After miraculously converting the pile of clutter in my bedroom in
Mount Pleasant (Washington, DC) into 3 fully packed pieces of luggage over the
course of about 12 hours, stuffing some of the overflow into the bike box I
would also be checking in at the airport, the travel to Nigeria started out
relatively smooth. Well, that is if I gloss over a couple inconsequential
hang-ups:
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| Before and ... |
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| ... after |
The first of those came when, after weaving my oversized luggage cart
half way through the mile-long economy check-in line, I was directed to go back
around to the premier check-in area. This was meant to be a helpful move as
there was no longer any line over there, so they opened it up to the peons in
economy class. However, manoeuvring my oversized luggage cart through the
crowded airport required considerable effort and attention, so I might have
been happy continuing to wind my way through the economy line. More
importantly, while I did get to a service desk in record time, there was first
a slight delay because my ticket required special handling; then a much longer
delay because the United Airlines agent couldn't get their system to check-in
my excess luggage. The silver lining there, however, was that they waived a
considerable amount a fees that could have been levied. And I still had plenty
of time to get to my flight in spite of spending almost an hour at the check-in
line.
The second less than desirable circumstance that we can ignore was
sitting just a few rows in front of a baby who literally cried during the
entire eight hour or so flight from DC to Frankfurt on what was already to be a
very uncomforable trans-Atlantic flight on a cramped United Airlines 7X7. Lucky
me, I had one of the seats with a broken audio system, so no chance of drowning
out the owith music or a movie. The Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Abuja
was much nicer--plenty of leg room, a row of seats to myself, and working
audio. Oh, again, I'm ignoring a minor disturbance to this otherwise peaceful
leg of transit. Twenty minutes to touchdown, one of the flight attendant
practically drags a passenger out of the bathroom and instructs him to sit down
immediately. Rather than find his way to his own seat, it takes the closest
available one ... next to me. He was drunk and tried to engage me in some
incomprehenible conversation while I'm trying to take in the landscape as we
descend into Abuja--that is, whenever he wasn't trying to get up again with
continued instructions by flight attendants to please stay seated until we
land.
By the next day, these little hang-ups were all but forgotten in what, as
I have said, was relatively smooth sailing to Abuja. But maybe I should have
recognized them as omens of less forgettable difficulties to come. Even getting
out of the airport at Abuja wasn't too difficult. The line to immigration was
relatively short, and I spotted and made eye contact with someone holding up a
sign with my name and one other person. My bags were among the last to come out
on the conveyor belt and before we had to inquire as to whether or not there
was a special location to collect oversized luggage, a man appears on the
conveyor belt guiding my bike box through. The customs officials spot the bike
box right away (it was clearly a new bike, as yet unassembled) and tell me I'll
need to pay some small duty. Understood. Then they proceed to ask me and
Melanie (the other passenger associated with AUN) what is such and such bag.
Luckily, Mike (the young man who had greeted us outside the immigration line)
was pulling my Samonsonite luggage separately and no one ever asked what was
inside that. It was full of miscellaneous electronics for the household, some
of which surely would have caught the attention of the customs officials, not
that anything really merited any duty though. Instead they opened the suitcase
that had most of clothes. The three tennis balls I had stuffed in there went
bouncing across floor. "Who do you think you are? Pete Sampras?" one
of the customs officials joked.
So, after a small ordeal of waiting for the
duty officer to calculate the fee, finding the money exhange desk, and paying
the duty, we made it out to the parking lot, found the AUN van waiting for us,
and hung on for deal life as Mario Andretti sped us along the expressway to a
hotel where one of the AUN human resources staff, Wally, had booked us a room
for the night. It was around 6pm and we were to be picked up at noon the next
day. That was the only information I was given, but I gathered from the internet
that we would be on a 1-hour flight leaving at a little after 2pm.
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| "Sit-out" at the hotel in Abuja: a relatively informative, if not very appealing term from Nigerian English |
The
overnight stay in Abuja was a nice opportunity to rest and catch up on a few
emails. I was a bit restless waiting for the van to return to pick us up the
next day. There wasn't really any opportunity to explore Abuja as our hotel was
far from the city center or neighborhood amenable to pedestrian exploration.
Around 11am, I get a call that the flight will be delayed, so the van won't
come until 1pm. We get to the airport around 2pm. Wally and Mike take care of
checking us in. (We have been joined by Melanie's father, the AUN VP of Student
Affairs.), and we proceed to the waiting area for our flight which is now
scheduled for after 4pm. Not a very enjoyable waiting period, but at least we
are mentally prepared for the 1.5-2 hr wait. We hear boarding calls for about
every major city in Nigeria and all the usual connecting international flights
(Frankfurt, Paris, Accra, Masaba), and the crowd in the waiting area is
progressively thinning, when we finally hear our flight number. But it's a
message to say it has been delayed for another hour!
Eventually we get to board
the plane at about 5pm. Once everyone has boarded and settled and the flight
attendants welcome us aboard, there is a message from the pilot. His voice is a
bit muffled, so I struggle to hear what he is saying. "Sorry for the
delay. We just arrive from blah blah" (sounded like Canada, but he
presumably said some Nigerian city name that sounds like Canada). "I just
spoke with the airport in Yola, and we are told that they will be closed before
we have time arrive, so ..." I am obviously very eager to hear what comes
after "... so, ..." and I strain my ears to do so, but at this point
I can't make out the rest at all. Other passengers are buzzing. At first I
thought they were just carrying on conversations and not paying attention, but
clearly a few got the message. At least a half dozen mutumin babba (Hausa term
for "big (important) men") are approaching the head flight attendant
in protest. "No one will come down from this plane!"; "This
plane will land in Yola today!" "You tell the captain ...!";
etc. etc. Since I never really heard the rest of the captains message and
didn't fully follow all of the protest communication, I'll never know if we owe
it to our would-be (out)spoke(n)persons for getting us to Yola that night or if
the captain was already making an effort to keep the airport open, but we did
indeed get off the ground and landed in Yola before sunset at 6:30pm.
A full
welcome committee was there to greet me at the airport. They drove me to my
fully furnished home (complete with a refrigerator full of eggs, milk, juice,
and butter, along with bread and coffee to get me started the next morning) to
drop off my luggage, then off to the University Club for pizza and a bottle of
Guinness "Foreign Extra". My bags are all unpacked, and if you didn't
know any better, you'd hardly know I only arrived yesterday.
The welcome basket
was a bit of a fail though, although the gesture is very much appreciated. I
arrived during Ramadan. I was wide awake at 4am, and, having already considered
fasting or at least not blantantly eating during the day out of consideration
for the large portion of the local population that is muslim, I figured I'd fix
myself a Suhuur-timed "breakfast" (or pre-fast, more appropriately).
I rinsed out a frying pan. No oil. Okay, I'll boil some eggs. No matches. Okay,
supposedly the stove is dual gas/electric. The electrical burners don't work
and there is no sign of electrical cord. Flipping the switch on the wall that
says "cooker" doesn't seem to help. So, I settle for bread and jam
and Nescappucino. (Some Peace Corps Congo friends may recognize what I mean by
that: stir up a mousse of instant Nescafe grounds and sugar and a dab of
water; then pour in hot water to create a frothy imitation of a cappucino.) I
did eventually enjoy a couple boiled eggs though. I stuck two eggs inside a
glass and submerged that in the electric kettle that had been provided among
the household appliances. McGyver would be proud, no?
