Lagos: 6.10.1999
The country:
Our impressions of the country were majorly based on what people told us. The new civilian president had been in office for 7-8 months and was apparently a sincere man. The Nigerians were very bullish about him. They say : "Things are better!". Power is available now 3-4 hours a day instead of half-an-hour. The price of petrol has gone up from 11 cents to 20 cents per litre but nobody minds. "In 3-4 years' time we will live like white men."
Nigeria is actually a very rich country with plenty of oil, power generation (they give power to other countries), mineral deposits etc. They could have been rich like the Gulf countries but was always mismanaged. Terrific corruption - second-highest in the world after Indonesia! The previous president had salted away billions of dollars. There are many people in Nigeria who can 'buy' the country several times over. Indians living in Nigeria for a long time say that nothing will change because of single president's good intentions.
Lagos: 7.10.1999
The city:
Although the administrative capital is Abuja (around 700 km from Lagos), Lagos is the business centre. It is a major port and a vast city, including two islands - Lagos Island and Victoria Island - connected by bridges around 10 km long. Most of the big offices are located in V.I. and it is the most prosperous area in Lagos. We were staying in Hotel Federal Palace in V.I.
The government had spent a lot of money in trying to make Lagos a modern city. There are flyovers and multi-lane highways. And there are areas in between that are terribly congested and traffic crawls along.("go-slow", according to them). It is as if after some initial enthusiasm, the government has stopped bothering. The roads are now full of pot-holes, open drains abound, there is not much concern for clean living. I suddenly had a vision that this might be Calcutta after 10 years - a combination of fly-overs and go-slows - with the city as dirty as ever. Definitely, the traffic and manner of driving is quite Calcuttan.
Our rooms in Federal Palace overlooked the port. The hotel, although a 5-star, was a bit run down, and more African than international, especially with regard to food. My companion was anyway vegetarian, but all the meat dishes had such a peculiar smell that I could not eat any of them. Maybe they used olive oil. There were three Indian restaurants we knew of so some of our meals were quite decent.
Speaking of the hotel, the only thing I enjoyed there was live music in the restaurants. The girls singing had really good voices. One chap, who was belting out Harry Bellafonte numbers, on seeing us, suddenly broke out with: "Phoolon ka taaron...." from Hare Krishna Hare Rama.
Lagos: 8.10.1999
The people:
Nigerians are generally a friendly people. Their favourite phrase is : "You're welkom!" Nigeria was a British colony and practically everybody speaks English, often very good English.
There is a lot of poverty in Lagos, as in most of Nigeria. Like most poor countries, they have very rich people and very poor people. Only in the last 10 years, some moderately rich people are also emerging. However, we did not see much begging in Lagos. A lot of young men sell knick-knacks standing on the road in between cars - from biscuits to telephones! They say you can do a full shopping in a go-slow.
Till a year ago, the law-and-order situation in Lagos was quite bad. Nobody dared to own a new car, for fear it will be taken away. Even now, almost all cars on the road vary from old to decrepit. Armed robberies were quite common. We could still see a lot of shops with iron grills. Companies would give their executives around $1000 to keep in their house for giving the robbers. But a few months ago, the military police started strong security checks. The general 'janata' cracked down even stronger and started burning the robbers if caught; now the situation is better. V.I. is supposed to be the safest locality.
There are a number of Indian families living here. Either they are doing business, or they are executives in companies. But life for them seems quite restricted. You cannot walk around doing shopping - partly because it is dangerous, but also because the range of shops isn't much. No shopping locality like Ruwi, nor arcades like CCC. No places to go to on outings as such. In one of the Indian restaurants, we saw a sort of office family group of Brits as well as Indians celebrating some body's birthday. They all seemed like a huddled, defensive group trying to be boisterous.
We were talking to one of the restaurant-owners, an Indian from Gujarat, Mr Pandeya. He'd worked in Tanzania earlier and then came and settled here 10 years ago, purchasing this restaurant. Walk-in customers were few; he mostly survives on outdoor catering. One of his imminent projects was Navratri catering. Navratri is celebrated in a field here with food stalls and catering, with quite a lot of pomp, he said. He invited us, but we were leaving anyway. There is a temple in Lagos.
Lagos: 9.10.1999
Travel incidents:
1) On 4/10, we had travelled to Dubai, reaching the airport around 10 pm. Our flight was at 5.45 am next morning. We came out to sleep at Hotel Phoenicia courtesy Ethiopian Airlines. We could go to bed by 12.00 but were woken up and pushed out at 2.30 am saying that the airlines are asking for us. Not worth the checking in.
2) We travelled from Dubai to Addis Ababa and had a gap of 3 hours till our next flight to Lagos. I was in a mood to complete my morning rituals and repaired to the toilet, which was crowded as if it was the first show of "Blame It on Rio" in Muscat. It was almost like a guessing game, as to which door will open next! And there was this old Ethiopian attendant standing with a roll of toilet paper which he will roll out like displaying a reel of the finest silk cloth and tear it off with a deep bow!
