LAGOS Living

4 -6 MAY 2011

LAGOS LIVING

I was asked last night if I would like to join the Leaders here, when they go to Mass – why not. SO an early start to make the 6am mass at a local church. I tell you what, my local catholic church would be happy with half as many folk at a Sunday mass as they had here for a mid week morning mass! The full kneel down, host on your tongue Communion and then more prayers afterwards led by a parishioner. By now it’s light and we walk back to Guide Centre for breakfast. Bimbo arrives early and we wait for Mercy and Blessing to arrive before heading off on today’s program.

 We head off in the Guides' Vocational van to visit the National Museum – being renovated and not so much to see there – no bronzes but the pottery is good if undated. Then we visit a gallery on the grounds but when we try to take a group photo together out the front, we’re quickly told “no photos, this is a private gallery” – who knew? Then we return back to Ikoyu to look for moneychangers near the closed Ikoyu Hotel. But it’s no longer closed and the money changers are a little sharp for us and when our driver suggests there is another reputable changer near the Office we head back and quickly accomplish that task. Back to Guide Centre for lunch and then head out again to visit a former Chief Commissioner whose husband has passed away last night. I didn’t really feel comfortable going along but everyone else thought it was the right thing to do. In lieu of flowers I give her a Sturt Desert Pea brooch (thank you Monica). Afterwards we battle traffic again back to Guide Centre. I would like to find the Australian High Commission listed on the LP Lagos map – but alas they are reluctant to let me walk and its back into the van again over to Victoria Island to find it has closed up shop and moved to Abuja 3 years ago. Good thing I didn’t walk. Back again to Guide Centre to relax and enjoy a really cold beer after dinner in front of the idiot box. But I am starting to feel a little cooped up and decide to shorten my stay and move on to Calabar on Saturday.

State Commissioners from other states who have been staying at Guide Centre for their National meetings, leave very early the next day and I persuade Bimbo and Blessing that I really do like to walk and I’m allowed out again but this time with Blessing for company. We walk north up Kingsway Rd searching for a few landmarks from my Lonely Planet Ikoyu map with no success and soon decide this map is not worth looking at. When we are walking back Blessing wants to call into a furniture store – I ask why, she says just to look. I think that perhaps she’s in the market for new furniture – we enter I get introduced, welcomed and we walk around. It soon dawns on me that Blessing has called in here to have a rest in the airconditioned store. I gather Nigerians are not big on walking here in Lagos, especially if you don’t have to. Granted it is a very polluted place due to the number of cars, trucks and bikes on the road, but there is whole other side to any city when you walk about including all the folk who don’t have a car or on the street trying to sell to the passing cars. There is a huge range of daily newspaper titles here easily supported by the huge population – I will try a different one each day. Back to Guide Centre where I am introduced at the Lagos State meeting, which Blessing has organised in at Guide Centre. They open with their National Anthem(today the Australian anthem is included too – thank you Bimbo), The World Song and the Guide Promise. Proceedings are not a lot different from ours with reports, training dates with lots of encouragement to attend. The Leaders attend in full uniform with varying interests in discussed subjects, including their upcoming National camp and centenary fabric (of which I now have 3 metres). I slip out from the meeting to buy a bus ticket for Saturday from the nearby shops but alas the girl ‘closed at 4pm’ so I’ll try again tomorrow. I feel a little trapped here as the women here don’t have any suggestions for sightseeing other than a nearby beach resort, which we never get to and they are definitely not keen on walking around anywhere. I asked about the Nigerian Contemporary Art Museum but no one seemed to know about it, even though I had an address. Ah well, that’s the trade off, I guess.

Next day I get that elusive bus ticket and wander about, again deciding that whoever mapped out Ikoyu for LP didn’t actually go there! I head back to Guide Centre but not a lot happening here today and no one seems too interested – I tried knocking on their door a couple of times, and even walking in, but sleeping is the order of the day – Tez would be right at home here. Eventually they rouse at lunchtime and we head off to the market – but I insist that I would much rather catch local transport rather than be driven – the traffic is so heavy it just doesn’t seem worth taking minivan for 3 people. We visit Jankara market and because I have mentioned that I’d like to get some Nigerian movies and this becomes our mission. I had checked out what was for sale locally and the pirated movies here are for local consumption on a VCD format with English subtitles. I’m after national released English language DVDs that don’t seem to be available here. Lagos has several markets on the island - one for food, one for clothing, one for live food, one for fabrics and all interspersed with plenty of chinese junk, people, cars, trucks and motorbikes. Busy, chaotic and very Nigerian – everyone is so friendly and I am accompanied by the never ending calls of Iyebo (white skin). Back to Guide Centre again, but it does give me a lot of time to work out a travel plan here in Nigeria along with trying to get south. I got a heads up on a flight option direct to Windhoek, Namibia from Accra on Wednesdays. I was thinking of staying till Saturday, but with a saving of $200 I think that if Calabar holds me then I’ll stay till the following Wednesday. Otherwise I’ll aim for next Wednesday – now to work out how to buy the ticket without using all my cash and no ATM or EFTPOS…

FACT: Hollywood and Bollywood meet NOLLYWOOD, the Nigerian film industry! Movies can be shot within a week on cheap budgets, typically A$20,000 going straight to DVD and VCD. Selling for around 1000 naira (A$1.50) a disc on the streets they are affordable and with an average circulation of 50,000 copies that’s a handsome return for the producers. Plots are clichéd and story lines include tales of voodoo, religious conflicts and economic plights. Comedies are really done well especially because of the typical West African facial expressions and vocal exclamations at misfortune or problematic incidents.