashers. And vowed never to go on the hash again.

Next weekend I plan to go to Wuse market to look at.. stuff. People here get together a lot because there’s not a lot of activities to get involved with. Every Sunday people play volleyball, every other Saturday they hash, once a month-ish there is a happy hour at the Marine House (where the Marines live. They have foos ball and air hockey and a pool table. What’s up, frat house), and people go to each other’s compounds with their kids to swim and stuff. Kids are definitely the ultimate accessory. If you cant’ have a long conversation about their behavior or their school or their scandalous teachers, you just can’t have a real conversation. Second accessory is a husband and you must talk about how he can’t keep the house clean, he makes everything difficult when he’s around, or something along those lines. There are no problems or issues a single person can have, because invariably you will hear, well at least you don’t have to worry about kids! My arm could be falling off from gangrene and I’m pretty sure I’d hear, well you know my kids just are so hungry and irritable you’re so lucky you don’t have to deal with that! Indeed.