I have just passed the two week point, halfway through my first tour with the client and I can now say that I am no longer an Eleme Junction virgin. Last Tuesday night my cherry was well and truly plucked. My wife is driving me to frustration as I at least try to sort out the administrative details of our separation and the impact it will have on the children’s education and general well being. Difficult enough by email, damn near impossible if she doesn’t answer any of my messages. Anyway, it is very important to leave the office by 4.30 pm so that you at least stand half a chance of clearing the notorious Eleme junction by 5 pm. Failure to do so on some days, sadly unpredictable, can leave you trapped the wrong side of the roundabout from home.
Downed bridges and the general layout of a town squeezed in on dry bits (or dryish bits) between the countless waterways that characterise the delta region, mean that there is literally only one way in and out of the whole city. This is a metropolis with 40 square kilometers of construction spread over an area of over 80 square kilometers. And only one road in or out. Where does all the traffic in and out collide, all too often literally? Eleme junction. A mud patch with a decaying concrete tower in the middle where five major roads meet and everyone needs to get across. For police and traffic wardens, it provides an unprecedented opportunity to augment their meager official salaries. Infractions are not only tolerated, they are encouraged. Traffic all socked in on your side of the dual carriageway? No problem. Jump over to the opposite carriageway, switch on Lucas Force Fields and drive up to the junction on the wrong side of the road. Have 20 - 30 Naira ready and when the policeman jumps you at the other end say, ‘Please Man, I beg you’, give him the crumpled Naira and he will cheerfully allow you to cut in ahead of the legitimate queue. Since everyman and his dog is doing it, all that’s left in the legal lane is a carpark full of those that cannot afford to pay and those few law abiding citizens left. I am afraid that expats fall into that category as well, the law abiding ones, not the poor ones (well, at least at the beginning of the month). Imagine what would happen, immediately to the expat, and later to the reputation of his company if a car with a foreigner in it was involved in a head on collision with a Nigerian while the foreigner was doing something illegal. There wouldn’t be enough left to scrape into buckets. So, knowing that the next day I was off to that peaceful enclave called Warri, (more on that later), where I would be unable to access a working telephone, never mind the internet, I waited and waited and waited for an important email from my wife. Did it come? Did it hell. At ten past five, my driver, Big Paul, (more on him later too) did a little agitated dance in my office and did his ‘I beg of you, man’, in an effort to get me going. Tooo late, sucker. Me I mean, not him. He did his best.
Normally, if you make it to the MTN building before grinding to a halt, you’ll be OK. Perhaps an hour later the driver will finally be able to manoeuvre the car over a ditch, between a broken down truck and a wooden shack selling CD’s and dodgy booze (more about this, too) and finally squeeze his way across Eleme and take you, head throbbing with diesel fumes, back to the Intels camp. Hit the traffic before Rumoukwurisi Junction, however, and you are doomed. This, of course, was exactly what happened last Tuesday. Ok, Woumoukrushi Junction is only one kilometer further away from Eleme than the MTN building.
‘Hey Paul, we’re only one kilometer further away, how much longer can it take?’, I say in my optimistic voice.
With a face already a perfect picture of gloom having resigned himself to an unavoidable and ghastly fate, he said with disturbing sincerity, ‘Be locky to see de camp before 10’.
Ten pm! No, he’s kidding, it can’t be possible. Well it bloody well was possible.
Most people reckon that they have been in traffic jams. Anyone faced with the misery of having to use the M25 on a regular basis will have experienced something approaching traffic jams. I say ‘something approaching’ because unless you have really experienced a true jam, as in everything well and truly jammed up, what happens on the M25 doesn’t even come close. On the M25, it is possible to be stationary for a while, but it usually is only a while and by ‘while’, I mean time measured in minutes or tens of minutes, not hours. The traffic is always edging forwards in the right direction a few yards at a time so it is possible to calculate an average speed, even if it is only walking pace. The sort of Jam I am talking about is the kind where your car devalues by 30% in the time you have been stuck in it and when you finally get out the other side Bristol motors have already brought out two new models and UK has had a change of government (Italy, eight changes of Government). I mean, I have heard of guys who have finally made it home to find that their wives have successfully sued and divorced them for abandonment and obtained a court order allowing them to dispose of all their joint assets in absentia. These are the mother’s of all traffic jams. Nothing moves. Everyone switches their engines off (which at least means the bloody horns stop). Passengers give up and start to walk. The road, already clogged with bumper to bumper and door handle to door handle traffic becomes a seething mass of humanity, a river of people squeezing like soldier ants around leaf litter in a rain forest. This giant millipede of steaming vehicles stretches all the way to Emele junction and does battle with four more giant millipedes coming in from all the other routes that unite there. No quarter is given or received and even the traffic wardens realize that if nothing is moving, there is no passing trade anymore so they give up and go home. Or lie about in groups smoking and drinking the day’s takings. The sun sets slowly on the carnage and the pall of exhaust fumes hanging over everything like a shroud is illuminated eerily by countless sidelights. The shapes and shadows of trucks and cars are amplified into monstrous leviathans by the yellow glow of nearby gas flares, which turn the city skyline into a scene from the blitz. All around are scurrying shadows, and the Wahala men move in. This is the dodgier part of Middle World and I am sat right in it with no escape.
