The journey home...

...starts outside the office, where I hail a passing okada [motorbike] by hissing through my teeth. ‘Everyday supamakett? For Olu Obasanjo?’ I ask. If the driver agrees to go ‘that side’ then we agree a price (40 naira on a good day) and I climb aboard. We turn left at the crossroads where a large lady sells groundnuts from under a tatty awning and then right by the ‘FBI security consultants’ office. Another left takes us past a row of small shops and a couple of chop houses [cheap eating places]. Then it’s right again onto Olu Obasanjo – a long stretch of well-paved road with a central reservation and solar-powered streetlights. We weave in between the traffic, trying to avoid ploughing down the hawkers selling air freshener, hankies and car stickers and then join the jam at the junction by the supermarket. I’m greeted with a chant of ‘auntie-apple-auntie-apple?’ from the kids selling bruised golden delicious from trays on their heads as I get down from the bike, pay the driver and try to cross the road without being squashed.

The junction by the supermarket marks the edge of the GRA area of town, where the houses are set back from wider, quieter roads and, almost invariably, shielded from the outside world with 8 foot walls and razor wire. It’s usually some time after 6 by now and with the okada curfew drawing near, it’s increasingly difficult to find a bike that will even consider going to NTA Road, never mind for a decent price. I think the logic behind the 7pm curfew is that it will prevent crime by limiting the movement of Port Harcourt’s population. In reality, it just makes everyone’s journey home something of a daily trial. Anyway, let’s assume – as happened today – that I find a bike that will go ‘that side’ for 120 or so naira, and off we go. A few minutes later we reach the junction by Skippers take-away, which is invariably jammed. We weave round the cars, trying to avoid an unholy dunking in the open storm drains and the huge potholes and, as we pass the vegetable stalls on the corner I wave to the woman who I always bought veggies from when I lived at Ledum’s place. By now we’re into Orazi, where the streets are narrow and crowded. Single storey lock-up shops line the way, offering everything from high heels (with matching handbags) to generators and fly-specked goat meet. We turn right by the big tree (one of the few still standing in this overcrowded city) and head along the road towards Ebony junction. We pass a couple of girls, each with a load atop her head – one is selling kerosene, the other platains – as one shouts ‘oyibo!’ at me. It’s one part greeting, one part exclamation. I wave and she gives me a thumbs-up. Onwards to the junction and left onto Rumuola Road – one of the city’s busiest roads – where we invariably get stuck behind an antiquated truck belching horrible, black fumes. We pass the woman selling ears of corn she’s roasted on a make-shift barbeque in an old enamel basin, the suitcase shop and the mattress depot and make our way towards Rumokuta junction.

The junction – a roundabout, usually manned by weary looking traffic controllers – is one part market, one part bus station and 3 parts chaos. Stalls selling peeled oranges, bootlegged CDs and boxer shorts (amongst other weird and wonderful things) crowd the edge of the road, while hawkers selling bread or bags of instant noodles dodge the irate drivers and their horns. Once free of the junction we head along Ikwerre Road a short way before turning off at NTA junction. There is a small traffic island at this T-junction where dozens of fruit sellers sit shoulder-to-shoulder with women – always women – roasting corn and men – always men – selling newspapers and magazines. On either side of the road, between the drains and the many shops, sit the phone ladies at their yellow plastic tables, under the uniform yellow umbrellas provided by one of the main mobile phone networks, MTN. Each table is a call centre – where passers-by can stop to make calls on the phone lady’s mobile or to pick up a scratch card to top up their credit – and they are everywhere. The road widens out after the junction and lock-up shops are replaced with church buildings, depots and, occasionally, patches of grass. If the weather is fine, a group of boys will be kicking a ball around on the grass by the unfinished Ministries of Christ (NTA Chapter) church, while vultures pick at the rubbish floating in the swamp beyond it. On hot days, these impromptu dumps emit an evil smell but the vultures, goats and scavengers don’t seem to mind. A little further on the shops start again and it’s here that I tap the bike driver on the shoulder to signal I want to get down. The gates to the estate where I’m staying are flanked by shops and so there are many familiar faces to greet before I head down the sandy track to the house. Along the way, I bid my neighbours good evening – ‘you’re welcome’ is the ever-present reply – and then run the gauntlet of small, grubby children and their chants of ‘oyibooooooo-gurd-evinning!’ before turning the corner down the last stretch of lane before the house. If no-one else is in, I reach through a hole in the mosquito netting to unlock the padlock on the security gate, step out of my dusty Birkenstocks and step into the cool darkness of the living room. And I’m home.

