Alison's trip adventures

3 October 2010

When in Rome do as the Romans do.  In Nigeria you build up contacts because you never know when you might need to bypass the normal route. 

That seems to be true when Alison travels.  When she visited us last time we thought she might just be able to find her own way back to South Africa through Lagos and save Nick a trip with her to Lagos, with staying the night over in the hotel before flying back to Abuja. We could organize the usual shuttle service Nick uses over there to pick her up from the one terminal and take her to the other terminus.  As it happen a Nigerian contact of Nick heard of this (the same one who had the colonel as a friend in Port Harcourt) and insisted to organize someone to take care of her at the second terminal where she had to wait about five hours for the flight to SA.  Everything went very smoothly.

Alison arrived at the second terminal to be met by an airforce military man.  She was escorted to the military lounge where she was literally locked up in an ice cold military lounge for the duration of the waiting time. 

When she arrived this time Nick were in Lagos on business and could be at the Lagos airport to welcome her.  On his arrival at the airport he was also met by a military escourt with the name: Friday Coleman. 

After all this Alison decided she had enough of the military confinement and decided she can negotiate her way on her own. However, it turned out special contacts saved the day again, but from another source. 

Below are the cell phone conversations between Nick, Alison and Mr Bayo her shuttle/ taxi service in Lagos to get her from one terminal to the other on her return trip to South Africa.  We still do not know the whole story.

16:46:07 Bayo to Nick: Did ur daughter has a phone nub pis send it 2 me, mr Bayo from lagos, thanks

16:49:52 NC to Bayo: Thanks mr Bayo her plane now leave five thirty

17:57:11 NC to Bayo My daughter is still not on the plane (in Abuja) delayed. Nicholas Coleman

18:44:59 Ali to Nick: On the plane but more chaos cuz there are not enough seats…. Sigh oh well less time in lagos.  Miss you already love me

19:28:28 NC to Bayo: Daughter is on plane but no take off sorry for delay

!9:31:27 NC to Ali: Any progress?

19:32:34 Ali: Um none visibly….will let you know before we take off though

19:35:45 Ali:  Hi about to take off. Chat later. God bless love me

19:39:41 NC to Bayo Plane is now taking off Nicholas Coleman

20:42:32 Ali: Hi :) just landed. Love you:)

20:44:06 Ali: Ok we see saa due to take off 22—45. Love d

20:47:18 NC to Bayo: Daughter landed

21:07:59 Nick to Alison Are you there?

21:15:24 Ali: Hi there, in car next to the minister on the way

21:17:19 Ali: Good good there is a need to hurry to book in

22:09:04 Ali: Hi there, just jumped on plane.  Don’t know what I would have done it I wasn’t with diplomatic party.  We were so late! They sorted everything out for me.  Will shout when home.  Miss you already. Love me.

22:12:45 Nick to Ali  Good well done lotsa love M and D

22:13:58 NC to Bayo Thank you very much daughter on plane

4:40:21 Ali Hi dad, arrived early.  I’m in the car on the way to sun city. :) hope all is well there

07:46:36 NC to Ali: Are you there?

07:48:01  Hi dad:) yup got here now now.  Please tell matusi thank you very much from me!!! Off to go watch golf just now.  Love you

There were a few other conversations in between from anxious parents to other people and people phoning to find out if they could help. 

By sheer luck our minister of foreign affairs was on the same plane (And South African embassy people knew Alison). The minister was actually suppose to fly to London but because of her bad health they changed her route through Lagos to South Africa.

The plane in Abuja was suppose to leave at 5pm and arrive in Lagos just after 6, which would have given her  five hours to kill in Lagos.  Looks like one will have to leave on an even earlier flight in the future with even more hours to kill in Lagos if everything goes smoothly.

Right is a photo of Alison with some Bushmen/San people(what is the correct name for them currently?) taken during at a function to celebrate Botswana day here in Abuja.

The Exhibition

10 September 2010

Here is a bit of piggin English I’ve pilfered from Face book:

it is already paying off.... the only thing wey remain na to hammer and that 1 na soon...but chetakwa anyi oooo!!!1

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey Qualest eny,howf?

...evrythn apart from witholdin my paintin!

sharrap and pay me my pp money

u 4get 2 put "HELLO" b4 ur comment

My muslim pple i no feel dis tin una de do today o

u know au many pple dem don sack for work wey dey use work time dey facebook?

No wonder I do not always understand them or worse misunderstand them.