Wahala in Nigeria means ‘trouble’. You have a row with the missus? She gave you Wahala last night. Give the waitress at a restaurant a hard time and she will curse you in the kitchen and spit in your chips and let all her colleagues know that you are a Wahala Man so that they will all spit in every meal you order henceforth. The community invade your facilities? Big Wahala at the compound, Boss. And then there are the opportunistic thugs riding around on 125cc motorcycles who know, they just know, that most people will not be able to take sitting five hours under these conditions before finally cracking and starting to walk. Their drivers will beg them to reconsider. Will beg them to take care, will beg them not to carry anything with them, to leave everything in the car. This last piece of advice seems to be taken literally as those that do decide to walk generally do leave everything behind. Including, obviously, their common sense. These are rich pickings. It is dark, there are no police in sight (none sober, anyway) and there is no way on earth that a security team can get to them. Easy. Hold ‘em up, quick shake down, guaranteed to get a mobile phone at least, and then away on the only form of transport that has a chance to get through the melee, a motorcycle. These then, are the Emele Junction Wahala Men. But how to tell the difference? The thicker the jam, the more wasps around it and like wasps, the motorcycles descend on the clogged artery for, paradoxically, even though among them will be the Wahala men, the majority become the only functioning taxi service offering an alternative to slow asphyxiation and a sweaty and cramped night in the car. If you walk, the Wahala men might see you. After all, it will take at least 45 minutes and expatriates, who are generally Caucasian, do tend to stand out a bit. On the other hand, try and find a bike boy that is a lot smaller than you (just in case he is a Wahala man, you might get lucky and snot him before he can pull anything off) and for 200 Naira, he will give you the most terrifying ride of your life back to the camp. If you double the amount, he might ride marginally slower.
In Luanda, the streets were filled with street boys who, like an army of willing flunkeys were happy to take orders for, and supply anything from, a can of Coke to a tall, slim mulatta (with her own hair if you can manage it mate!). Here, no such luck. Apart from all the dodgy stuff I have already described, there is nothing available out there to ease the pain of being slowly smoked to death like a breakfast kipper folded in half in a tiny Japanese tin box with a driver that, no matter how much you like him, makes you really appreciate how difficult it is for them to find clean water to wash in. I mean, there are not many cars, even with a full tank, that can sit there for five or six hours and keep the aircon going without turning their engine oil to sludge and running the bearings or at least overheating and dumping all their coolant out onto the road. Anyway, I could not believe that it was simply impossible to buy a bottle of whiskey in the street. In desperation (be reasonable, I was by then three hours past my customary top up time) I walked (yes, alone, I told you I was desperate) up to Emele Junction where there was a collection of stalls built up in the most inconvenient, traffic flow impeding places. All I could find was something purporting to be brandy. Of the golden elixir, not a drop to be had. So I bought the brandy and carried it back to the car. Getting the top off was the first hurdle. It had one of those soft metal screw caps with perforations that are supposed to separate when twisted. Not this one. Twisting the cap rounded off all the thread and the perforations held together like the Mafia. Once open (well, they don’t call him ‘Big Paul’ for nothing, hands like shovels that guy) a quick swig had me gasping and fumbling for my glasses so that, with the aid of the car headlight (sorry, force field projector), I could read the label. Examination of the label revealed that it was a ‘distillate of agricultural origin’ and contained colouring (caramel) and flavourants (none specified, but having tasted the vile concoction, the mind boggles). I have drunk some hooch in my time but this one took the biscuit (as well as the roof of my mouth, my tonsils and the lining of my stomach). My pecker, having been warned by those already affected organs immediately curled up and went on strike.
