Nigeria! Episode one!

The Plane hovered over Lagos in preparation for its landing. As usual, there were dark spots everywhere (where PHCN had struck) and flickering ones where candles stood! I clutched the book I was reading, which incidentally turned out to be Sugar and Slate by charlotte Williams. Sugar and Slate is a wonderful account of a mixed race woman as she comes to terms with her identity in north Wales. Funny thing is, her account also includes details of her life on Falolu road (in surulere, Lagos, Nigeria) where she once lived (Her father Dennis Williams was an archeologist and artist at the slade in London). I found the book particularly poignant, especially with its reference on first perspectives on any country on the African continent...how one tends to look down on the continent from above! Anyway, I digress. As the plane taxied down the runway, I felt that relief that only comes when you get home. Except for the awful clapping in the cabin and the bleeping phones, I was on top of the world. Lagos has not changed very much though. The staff at the airport were mostly bored and disinterested, the airport was dirty and looked derelict and I could go on and on. The Immigration people however I must commend; they were on the ball and tended to people quickly. Turns out there had been an issue with luggage as the carousel made its rounds. I luckily got all of mine but that was not the case for a lot of the other passengers who soon gathered in a mob around an airport official, shouting and threatening whilst other victims loitered around in resignation. Suddenly, a lady who turned out to be a disgruntled bride-to-be stormed into the arrivals lounge to demand her luggage. She had arrived on a flight from the London the week before and was getting married in a couple of days but did not get her luggage. A fight soon broke out which saw the woman destroying the Christmas tree in the lounge….and it went on and on! The girl behind the desk where you get trolleys from hissed and continued applying her make up, she wasn’t bovvered. Only in Lagos I thought!

My Brother had overslept and hadn’t come to pick me. So I was stuck at the airport as I didn’t want to chance a cab home. That’s why I was able to witness all of this. If I was a visitor to the country for the first time, I would probably react in either of two ways. Find the whole thing/place exceedingly funny and look forward to more of it or go upstairs and get the next flight out! It was utter madness, but it was utter madness in MY country. I was home and I loved it!