My page in the brochure for the exhibition



On 30 August I wrote in my diary: Surprise, surprise an exhibition yesterday for which I was totally unprepared.  I somehow understood it was going to be at the end of September.  Imagine getting a call on the day of the exhibition to tell you they are going to fetch your paintings and you thought it is a month away.  Luckily I had some older paintings and…no wallah. Can I blame piggin English for that slip up?



Second surprise: On my previous visit to an opening of an exhibition, we stood waiting outside the gallery for more than an hour before the doors opened. We were there even before the artists, and we actually arrived a few minutes after the time announced for the opening.  From that experience (and other social experiences we have had) I thought this is how things are done, you know…...Africa time, and arrived an hour late for the exhibition only to find that the opening speeches and introductions of the artist have already been done.   On realizing my blunder and in a bit of a daze I was pushed in front of a TV camera and an interview started to take place with me.  “What is it like to work with Nigerian artist?”  “What do you think of Nigerian art”.  Hey man I’ve been asleep not more that ten minutes ago (taking a Sunday afternoon nap), what do I say?  Not a comfortable position and I cannot remember what I said and certainly did not watch the TV.  I hope they scrapped the footage.



Nick in front of TV cameras



Nick has been in similar positions several times before, and people actually reported on seeing him on the TV.  These Nigerians have TV cameras at every occasion and I guess because our faces are white they like to home in to us.  Even Alison had a TV interview the first day after she arrived here.  It was on the occasion of the opening of the soccer world cup when the South Africans and Mexicans in Abuja all got together at the Osokoro Protea hotel to watch the event on the screen.



To get back to the exhibition, it was an interesting experience but I am glad the pressure of the exhibition is off now and I can carry on doing just what I want to, paint without thinking of an audience to come.  I met my fellow exhibitors and some of us have plans of working together.  Now that will be interesting.



Fish braai market

9 September 2010

This is an outing we have promised our self for a long time. The directions we got were to look for stand no.43 and the cook with the name of Marvelous.  On a pamphlet we got the directions to the Mogadishu barracks where we turned into a gate and paid our N50 entrance fee. 

Being used to the Nigerian African markets by now I found this one surprisingly organized, the road made a wide circle with well built brick stalls on both sides.  We managed to get a parking in a dead-end side shoot and headed for the inside core of the circle.  A festive atmosphere reigned with smoke and these big orange fish everywhere. Inside this circle another smaller roofed-over circle housed all the fish cooking ladies.  The customers walk around the circle on the outside until they decide on, or being persuaded on a cook. We were shown two fishes by Marvelous.  Or rather she proclaimed her name Marvelous even though her number was something like 39.  Anyhow her friendly smile convinced us to place our order.  We choose the medium size one, which was still big enough for both of us and ordered chips for two. You have a choice of brightly orange spiced fish or no spice with just lemon on. They braai the fish in front of you on top of a half barrel balanced on a stand.  Underneath this barrel is a pot with hot coal with another pot of hot oil fitting into it.  We were directed to stand away when they threw our chips into this hot oil which resulted in lots of splatter.

With our meal being cooked we decided to while away the ten minutes waiting time by exploring the outer circling market.  Most of these stalls were fabric shops, dressmakers and hairdressers.  Inside some of the cubicles old fashioned machines were working away or someone was ironing the new creations.  The drapes of typical Nigerian fabrics with their big patterns, which I am starting to admire, where hanging out on the street to entice the customers.  Bundles of multi-coloured zippers in different lengths were hanging like Christmas lights from the rafters.  I enjoyed the different wording they used to market their stalls and as usual they do not really care for the correctness of their language.  I wished I wrote them down because some were quite amusing.

Back at Marvelous we were shown to one of the little cafes which lined the outer edge of the circle opposite the cooking fires.  Each little cafe had one or two fridges, a television and tables and chairs.  We were lucky to get one with a fan as well.  Here you order some beer or soft drinks while you wait for your meal to arrive and enjoy the passing trade and traffic.  First to arrive were two bowls of water to wash our hands and then the dish of fish with chips, lemon, chilies and a bit of coleslaw.  Luckily someone warned us to bring our own knives and forks because it is common and expected to eat with your hands.