That then, was the last straw for me and at 10.30pm I finally cracked. I dumped everything of value in the car with Paul, carefully unhooked and folded up my common sense and hailed a bike boy. Three pulled up on the opposite carriageway, facing the wrong way for the traffic but the right way for me, if you see what I mean, and I could see more doing U Turns between the trucks so I picked the smallest of the bunch, got on the back and closed my eyes. I thought that closing the eyes would be a good tactic to avoid another coronary but a stunning blow to my elbow alerted me to my mistake. This kid was shooting for gaps that even octopi couldn’t slither through and I always understood that when it came to slithering, only octopi and lawyers couldn’t be beaten. Oh, and government press officers. Trouble was, the gaps might be sufficient for a malnourished kid on a wafer thin Fizzy, but put a middle aged portly expat on the back and something is going to bang against something else, that something else invariably being hard and unforgiving. Like the corner of a truck trailer (right on the collar bone that one), load of steel piping hanging off the back of a pick up (just above the right eye), or a rusty old bull bar (knee), or a sticky out even rustier exhaust (ankle, got the tetanus and stitches the day after). I finally crawled into the camp, very battered, even wearier and trudged round to my house with jackhammers pounding my head from the inside out and a bladder desperately trying to make a deal with an unresponding willie. It was only when I was standing in front of the door, mouth already watering at the prospect of a tumbler full of malt, only then that I realized that my keys were in my computer bag. My computer bag was with Big Paul and Big Paul was on the wrong side of Emele Junction. I could have cried. Maybe the Wahala man got me after all.
Showing posts with label Port Harcourt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Port Harcourt. Show all posts
Friday, 16 March 2007
A Man's World?
While I was in Lagos I was warned against going to the Mosquito Bar in Port Harcourt, not its real name of course but one with which the expats have christened it, so obviously it was the first place I went to. Now with a name like that, one would imagine that it lies in some mosquito infested swamp, and indeed it does, but happily that was not why the club gained its nickname. In spite of the fact that Port Harcourt has enough expats to fill a telephone directory, Nigerian girls, and especially the professional kind, know each and every one of them. Which are players, which aren't and the tendencies and preferences of those that do. Play I mean. Naturally, they can also recognise a 'new listing' at 200 paces. Walking into the Mosquito bar by one’s self was like being dropped into a cave full of malnourished vampire bats. If spandex hot pants and tight tops could rustle, I am sure that the apparent sound of fluttering wings would have further enhanced this impression as these avaricious creatures emerged from the shadows and closed in on the kill. I agree, however, that ‘Mosquito Bar’ is a catchier name than 'Vampire Cave' and is also kinder to the girls. Alright, I suppose metaphorically speaking they do suck blood out of you one way or another but at 3,000 Naira ($20) a shot, it really is only a mosquito bite compared to a vampire’s appetite. I am sure you get the picture.
Survival, therefore, depends on quick wits if one is not to disappear beneath a feeding frenzy. The trick, it seems (and it worked for me), is to grab any one of them quickly, plonk her down in a chair, buy her a drink and spend five minutes in earnest conversation with her. Evidently having made my choice the others, through some professional code of conduct refined over time, retire a barely discreet distance and prowl the edges of the newly created space like hungry lionesses waiting for a campfire to die down before nipping in for a quick kill. Consisting as the club does of a large enclosed courtyard with mature trees in well watered health the impression of being alone amongst hungry predators on the Serengeti is all the greater. If your new companion leaves you for whatever reason, to powder her nose for example, these carnivores will nip in and grab a chunk of flesh (usually a cigarette or two, perhaps a drink). Chat nicely to her, however, and keep buying her drinks and she will be your best friend (and not risk leaving you alone too often). Even better, with breathtaking maturity/professional co-operation, she will concede that all men have different tastes so if I did not want to ‘carry’ her (from pidgin English, ‘carry de gel home’, I guess), she would help me select wisely from the stable. OK, maybe not the entire stable, just those that belong to the same worker’s co-operative union that she does.
Outstanding! Glass of scotch in one hand, puffing luxuriously on a genuine Romeo y Juliette (from Lagos, not the ones from Havana), I could sit in comfort while my elegant ring master invited her selection one at a time to join us at the table. It was entertaining to say the least and the atmosphere, I must confess, surprisingly agreeable. Even the music wasn’t too loud, remarkable considering that at first I mistook the disco speakers to be two black armoured cars with their rear doors wide open (well, I don’t know how much profit these places make). Better still, and unusually for a joint like this, and believe me, in the course of my duties (honestly, duties) I’ve been in a few around the world, the lighting is half decent so there is even a chance that a chap can avoid the near cardiac arrest that switching the bedroom light on when finally getting home can sometimes cause, especially if the selection had been made in wartime lighting and under the fug of alcohol.
I once tried to take a few photographs of the place in an effort to capture something of its indescribable merits but within seconds all the girls were vying with each other to throw the most erotic poses conceivable (in a public place anyway), at which point my bipod became a tripod and I suddenly lost interest in photography.