3) On the flight from Addis to Lagos, they were showing a movie called: "Deep End of the Ocean", starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Treat Williams. Very nice senti movie. My neighbour was a huge Nigerian and both of us were sniffling away to glory.
4) In Lagos, we had invited one of our customers to dinner. He landed up at the hotel, accompanied by a lady, who I assumed was his wife. During dinner, I asked him: "So Iyk, how many children do you have?" He choked over his beer and his companion gave him a thoughtful look. He finally recovered smartly and said: "None yet - what about you?". I said I had two and he should not delay. They were a joy to watch. Later on I learnt he was yet to marry.
5) On 9/10 we were travelling to Libreville (Gabon) via Douala (Cameroon). On the first leg of the journey, we had a young small Nigerian in the window-seat, followed by Srikanth (my colleague) and then myself on the aisle seat. That chap polished off his own food, put two extra buns in the bag ("for me brother") and asked Srikanth what was it he was not having. Srikanth was not well and gave him all his things. The Nigerial was upset with Srikanth since he had not taken repeat helpings! To quieten him, I gave him some of mine, which he put in his bag ("for me brother").
6) Nigerian businessmen, however small the business, are always "Chairman" or "MD", and rightly so. A small fellow with a tiny shop would hand over a card saying: "Chairman/ CEO" - take your pick. One of them, who was a President, kept on addressing me as "Chairman" and was offended when I laughed. They take these things seriously.
7) At Douala, the transit point between Lagos and Libreville, the language turned French. The police kept our passports and told us, with a lot of pantomime, to get boarding cards for him to stamp (banging fist on hand) from Air Gabon (whoosh! flight taking off). We were wandering around looking for Air Gabon when an English-speaking "friend" attached himself to us, kept on giving us various useful tips about surviving the next two hours and finally asked for some help for "his friend". We gave him a dollar and he was terribly unhappy.
8) We had a funny mix-up after we had arrived at Lagos in the night. I got a call just after checking into the hotel: "Hello Mr. Ray! Welcome to Lagos." He was a Mr. Tato and he said his boys will be coming after half-an-hour to collect me for dinner. "My wife has cooked many many African dishes for you." I thought he was a customer I didn't know of and told Srikanth. He was also mystified. We called back the mobile number but there was no proper response. It was intriguing who could know about my arrival. We anyway went down for dinner at 9.30 pm, telling reception where we were. At 10.30 pm, when we were back in our rooms, I got a call again: "Mr. Ray! I come to hotel and go to restaurant but you are not there." It emerged he was looking for a different Mr. Ray in the same hotel. By then all his wife's cooking had gone to waste!
The country:
Our impressions of the country were majorly based on what people told us. The new civilian president had been in office for 7-8 months and was apparently a sincere man. The Nigerians were very bullish about him. They say : "Things are better!". Power is available now 3-4 hours a day instead of half-an-hour. The price of petrol has gone up from 11 cents to 20 cents per litre but nobody minds. "In 3-4 years' time we will live like white men."
Nigeria is actually a very rich country with plenty of oil, power generation (they give power to other countries), mineral deposits etc. They could have been rich like the Gulf countries but was always mismanaged. Terrific corruption - second-highest in the world after Indonesia! The previous president had salted away billions of dollars. There are many people in Nigeria who can 'buy' the country several times over. Indians living in Nigeria for a long time say that nothing will change because of single president's good intentions.
Lagos: 7.10.1999
The city:
Although the administrative capital is Abuja (around 700 km from Lagos), Lagos is the business centre. It is a major port and a vast city, including two islands - Lagos Island and Victoria Island - connected by bridges around 10 km long. Most of the big offices are located in V.I. and it is the most prosperous area in Lagos. We were staying in Hotel Federal Palace in V.I.
The government had spent a lot of money in trying to make Lagos a modern city. There are flyovers and multi-lane highways. And there are areas in between that are terribly congested and traffic crawls along.("go-slow", according to them). It is as if after some initial enthusiasm, the government has stopped bothering. The roads are now full of pot-holes, open drains abound, there is not much concern for clean living. I suddenly had a vision that this might be Calcutta after 10 years - a combination of fly-overs and go-slows - with the city as dirty as ever. Definitely, the traffic and manner of driving is quite Calcuttan.
Our rooms in Federal Palace overlooked the port. The hotel, although a 5-star, was a bit run down, and more African than international, especially with regard to food. My companion was anyway vegetarian, but all the meat dishes had such a peculiar smell that I could not eat any of them. Maybe they used olive oil. There were three Indian restaurants we knew of so some of our meals were quite decent.
Speaking of the hotel, the only thing I enjoyed there was live music in the restaurants. The girls singing had really good voices. One chap, who was belting out Harry Bellafonte numbers, on seeing us, suddenly broke out with: "Phoolon ka taaron...." from Hare Krishna Hare Rama.
Lagos: 8.10.1999
The people:
Nigerians are generally a friendly people. Their favourite phrase is : "You're welkom!" Nigeria was a British colony and practically everybody speaks English, often very good English.