The dish





Fabrics and zippers



Normally one would have been offended with so many hawkers who disturbed our meal, but they were delightfully courteous and amusing.  Some sold toiletries tied in bundles, one walked around with a big glass fronted box of jewelry, and another hawked the finely cross-stitch embroidered Muslim hats.  Nick got bargained into buying a Muslim hat and I were amused with this one guy whose whole shop of toiletries fell apart not far from us. Calmly, with a slight frown on his forehead he gathered the stuff together, closed the boxes that opened in the fall and started assembling a new display with elastics bands to keep them together.  A hawker that never made it to us, because he drew too much attention not far from us, was selling camping gear: beautiful little camping pan sets in bags, a powerful torch, termosflask and jump leads.





When we were ready to leave, the cooking ladies came over not only to clear the table but to also wash the knives and forks we brought and bid us a cheerful farewell...





It was a struggle to get out of our panhandle parking road because some guy decided he wanted to come in just when we and two other cars wanted to get out.  We got really stuck and somehow this guy did not realize that the only way we could get moving was for him to reverse out. The beauty of this story is that eventually the guys in the other two cars who wanted to get out, got out of their cars and one of them just calmly walked over and very courteously explained to the driver who was blocking us all, that the best will be if he moves his car backwards.  In South Africa they would probably have shouted to the driver to move his….! 







It is the gentleness of these people on the street that is so charming and endearing; their cheerfulness despite all the hardships is truly remarkable.  Maybe it is exactly their struggling life that make they so patient and tolerant and friendly.







Visit to the hardware “shop”

16 Aug 2010




Stalls are placed around an open center



I’ve been looking for F&F ever since we got here.  F&F is our trusted big handy hardware store in Howick, South Africa.  A hardware store that has always been, apart from the grocery shop, my favorite and most visited store.  But where is it in Abuja?  We dug out some screws and nails in a shop that sold lights – counted out on the floor between all the customers’ legs.  I explored other shops but finding things were a mission.  “We haven’t got” is the usual answer.



Last week when I asked Tyna where I could buy boards to paint on, she offered to go and show me.  Over a very bumpy road we arrived at a cluster of shacks around an open center area where we parked.  Some of the shacks had long lengths of wood, poles, flat sheets of paneled wood and basically all you needed for woodwork.  Other shacks had the tools: sand paper, nails, paint, brushes, glue, wire and even a few woks in between.  Each shack had a limited amount of stuff but all together you could probably find anything you needed.

My dear friend did the bargaining and I got my stuff for a very reasonable price.  On my own I would have probably had to pay double the price, because with a white face, arriving in a chauffeur driven car with the red number plate of the diplomatic corps, you are definitely on the losing side of bargaining.  A whole hoard of young boys gathered around the “shop” keeper and helped as he hack sawed my pieces into surprisingly accurate blocks. At the next shack we bought the sand paper.  I could even choose the gage and selected a fairly fine paper, which was rolled off and neatly cut. In no time I had my purchases and we headed back leaving me with the impression of a vibrant community working together to supply a need.  They might not have the big, brightly lit shop and the fancy tills but they supply what is needed in a friendly and helpful way.  As left, I noticed at the entrance a lone stall/trolley with vegetables on.  I could not wonder at the stall keeper’s initiative to come here rather than going to a vegetable market.  Of course she will have all these hardware stall keepers as customers who would not want to leave their stalls to go to the veggie market.  They will also be able to buy their veggies as soon as someone bought hardware from them before being tempted to spend it on something else.  And I wondered why other veggie sellers have not joined her or does she have an unwritten monopoly?  I wonder what are the grassroots rules and regulations about hawking.  There must be some, as there seem to be some order in who what and where they sell.  Or is it just how the free market organically develops according to the demand?



Tyna helping me to buy sand paper

Listening to a group of Nigerian businessmen last Sunday, who were discussing the disabling rule of the government as far as free business enterprise is concerned, I was prompted to ask them if it could change, thinking of all the promises of the politicians before the election.  The question was answered by derisive laughter. Obviously they did not expect any change in the frustrated climate of Nigerian business.



To give you an idea, to rent a shop in Nigeria is very expensive and you have to pay your whole lease of two years in advance.  A system that has probably developed from a lot of non payments in the past.  Of course once the owner has the money he is not going to spend it on upkeep so the shops all look dilapidated and run down. It is far more economical to build your own shack at the market, but even there paying for a site is based on the same pay in advance system.  As a result many hawkers have their own trolley pushcart shop which can be pushed to where the market is, without having to pay for the shop.  Some even carry their “shop” on their heads.



Maybe the hawker on the streets has more freedom.  And maybe that is why I can’t find an F&F hardware shop here.



The boys are keen to help sawing the board