A few words of caution, though, (apart from the usual hazards of casual congress, especially in Africa). Now it is not my intention to belittle, insult or in any way denigrate these fine young ladies. I am merely pointing out the facts as they are. I am not commenting on the socio-economic factors that have encouraged these girls to take up their chosen profession nor am I moralizing. So all the tree hugging yoghurt knitters about to leap all over me frothing with riotous indignation can all please sit down again. Or leave the room. I did mean riotous not righteous, by the way, I’ve seen enough of these buggers outside embassies, abortion clinics and vivisection laboratories to know what I am talking about (we security men get invited to all the best parties). And I am also not going to suggest that the virtue of young Nigerian maidens is protected by their brothers with the manic intensity of Greek farmers even though I have noticed that generally the more attractive the bait, the severer the penalty. Some Afghani girls are gorgeous but messing with them is really akin to pushing your tool into a bacon slicer. This rule, however, doesn’t seem to apply to girls in Nigeria. Not to say that there aren’t any breathtakingly repulsive ones around (remember the bedroom light switch? Heart attack? Never mind). But there are some stunningly beautiful girls here and no religious police or shotgun toting relatives. Unfortunately, (for me anyway, call me old fashioned but I kind of like natural, as God intended sort of stuff) not one has her own hair. This in itself is not a problem as there are some fine bone structures out there that are best displayed rather than hidden by a Sunsilk controlled mop, but here ‘European’ hair is considered a must, so the variety of Axminster hair do's is bewildering. And it gets better. Committing themselves whole heartedly to the idea that man really can improve on God's creation (or woman can in this case), they even shave their eyebrows off and draw new ones in with an erratic stroke of a half inch paint brush dipped in pitch. I always said that I liked them (girls, that is) with a touch of the tar brush but I prefer the kind that doesn’t come off on pillow cases. You must be getting the idea, though. These girls have a 70’s Bronx notion of what men find attractive. I blame the Hustler Corporation for dumping all their old unsold stock into third world markets.
As I was saying, the facts. All these girls would make outstanding wives. They said so. They would honour and obey (their husbands, of course) and would never, NEVER cause any Wahala. They would dress as their husband wished, wear their hair as he liked (so long as he bought it from the market for them), would work like dogs to keep the house, garden, farm, whatever, tidy, and would make themselves anything from skinny to obese as required and, of course, they LOVE kids, (and nice clothes, and jewels, and big cars, and a big house in UK so that all the relatives can come and stay. Forever). They all want to open hair salons so that they can contribute to the family income (allowing Ideal Man to consume as much Star as he likes with a clear conscience) by weaving more nylon into even more girls heads so that they in turn could become Best Wives in the World to other Ideal Men and open more hair salons and not only are they all happy so are Dupont and all its share holders. And they are ALL excellent cooks, assuming you like pounded yam, fried rice, garri (a sort of congealed wallpaper paste made from cassava), stewed goat’s meat and fried chicken. I have not, you will notice, mentioned their sexual prowess, I would have thought that self evident. Which reminds me, you will not find a single bottle of aspirin in the house. Nigerian wives NEVER suffer from headaches.
So, I hear you ask, how does a chap win the heart of what surely must be one of the finest wives available anywhere in the world? The process is actually quite simple and is broken down into easy stages so that even the Tool Pushers can understand. No, not the clients of the Mosquito Bar in general or those that have just had their tools pushed into a bacon slicer by some Mullah’s apprentice. I mean ‘Tool Pushers’, those hardy folk, the back bone of the oil industry who do most of the hard work. Well, they aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the box, are they? Enough of tools.
Being drunk on first acquaintance is not a requirement but, all things considered, being drunk does not appear to be a hindrance. In fact, potential wives (these ones anyway) seem to feel it their duty to sit out the whole evening drinking that vile, sweet, non alcoholic malt concoction, Maltina, because it is dirt cheap thereby leaving their future husbands at liberty to lay out wads drinking huge quantities of beer or whisky. Well, he has earned it, the dear. Honestly, such selflessness. Wouldn’t see it in an Islington wine bar, would you? Come to think of it, you wouldn’t see it in Luanda either where the girls can consume even more whisky than their client, or in Berlin where they drink champagne or the Zona Rosa in Mexico City where they drink the most fantastic and expensive cocktails I have ever seen. I can’t tell you the drinking habits of Brazilian girls because I have never been there. My ex once told me that if I ever went there by myself, I needn’t bother coming back. Pity I didn’t go, that kind of deal would have been a damn sight cheaper than the one I finally got. Let’s face it, the unused portion of a return ticket to Rio is a lot easier to swallow than half a house in Cape Town and maintenance until the kids are twenty one.