Ah-ah, sorry-oh…

…for the big gap between posts. Time really is flying by and – amazingly(!) – I’m getting by with checking emails and the like only every couple of days. There is an internet connection in the office I’m using as a base during the day but it’s painfully slow so I usually head out to a nearby internet café (of which there are heaps to chose from). The one I usually use has a number of posters up warning scammers not to ‘do 419’ and that all emails can be traced – if only it were true! Internet fraud must be up there with oil as one of Nigeria’s key earners these days.

419s aside, everything is going well here in Port Harcourt. I’m staying with Chris and Faith in the Mguoba area of town, which is about a 25 minute bike ride from the office, and I’m settling in nicely. Work-wise, I’ve been focusing on catching up with old contacts and colleagues and getting up to speed with goings on in the Niger Delta. From next week, I’ll be concentrating more on making arrangements for the rest of my fieldwork – identifying a suitable community, negotiating access, sorting out accommodation and so on.

Hmmm, what other news? I had a great weekend with my friends/sort-of colleagues, Damka and Jo. On Saturday, the 3 of us went swimming at a hotel in town and had a really good meal (mmmm, pizza!) and then went to watch the football at the Port Harcourt Polo Club (a grand name for a not very grand – yet strictly members only – place), courtesy of the friend of an American PhD student Damka knows. After the football, we were invited to her friend’s brother’s place to continue the evening where we ended up doing karaoke until the early hours. Another weird night in Africa! Sunday got off to a very slow start as a result (no surprises there), which was fine with me. At lunchtime Jo and I headed to the local market to get some food and caused much amusement… One ‘oyibo’ [white person] causes enough of a stir but two, well, that’s just entertainment. Jo’s been here a number of times and the neighbourhood kids know his name so we were followed by a chorus of ‘oyibo-Jo-oyibo-Jo’! The market’s really ramshackle – lots of rough wooden shacks roughly piled in together and stacked high with tomatoes, chillies, dried fish, bitter leaf (like spinach), plantains, stock cubes, palm oil and the occasional pile of fly-specked meat or stacks of green oranges. Jo went off to investigate the meat situation while I bantered with one of the tomato ladies. She assumed he was my husband and I put her straight saying that he wasn’t nearly strong enough to marry me (much mirth ensued). Oh, she said, so he’s your brother? I couldn’t be arsed to explain that he was a sort-of-colleague so I just agreed (been doing a lot of that of late!). After lunch and some more lying around we headed off to meet Damka at a bar to watch the football final. We were joined by a couple of other oyibos that Jo knows – who are working for the Small Arms Survey (SAS – how’s that for an unfortunate acronym?) and were just in town for a couple of days. After the football, Jo wanted to take the SAS guys to one of the bars where oil workers go – to show them the seedier side of Port Harcourt. These places are horrendous – loads of really stunning Nigerian girls being pawed by fat, middle-aged expats – but all too common in oil country. Our arrival caused quite a stir (one oyibo girl and three blokes in the their 20s – not quite the usual clientele). As long as I was around the guys were okay but as soon as I went off to the toilet or bar they were deluged. The girls were particularly taken with Jo (despite his protestations that he worked for an NGO, not an oil company) and made me promise to bring him back some time soon… This weekend I hope to go to Bori, the ‘capital’ of Ogoni, to catch up with my old colleagues at FOWA (Federation of Ogoni Women’s Associations) and attend the christening of a friend’s baby – will keep you posted!

Dis girl wey dey for Potacot

I’m here, I’m fine [touch wood] and everything’s gone to plan so far. Well, apart from Virgin Nigeria cancelling my flight to Port Harcourt at the last minute thus necessitating a mad rush to the domestic terminal to try and buy a ticket on another flight… No harm done though and I made it safe and sound. The next challenge will be getting my money back from Branson’s Nigerian counterparts – watch this space!

I’m currently staying at the grandly named Londa Hotels in the Orazi area of town – where I spent a couple of months back in 2002 – and so currently have the luxury of fairly constant power and Murdoch’s finest satellite telly. The food, on the other hand, leaves a little to be desired so it’s been take-away, Nigerian-style, all the way. Chicken and rice anyone? As of Wednesday, however, I’ll be staying with my friends Chris and Faith on the other side of town and will be able to cook for myself. Happy days…

Hmmm, what else? I have a Nigerian mobile number up and running (which will be one of 2 by Wednesday) and I can receive texts on my British mobile number so I should be fairly easy to get hold of! Aside from that, there’s not much to report so I will away and find myself some lunch..