Ain't it got dark quick?!

Gazing to the heavens, silly spectacles, sand between my toes, banana pancake in my belly, crash of waves tickling my ear drums, temperature already topping 30C at 8am…… can you guess where I am yet?

Ghana of course! Watching the total solar eclipse! What was it like? Incredible, strong, eerie, fantastic, moving, exciting, inspiring, humbling. And the light! It was as if the light was being sucked from earth, gradually at first, but then with a sudden final gulp it was gone - swallowed by the moon. With the moon in seemingly suspended animation for over 3 minutes we were left with a halo of sun rays and stars twinkling. Oooohs, aaaaahhs, and wows filled the air as we viewed this natural spectacle of giant proportions.

Considering I was even a bit spooked by the eclipse, I’d be interested to see what people thought in the villages around us. If you have no understanding of the workings of the solar system whatsoever, and little or no exposure to the media, how would you behold the event?

KerrrRUNCH

Keerrunch…..Kerplang…….screech…. went the exhaust as is released its hold on the underside of the car. And so we were stranded on a zillion mile-long dirt track, sun setting, and no-idea of how far remained of our journey.

Obviously, during the 7 hour maintenance session prior to our significantly delayed departure, no-one thought to look under the car – concentrating primarily on fixing the electric windows. That, and rearranging the engine so that when we came to top up the oil, it took 6 mechanics to find where to pour it into, and one poor guy to spend 20 minutes blowing the oil in through a pipe.

Even with bits falling off the car and our constant fretting over the time, our driver Eric managed to keep cheery and still professed to like his friend who had sold him the car the day before! Once we arrived and there was semi-cool beer awaiting us, all was fine. Eric still had to make the return journey, and, after a coke and a piece of wire to secure the exhaust, he was off - still with a smile on his face.

Why do African journeys make such funny tales? You don’t hear people sniggering about the trials and tribulations of traveling on the Northern Line, the difficulties of finding the connecting train on platform 500 at Birmingham New Street when the first train arrives late on platform 1. But somehow, here, there is always a way to laugh at traveling hiccups (albeit usually after the event).

The Dust! The Dust!

It's all gone topsy-turvy!

Last week we had two storms; big, fat satisfying raindrops with flashy displays of lightening and rumbling thunder. It seemed the dry season was drawing to an early close. Oh what fools we were! Harmattan is back, and this time it means business.

Dusty to the extreme, the air is a thick Sahara soup. Rocky outcrops that usually dominate the skyline are invisible until you practically squish your nose on their surface. Every night-time photo is littered with pin pricks of light as the flash reflects off the dust. Every surface wiped, every floor that is swept is inch thick in seconds (grrrrrrr). Even the strong African sun is pastel and cool, unable to penetrate the thick sand blanket over Nigeria.

Every breath I take is creating a sand-pit in my lungs. Every pore in my skin is an inverted sand-castle. It seemed my tan had reached a darker shade and my eyelashes were thicker, but a shower and a bunged up plug hole later revealed the grimy truth.

It's all topsy-turvy I tell you! This was how it was supposed to be before not now! Now it's supposed to be starting to rain, not to have rained before!

The Cat & the Lizard

Once upon a time there was a lizard. He was big and strong, royal blue with a yellow head and tail. This lizard, Lenny, had a good life. He grew up in Maitama, the posh area of Abuja, and was free to roam the walls of a lovely human life-camp.

Living in the very same area as Lenny, was a cat. She was small and agile, white with a custard splash. She too had a good life. There were plenty of games to be had and playing in the shrubbery provided her with lots of cover for ambushing small passers by.

Time passed and poor Lenny grew sick. He began to grey, and mobility became an issue. He had to rest often. Sometimes even appearing not to breathe. He began to confuse the humans, who thought him dead each time they spotted him on the concrete.

One day, inevitably, the cat and Lenny came face to face. There was a tense moment, but the cat was fooled by Lenny, and thought he was dead. Sensing no promise of play the cat left Lenny to himself.

OH! But not for human intervention, maybe Lenny would be crawling the walls today. Those horrible humans arrived home one day to find Lenny looking most dead on the doorstep. They looked and stared. Not a single breath appeared to raise Lenny's ribcage. He was on the doorstep. Someone fetched a broom.

Attracted by the outdoors activity the cat approached.

Lenny felt a prod from the broom. He twitched his leg and found himself pushed, speeding across the concrete. The cat pricked up her ears. Her whiskers quivered. She sensed another twitch from Lenny's limbs. She crouched, tense, alert. Then, suddenly, she pounced.

A bit of a nauseating crunch crunch later and poor Lenny was half the lizard he once was. The bottom half to be precise.

I wanted to vom. Bleeeuuuurrrggghhhh.

Dikko Market

Move over Tesco! And forget anything that I said about Nigerian supermarkets. The prestigious 'King of Variety' title goes to Dikko Market - a giant Fulani market on the way to Minna. (That said, I didn't see any chandeliers or two foot high plastic hippos; a bit of a let down, but that's by-the-by for now...)

After browsing the goat and ram arena (decided against buying as I was disturbed by the giant testicles), we moved on to view the artwork of giant calabash bowls (I've never seen a calabash actually growing ever). From there we passed piles of tomatoes and onions (a market is not a market if it doesn't have onions and tomatoes), fresh cashew fruits, chickens and ducks, then through to cloth and second-hand clothing. You can: buy walking sticks, get your plastic shoes melted back together, your knife sharpened, sample a plastic rug, collect a pile of yams, purchase some strange green powder, pray in the prayer ground (men only), buy a basket, get a suit made, sit under a tree, procure some chickens..... The list is endless. Hours of fun!

The most intriguing stalls are those selling items for traditional medicine, or perhaps even juju. You can acquire some nice snake skins, a dried chameleon or two, rat heads, animal fur, sticks, bits of crumbly rock, and testicles. What more could you want? Oddly, I've never seen a transaction taking place at one of these stalls. In fact the biggest crowd was attracted not by the stall, but by us trying to identify which animal had donated precious body parts to the stall.

You can shop til you drop and never worry about a heavy load, as small boys follow you around, clipping your heels with wheelbarrows at the ready.

If you were so inclined, after the shopping spree, you could follow your nose to the palm wine section. Here the air is full of palm wine fumes as it's sloshed from jerry can to calabash to mouth and dribbled to ground. Indeed it must have been those very fumes pushing people from tipsy to drunk. A policeman's motorbike sat rider-less at the periphery, waiting for a dignified journey home later - nee naw, nee naw HICCUP nee naw ssssssshhhhhttttop theifffff HICCUP nee naw.

Census

This month there is going to be a census here in Nigeria. We are currently waiting on el presidente to decide on the details of the curfew. It won't just a 'be at home after 10pm' affair, but a full 'three day no-one is allowed from their home' sentence.

Are they counting heads? "Right, no-one move...1, 2, 3..." Then, sometime later: "SIT STILL Jeremiah! Oh damn, were you number 275,097 or 275,098? Doh! Where was I? I'll have to start again. 1, 2, 3....."

No, more likely it will be "1, 2.. skip a few.... one hundred and fifty million! Ah, good, glad that's done, see - we really are incredibly populous and need lots of money."

Cynical? Moi?