Now we’ve all heard those jokes how in a Man’s World being able to consume sixteen pints of Pedigree in one sitting would be sexually provocative, but in the Mosquito Bar it actually seems to work. The more signs of inebriation that a chap exhibits, the more eligible young spinsters seem to flock around him. And they’re just so damn considerate. Recognising that a good, honest, hardworking man is likely to get a little unsteady on the pins after an evening de-stressing by imbibing one Star after another, they carefully support him with strategically placed hands, and help him to perambulate from table to bar, bar to table, table to urinal, nothing is too much trouble for these kind souls. They even go so far as to assist in delicately adjusting strategic bits of anatomy so that Ideal Man has a good seat. Thinking about it, they seem to spend a fair bit of time doing that. Well, let’s face it, there is nothing more gut churning than accidentally sitting on one of your own testicles, is there?
So what about behaviour? Or rather what in middle England would be considered bad behaviour? Doesn’t seem to be a problem. Nigerian wives expect their men to relax and enjoy themselves. Not for them the shrinking violet who behaves with the utmost decorum and keeps his eyes firmly locked on his wife ignoring the fillies cantering around him. A roving eye that anywhere else would be met by a swift kick under the table or a three day long headache is greeted here with, ‘You like her? She’s a good girl, you want me to call her over?’ Unreal.
Now I don’t care what they say, white men cannot dance. It is as simple as that. When it came to making whites, along with melanin, God missed out that in built metronome that all other races have (with the possible exception of Eskimos, but then I have never been to an Eskimo night club so I could be wrong). What is significant in this case is that white men think they can dance. Not only that, they think that they are so good, that people enjoy watching them dance. I know that this is a huge generalization (and there will be more, this isn’t a thesis after all) but try watching a bunch of drillers that have just spent a celibate and alcohol free month on a rig let their hair down in a place like the Mosquito bar, or the Blues Club or anywhere else that they can kill a few hours before being poured on the plane to Lagos and then off to Europe, the States or Australia. I mean, they don’t even bother to get changed. The bus pitches up straight from the heli-pad and out they tumble, all clad in bright orange or red boiler suits and footwear appropriate to the industrial environment in which they work.
Nevertheless, the girls greet each arriving shift with the same warmth and affection as they did the last and seem genuinely pleased to see the lads enjoying themselves, and cluster in groups giggling (with delight I presume) when the mob takes to the dance floor. No doubt encouraged by the enthusiasm of the audience, cavorting does not remain restricted to the dance floor but spills across the courtyard and into the bar, and some, with true gladiatorial spirit climb up onto the bar, drop their trousers and wave their parts around while singing, ‘Wee Willy Wonker’ or some other catchy tune (they are usually Scottish, I have no idea why). Incidentally, it always amazes me what alcohol does to the memory circuits. Drunk or sober, every chap knows that it is impossible to shuffle across a hotel bedroom floor with trousers around ankles let alone the top of a rickety bar well lathered with beer and mined with a variety of glasses, bottles and handbags. The result is always the same, tackle in hand, their little Sambas end with flailing limbs and a little squeal as they crash into an equally drunk group of tool pushers who, with the aid of sturdy rig boots demonstrate to the hapless fellow just why they are called ‘tool pushers’ and have an undeniably awful reputation. All this, the girls take in their stride and whoever it was lucky enough to be with Samba Charlie will recover what is left of him and sympathetically massage him back to good humour.
So where is the note of caution, then? Expats have a reputation, perhaps thoroughly undeserved given the number of divorcees running around, for making caring family men. Nothing would please these girls more than to score a decent husband. You carry a girl and you assume it is business, and indeed it is. In part. The girl, though, assumes that having chosen her you are making a commitment. See the same girl again and the impression that a lifelong romance is blooming is reinforced, and you’re setting off over the edge of a slope as steep as income tax and as slippery as a government press officer. Let her move in with you and you’re off down that slope so fast the pounding in your ears won’t be love’s heart beating, it will be the sound barrier breaking. I’ve heard of guys who, their ardour somewhat cooled, have tried to quietly finish with their girlfriends (it was all getting a bit obvious and we don’t want the boss to find out, do we?) only to have her appear in the office lobby wailing at the top of her voice about heartless rejection and the injustice of it after all she had done for the guy whereupon she proceeds to list to a by now very interested audience of soon to be (for the Romeo anyway) ex work colleagues just what sort of things he asked her to do in bed and with which household implements.
If it gets to that stage, and it not too infrequently does, the only way out (apart from the fire escape) is to pay compensation for the time she wasted with you immediately followed by a fast jet out of the country. One guy was too stupid for words. Having reached a settlement he went for one more bonk for old times sake before he pushed off on leave. She got him at the airport. Cost him another 100,000 Naira. Yet there are guys who do not want to ride every mount in the stable so what’s chap to do? Be very careful, that’s what. And then there’s the other note of caution. It is business, at least to start with. Everyone knows that the going rate is 3-4,000 Naira. The punters do and so do the girls. Don’t, whatever you do, no matter how many Star’s are swilling around your insides, forget to confirm that before she carries you back to your place. Camp security, along with your neighbours, are only too willing to attend an early morning matinee performance of ‘he made me do this and I’m a good girl and don’t normally do that ‘cos it’s illegal and that’s why he agreed to pay more’ etc. and that’s if you’re lucky. Yet another expat, really drunk by the end of a Saturday spent in the Portofino restaurant bar, persuaded one of the waitresses to come home with him. He thought he’d already closed the deal but I know this guy, once he’s had his customary gutful, he’s pretty much incomprehensible even to a fellow Englishman, never mind a pidgin English speaking local so all the seeds of a ‘misunderstanding’ had been sown. Services having been rendered the girl held out her hand and politely asked for the one hundred US dollars that she had been promised (about 14 thousand Naira). There are various accounts of the verbal exchange that followed suffice to say that he wasn’t exactly nimble on his feet and the frying pans in the houses here are bloody great lumps of cast iron that not even Le Creuset can match for weight and destructive power. I have seen mob hits that looked tamer by comparison.
One final piece of advice before we drop this subject. Be careful with mobile phones. A survey published by Italy's largest private investigation company said that in nearly 90% of cases, it is mobile phones, or rather careless use of them, that betray extra marital activities. As an expat, and especially in the oil industry, it is very likely that you’ll be using the same mobile as your back to back, the guy that does your job when you are on leave. No real problem if you both have similar interests and get on well. Tragic if he’s a backstabbing git. Under no circumstances, if you have any desire whatsoever to maintain a discreet relationship, should you hand out your phone number. Do that and it’s another sign of commitment and the inherent right for them to phone at any time of day or night. And watch that dreaded giveaway, the caller ID function. I know, at work you want the people you call to know that it is you calling (and not a recently dumped concubine hell bent on revenge) so that they will answer, so of course you must have your caller ID activated. Get a few pints down your neck and start feeling a bit lonely, however, and I guarantee that you’ll hit the one key dial without thinking and as soon as you’ve hung up having arranged a meet, she’s pressing ‘list calls’, ‘last call’, ‘options’, ‘save’, ‘[your name]’ on her mobile and you’re doomed.
Survival, therefore, depends on quick wits if one is not to disappear beneath a feeding frenzy. The trick, it seems (and it worked for me), is to grab any one of them quickly, plonk her down in a chair, buy her a drink and spend five minutes in earnest conversation with her. Evidently having made my choice the others, through some professional code of conduct refined over time, retire a barely discreet distance and prowl the edges of the newly created space like hungry lionesses waiting for a campfire to die down before nipping in for a quick kill. Consisting as the club does of a large enclosed courtyard with mature trees in well watered health the impression of being alone amongst hungry predators on the Serengeti is all the greater. If your new companion leaves you for whatever reason, to powder her nose for example, these carnivores will nip in and grab a chunk of flesh (usually a cigarette or two, perhaps a drink). Chat nicely to her, however, and keep buying her drinks and she will be your best friend (and not risk leaving you alone too often). Even better, with breathtaking maturity/professional co-operation, she will concede that all men have different tastes so if I did not want to ‘carry’ her (from pidgin English, ‘carry de gel home’, I guess), she would help me select wisely from the stable. OK, maybe not the entire stable, just those that belong to the same worker’s co-operative union that she does.
Outstanding! Glass of scotch in one hand, puffing luxuriously on a genuine Romeo y Juliette (from Lagos, not the ones from Havana), I could sit in comfort while my elegant ring master invited her selection one at a time to join us at the table. It was entertaining to say the least and the atmosphere, I must confess, surprisingly agreeable. Even the music wasn’t too loud, remarkable considering that at first I mistook the disco speakers to be two black armoured cars with their rear doors wide open (well, I don’t know how much profit these places make). Better still, and unusually for a joint like this, and believe me, in the course of my duties (honestly, duties) I’ve been in a few around the world, the lighting is half decent so there is even a chance that a chap can avoid the near cardiac arrest that switching the bedroom light on when finally getting home can sometimes cause, especially if the selection had been made in wartime lighting and under the fug of alcohol.
I once tried to take a few photographs of the place in an effort to capture something of its indescribable merits but within seconds all the girls were vying with each other to throw the most erotic poses conceivable (in a public place anyway), at which point my bipod became a tripod and I suddenly lost interest in photography.
A few words of caution, though, (apart from the usual hazards of casual congress, especially in Africa). Now it is not my intention to belittle, insult or in any way denigrate these fine young ladies. I am merely pointing out the facts as they are. I am not commenting on the socio-economic factors that have encouraged these girls to take up their chosen profession nor am I moralizing. So all the tree hugging yoghurt knitters about to leap all over me frothing with riotous indignation can all please sit down again. Or leave the room. I did mean riotous not righteous, by the way, I’ve seen enough of these buggers outside embassies, abortion clinics and vivisection laboratories to know what I am talking about (we security men get invited to all the best parties). And I am also not going to suggest that the virtue of young Nigerian maidens is protected by their brothers with the manic intensity of Greek farmers even though I have noticed that generally the more attractive the bait, the severer the penalty. Some Afghani girls are gorgeous but messing with them is really akin to pushing your tool into a bacon slicer. This rule, however, doesn’t seem to apply to girls in Nigeria. Not to say that there aren’t any breathtakingly repulsive ones around (remember the bedroom light switch? Heart attack? Never mind). But there are some stunningly beautiful girls here and no religious police or shotgun toting relatives. Unfortunately, (for me anyway, call me old fashioned but I kind of like natural, as God intended sort of stuff) not one has her own hair. This in itself is not a problem as there are some fine bone structures out there that are best displayed rather than hidden by a Sunsilk controlled mop, but here ‘European’ hair is considered a must, so the variety of Axminster hair do's is bewildering. And it gets better. Committing themselves whole heartedly to the idea that man really can improve on God's creation (or woman can in this case), they even shave their eyebrows off and draw new ones in with an erratic stroke of a half inch paint brush dipped in pitch. I always said that I liked them (girls, that is) with a touch of the tar brush but I prefer the kind that doesn’t come off on pillow cases. You must be getting the idea, though. These girls have a 70’s Bronx notion of what men find attractive. I blame the Hustler Corporation for dumping all their old unsold stock into third world markets.
As I was saying, the facts. All these girls would make outstanding wives. They said so. They would honour and obey (their husbands, of course) and would never, NEVER cause any Wahala. They would dress as their husband wished, wear their hair as he liked (so long as he bought it from the market for them), would work like dogs to keep the house, garden, farm, whatever, tidy, and would make themselves anything from skinny to obese as required and, of course, they LOVE kids, (and nice clothes, and jewels, and big cars, and a big house in UK so that all the relatives can come and stay. Forever). They all want to open hair salons so that they can contribute to the family income (allowing Ideal Man to consume as much Star as he likes with a clear conscience) by weaving more nylon into even more girls heads so that they in turn could become Best Wives in the World to other Ideal Men and open more hair salons and not only are they all happy so are Dupont and all its share holders. And they are ALL excellent cooks, assuming you like pounded yam, fried rice, garri (a sort of congealed wallpaper paste made from cassava), stewed goat’s meat and fried chicken. I have not, you will notice, mentioned their sexual prowess, I would have thought that self evident. Which reminds me, you will not find a single bottle of aspirin in the house. Nigerian wives NEVER suffer from headaches.
So, I hear you ask, how does a chap win the heart of what surely must be one of the finest wives available anywhere in the world? The process is actually quite simple and is broken down into easy stages so that even the Tool Pushers can understand. No, not the clients of the Mosquito Bar in general or those that have just had their tools pushed into a bacon slicer by some Mullah’s apprentice. I mean ‘Tool Pushers’, those hardy folk, the back bone of the oil industry who do most of the hard work. Well, they aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the box, are they? Enough of tools.
Being drunk on first acquaintance is not a requirement but, all things considered, being drunk does not appear to be a hindrance. In fact, potential wives (these ones anyway) seem to feel it their duty to sit out the whole evening drinking that vile, sweet, non alcoholic malt concoction, Maltina, because it is dirt cheap thereby leaving their future husbands at liberty to lay out wads drinking huge quantities of beer or whisky. Well, he has earned it, the dear. Honestly, such selflessness. Wouldn’t see it in an Islington wine bar, would you? Come to think of it, you wouldn’t see it in Luanda either where the girls can consume even more whisky than their client, or in Berlin where they drink champagne or the Zona Rosa in Mexico City where they drink the most fantastic and expensive cocktails I have ever seen. I can’t tell you the drinking habits of Brazilian girls because I have never been there. My ex once told me that if I ever went there by myself, I needn’t bother coming back. Pity I didn’t go, that kind of deal would have been a damn sight cheaper than the one I finally got. Let’s face it, the unused portion of a return ticket to Rio is a lot easier to swallow than half a house in Cape Town and maintenance until the kids are twenty one.
Now we’ve all heard those jokes how in a Man’s World being able to consume sixteen pints of Pedigree in one sitting would be sexually provocative, but in the Mosquito Bar it actually seems to work. The more signs of inebriation that a chap exhibits, the more eligible young spinsters seem to flock around him. And they’re just so damn considerate. Recognising that a good, honest, hardworking man is likely to get a little unsteady on the pins after an evening de-stressing by imbibing one Star after another, they carefully support him with strategically placed hands, and help him to perambulate from table to bar, bar to table, table to urinal, nothing is too much trouble for these kind souls. They even go so far as to assist in delicately adjusting strategic bits of anatomy so that Ideal Man has a good seat. Thinking about it, they seem to spend a fair bit of time doing that. Well, let’s face it, there is nothing more gut churning than accidentally sitting on one of your own testicles, is there?
