In 2003, working as a Water Treatment Engineer, I was asked if I fancied a trip to Nigeria to commission some equipment. Having a certain spirit of adventure and wanderlust, it took me about ……. ten seconds to make up my mind. I had never visited an African state before and experiencing a culture completely different to my own, at first, seemed daunting yet exciting. I have always had a good amount of self confidence in my ability to adapt and a belief that God would always look after me.
It took two trips in the end to commission the water treatment equipment which amounted to about fifteen days in all. During that time I can easily say that I had more experiences than in the rest of my life, but that said, I have never regretted making those visits to Nigeria as I have tremendous memories despite quite a few dubious moments.
One of these precarious moments involved the journey home at the end of my second visit. The water treatment equipment that I had been commissioning had been installed at a tobacco plant being constructed for British American Tobacco in Ibadan, approximately ninety minutes drive north-east of Lagos – Lagos being Nigeria’s largest and most populated city. The Lagos to Ibadan Highway was a dual carriageway that consisted of two stretches of tarmac that carved its way through the jungle. There were no road markings and road users drove on any part of the lane they fancied and the usual, almost obligatory driving at eighty m.p.h. was made even more hazardous by the numerous pot-holes in the road.
Gabriel was my driver – a well built Nigerian gentleman who seemed full of self confidence and very at ease with the world; until he got behind the wheel of a car.
The car he chauffeured me around in was a beige coloured Mercedes. The first time I had visited it had been relatively luxurious, but now it seemed to be in need of a good service. The engine sounded very rough, the radio didn’t work and neither did the air conditioning. It didn’t provide me with much optimism.
We left Ibadan with what we thought was plenty of time to spare to travel back to the airport at Lagos. The weather was extremely hot and humid and the non existent air conditioning made for a very uncomfortable journey. There were two sets of tolls between Ibadan and Lagos, the first being five or six miles outside of Ibadan. Just after the first set of booths we were beckoned to pull over at a police check point. There were many of these check points on the roads around the big cities. A policeman, dressed in his burgundy uniform looked at me and asked Gabriel,
“Is he French?”
Although I am not, Gabriels reply was.
“Yes”
“Move on” the policeman ordered and gestured for us to go. Gabriel obligingly drove on.
A few miles further down the road one of the tyres developed a puncture. Gabriel pulled the Mercedes onto the dusty roadside. We both got out of the car and Gabriel proceeded to swap over the wheel with the spare.
“No good” he proclaimed.
“You mean the spare’s got a flat as well?” I asked in amazement.
“Look after these” Gabriel said. I was dumbfounded as he shoved the keys to the car into my hand.
I was totally bemused as Gabriel wheeled the two flat tyres over to an old, beat up, yellow recovery truck parked some fifty yards behind us. I watched as they drove off down the road, leaving me to look after the car. I checked my mobile phone. Surprise, surprise there was no signal available for me to be able to phone anybody. My only choice was to sit and wait, praying for Gabriel’s return.
Sitting in the boot of the car was my suitcase crammed with my clothes, my tool bag and a rucksack storing my paperwork. I couldn’t have cared less about the suitcase and tools but I wanted to protect the paperwork which basically consisted of my flight ticket and my passport. I took the rucksack and positioned it in the foot well behind my seat. Then I locked the doors.
Whilst I was nervously waiting, suddenly from across the other side of the highway came a family of four Nigerian girls, with what I assume to be the mother at the head, going down in age through the daughters, with the youngest at the rear. She looked to be about eight years old. They were all dressed in colourful tops and sarongs and carried baskets on their heads. Patiently they waited for gaps in the fast moving traffic, before making their way across the road and disappearing down a track into the jungle.
Forty minutes later I was absolutely relieved to see Gabriel returning in the yellow recovery truck with one repaired tyre. He quickly fitted this and we sped off to find a ram shackled shed by the side of the road that was equipped with an air compressor. This apparently was the road side tyre repair service. The young man there repaired the second tyre. Now that I realised what they were I noted many of these sheds spread along the highway between Ibadan and Lagos.
“Great” I thought, “now let’s just get to the airport.”
The second set of toll booths were situated half way between Ibadan and Lagos. As we approached these the traffic came to a grinding halt. It took ages but when we finally reached the booths Gabriel asked the attendant why we were held-up.
“Highway robbery. Gun men just appeared from the trees, fired their guns at one of the cars and looted both the car and the people they had killed.”
Gabriel glanced over at me and said,
“Good job we had puncture”
Surely nothing else could go wrong between here and the airport.
It was June, the rainy season in Nigeria, and as we were closing in on Lagos, dark, heavy clouds loomed up in the sky. The thunderstorms in that part of the world were very spectacular and the continuous display of lightning was totally enthralling. The rain that came with it was spectacular to. With the failure of the air conditioning, the windows misted over rapidly. The windscreen wipers were going at full speed and, even with all the windows down, it was still difficult to get good view ahead. I was getting soaked through and yet Gabriel was still driving at eighty m.p.h. around the holes in the road. All I wanted now was to get to Lagos and off the dual carriageway so that we could experience some calm.
When we did finally leave the highway the scenery became one of poverty. Market stalls lined both sides of the road, selling a large variety of fruit and vegetables and yet surrounded by waste. The traffic slowed and people darted between the vehicles prompting the customary sound of car horns that seemed to fill the air in all built up areas. By now the progress of the traffic had become painfully slow. Eventually we could see why. A river of water cascaded across the road. The traffic was stop-start through the stream of water and I dreaded the point when we would be driving through. In the middle of the stream the dodgy sounding engine stalled. Amazingly Gabriel turned the ignition key and got the car started again. It stalled a second time but he managed to start it again. Suddenly I felt a wet sensation on my feet. As I looked down I was greeted with the sight of water flooding into the foot well. Quickly I raised my feet onto the seat. Then it dawned on me,
“My paperwork and my rucksack are behind my seat”
I grabbed the rucksack and despairingly rummaged through my paperwork for my passport and flight ticket.
Sopping wet.
Fortunately my ticket and passport weren’t seriously damaged and still legible. The rest of the journey to the airport was spent waving my papers in the air in a desperate attempt to dry them out.
What should have been an hour and a half journey took over five hours. Although it was fraught with much anxiety, I can honestly say that there was no point where I doubted my survival. My optimism, self confidence, and belief in God helped me see positively through each incident. There wasn’t a need to panic at any time. Experiences like these, difficult though they were, creates personal growth, making me a stronger person, knowing that I have the self confidence to see me through other obstacles and challenges that life may present.
For someone like me, brought up in a secure environment, experiences like these seem very dramatic. I would imagine that for the average Nigerian this would be commonplace. This provides Nigerian people with a deep hunger to improve their circumstances. There are opportunities for them, and I dream of returning one day to help them create the success that they so crave for. http://www.alleluiasuccessishere.com
Terry Norrington
http://www.whitedovebooks.co.uk/index.htm#terryn1
http://www.getselfconfident.com
http://www.alleluiasuccessishere.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment