Graffiti and expats

14.06.2010

Graffiti has a much more practical use in Abuja and I think Lagos as well. It replaces posters, official notifications, adverts and what not. You never see a house for sale sign, but you often see scribbled on a wall “This house is not for sale”.

Does that mean the property market is booming and there are no properties available? At the rate they are building one could well think that. However Nick discovered the reason – yes I think one should have guessed – it is to avoid scams. Alison said you have just had the first highly published scam in South Africa: people posing as owners selling a property they do not own, to innocent buyers. Well it seem to be old news here and the solution: write on the wall “This house is not for sale”.

They have huge billboards like we have in South Africa, but all most of them have on them are big skew handwritten telephone numbers. That puzzled me in the beginning as well, but yes it is apparently begging for advertisers.

And then the official notice on a wall with date and the lot: Abandonned structure, improve or remove, no approval and another date, three years ago. Very practical. And sometimes very bluntly in big red letters: STOP WORK. Looking at the number of collapse buildings there must be a reason for these notices.

Another interesting observation about Nigerian drivers etiquette: If you find yourself in the left lane (of three or four lanes depending on how many cars can squeeze in next to each other waiting for a rare traffic light or the traffic director to indicate go) and you want to turn right, you drive onto the pavement on your left, bypass all the waiting cars and swing out right in front of all of the waiting cars and join the front of the left queue, ready to go when the indication to go comes. And all the waiting cars just accept that without a single hoot!!!! It happens often enough to make you thinks it is acceptable.

Yes I do harp on all the idiosyncrasies of Nigerian life, I know, but it makes life interesting here. There are a lot of positive aspects too and one of the most endearing is the open relaxed friendliness of the Nigerians. They are keen to help you where you can. Originally you suspect they are just after some “dash”, just to be rudely embarrassed when you do offer them a tip to be embarrassingly refused. Not all though, but most of them just want to help you. However if they do take the tip, such as at the airports, they do not want small money and will throw it back at you.

The sad thing about expat life is the shortness of it. You have just made friends and then they are off to their next assignment. I have joined a wonderful group of ladies who want to learn from each other, organized by the Namibian High commissioners wife, Revival Smith. I attended three meetings, in a very short time made really good friends and last week we had to say goodbye to half of them: Revival and her family is posted to somewhere very cold in Europe, Ancha is leaving for Brazil, Norma is moving to Lagos, Yumika is going back to Japan etc. At least Irene from Egypt is still staying for another year and dear Angela from Kenya another two years. …And my Alison is going back to South Africa on Friday. O well luckily I’ve got my own creative outputs that will keep me absorbed and busy during the holiday months when Abuja seem to drain. And I do have all you on the other side of the magical PC. Thanks and lots of love to you all.

I’ve managed to collect a number of photos of Abuja and will send them in shifts. I have made them very small so they should not be a problem to download even in rural areas.