There is a lot of poverty in Lagos, as in most of Nigeria. Like most poor countries, they have very rich people and very poor people. Only in the last 10 years, some moderately rich people are also emerging. However, we did not see much begging in Lagos. A lot of young men sell knick-knacks standing on the road in between cars - from biscuits to telephones! They say you can do a full shopping in a go-slow.
Till a year ago, the law-and-order situation in Lagos was quite bad. Nobody dared to own a new car, for fear it will be taken away. Even now, almost all cars on the road vary from old to decrepit. Armed robberies were quite common. We could still see a lot of shops with iron grills. Companies would give their executives around $1000 to keep in their house for giving the robbers. But a few months ago, the military police started strong security checks. The general 'janata' cracked down even stronger and started burning the robbers if caught; now the situation is better. V.I. is supposed to be the safest locality.
There are a number of Indian families living here. Either they are doing business, or they are executives in companies. But life for them seems quite restricted. You cannot walk around doing shopping - partly because it is dangerous, but also because the range of shops isn't much. No shopping locality like Ruwi, nor arcades like CCC. No places to go to on outings as such. In one of the Indian restaurants, we saw a sort of office family group of Brits as well as Indians celebrating some body's birthday. They all seemed like a huddled, defensive group trying to be boisterous.
We were talking to one of the restaurant-owners, an Indian from Gujarat, Mr Pandeya. He'd worked in Tanzania earlier and then came and settled here 10 years ago, purchasing this restaurant. Walk-in customers were few; he mostly survives on outdoor catering. One of his imminent projects was Navratri catering. Navratri is celebrated in a field here with food stalls and catering, with quite a lot of pomp, he said. He invited us, but we were leaving anyway. There is a temple in Lagos.
Lagos: 9.10.1999
Travel incidents:
1) On 4/10, we had travelled to Dubai, reaching the airport around 10 pm. Our flight was at 5.45 am next morning. We came out to sleep at Hotel Phoenicia courtesy Ethiopian Airlines. We could go to bed by 12.00 but were woken up and pushed out at 2.30 am saying that the airlines are asking for us. Not worth the checking in.
2) We travelled from Dubai to Addis Ababa and had a gap of 3 hours till our next flight to Lagos. I was in a mood to complete my morning rituals and repaired to the toilet, which was crowded as if it was the first show of "Blame It on Rio" in Muscat. It was almost like a guessing game, as to which door will open next! And there was this old Ethiopian attendant standing with a roll of toilet paper which he will roll out like displaying a reel of the finest silk cloth and tear it off with a deep bow!
3) On the flight from Addis to Lagos, they were showing a movie called: "Deep End of the Ocean", starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Treat Williams. Very nice senti movie. My neighbour was a huge Nigerian and both of us were sniffling away to glory.
4) In Lagos, we had invited one of our customers to dinner. He landed up at the hotel, accompanied by a lady, who I assumed was his wife. During dinner, I asked him: "So Iyk, how many children do you have?" He choked over his beer and his companion gave him a thoughtful look. He finally recovered smartly and said: "None yet - what about you?". I said I had two and he should not delay. They were a joy to watch. Later on I learnt he was yet to marry.
5) On 9/10 we were travelling to Libreville (Gabon) via Douala (Cameroon). On the first leg of the journey, we had a young small Nigerian in the window-seat, followed by Srikanth (my colleague) and then myself on the aisle seat. That chap polished off his own food, put two extra buns in the bag ("for me brother") and asked Srikanth what was it he was not having. Srikanth was not well and gave him all his things. The Nigerial was upset with Srikanth since he had not taken repeat helpings! To quieten him, I gave him some of mine, which he put in his bag ("for me brother").
6) Nigerian businessmen, however small the business, are always "Chairman" or "MD", and rightly so. A small fellow with a tiny shop would hand over a card saying: "Chairman/ CEO" - take your pick. One of them, who was a President, kept on addressing me as "Chairman" and was offended when I laughed. They take these things seriously.
7) At Douala, the transit point between Lagos and Libreville, the language turned French. The police kept our passports and told us, with a lot of pantomime, to get boarding cards for him to stamp (banging fist on hand) from Air Gabon (whoosh! flight taking off). We were wandering around looking for Air Gabon when an English-speaking "friend" attached himself to us, kept on giving us various useful tips about surviving the next two hours and finally asked for some help for "his friend". We gave him a dollar and he was terribly unhappy.
8) We had a funny mix-up after we had arrived at Lagos in the night. I got a call just after checking into the hotel: "Hello Mr. Ray! Welcome to Lagos." He was a Mr. Tato and he said his boys will be coming after half-an-hour to collect me for dinner. "My wife has cooked many many African dishes for you." I thought he was a customer I didn't know of and told Srikanth. He was also mystified. We called back the mobile number but there was no proper response. It was intriguing who could know about my arrival. We anyway went down for dinner at 9.30 pm, telling reception where we were. At 10.30 pm, when we were back in our rooms, I got a call again: "Mr. Ray! I come to hotel and go to restaurant but you are not there." It emerged he was looking for a different Mr. Ray in the same hotel. By then all his wife's cooking had gone to waste!
No comments:
Post a Comment