So what about behaviour? Or rather what in middle England would be considered bad behaviour? Doesn’t seem to be a problem. Nigerian wives expect their men to relax and enjoy themselves. Not for them the shrinking violet who behaves with the utmost decorum and keeps his eyes firmly locked on his wife ignoring the fillies cantering around him. A roving eye that anywhere else would be met by a swift kick under the table or a three day long headache is greeted here with, ‘You like her? She’s a good girl, you want me to call her over?’ Unreal.
Now I don’t care what they say, white men cannot dance. It is as simple as that. When it came to making whites, along with melanin, God missed out that in built metronome that all other races have (with the possible exception of Eskimos, but then I have never been to an Eskimo night club so I could be wrong). What is significant in this case is that white men think they can dance. Not only that, they think that they are so good, that people enjoy watching them dance. I know that this is a huge generalization (and there will be more, this isn’t a thesis after all) but try watching a bunch of drillers that have just spent a celibate and alcohol free month on a rig let their hair down in a place like the Mosquito bar, or the Blues Club or anywhere else that they can kill a few hours before being poured on the plane to Lagos and then off to Europe, the States or Australia. I mean, they don’t even bother to get changed. The bus pitches up straight from the heli-pad and out they tumble, all clad in bright orange or red boiler suits and footwear appropriate to the industrial environment in which they work.
Nevertheless, the girls greet each arriving shift with the same warmth and affection as they did the last and seem genuinely pleased to see the lads enjoying themselves, and cluster in groups giggling (with delight I presume) when the mob takes to the dance floor. No doubt encouraged by the enthusiasm of the audience, cavorting does not remain restricted to the dance floor but spills across the courtyard and into the bar, and some, with true gladiatorial spirit climb up onto the bar, drop their trousers and wave their parts around while singing, ‘Wee Willy Wonker’ or some other catchy tune (they are usually Scottish, I have no idea why). Incidentally, it always amazes me what alcohol does to the memory circuits. Drunk or sober, every chap knows that it is impossible to shuffle across a hotel bedroom floor with trousers around ankles let alone the top of a rickety bar well lathered with beer and mined with a variety of glasses, bottles and handbags. The result is always the same, tackle in hand, their little Sambas end with flailing limbs and a little squeal as they crash into an equally drunk group of tool pushers who, with the aid of sturdy rig boots demonstrate to the hapless fellow just why they are called ‘tool pushers’ and have an undeniably awful reputation. All this, the girls take in their stride and whoever it was lucky enough to be with Samba Charlie will recover what is left of him and sympathetically massage him back to good humour.
So where is the note of caution, then? Expats have a reputation, perhaps thoroughly undeserved given the number of divorcees running around, for making caring family men. Nothing would please these girls more than to score a decent husband. You carry a girl and you assume it is business, and indeed it is. In part. The girl, though, assumes that having chosen her you are making a commitment. See the same girl again and the impression that a lifelong romance is blooming is reinforced, and you’re setting off over the edge of a slope as steep as income tax and as slippery as a government press officer. Let her move in with you and you’re off down that slope so fast the pounding in your ears won’t be love’s heart beating, it will be the sound barrier breaking. I’ve heard of guys who, their ardour somewhat cooled, have tried to quietly finish with their girlfriends (it was all getting a bit obvious and we don’t want the boss to find out, do we?) only to have her appear in the office lobby wailing at the top of her voice about heartless rejection and the injustice of it after all she had done for the guy whereupon she proceeds to list to a by now very interested audience of soon to be (for the Romeo anyway) ex work colleagues just what sort of things he asked her to do in bed and with which household implements.
If it gets to that stage, and it not too infrequently does, the only way out (apart from the fire escape) is to pay compensation for the time she wasted with you immediately followed by a fast jet out of the country. One guy was too stupid for words. Having reached a settlement he went for one more bonk for old times sake before he pushed off on leave. She got him at the airport. Cost him another 100,000 Naira. Yet there are guys who do not want to ride every mount in the stable so what’s chap to do? Be very careful, that’s what. And then there’s the other note of caution. It is business, at least to start with. Everyone knows that the going rate is 3-4,000 Naira. The punters do and so do the girls. Don’t, whatever you do, no matter how many Star’s are swilling around your insides, forget to confirm that before she carries you back to your place. Camp security, along with your neighbours, are only too willing to attend an early morning matinee performance of ‘he made me do this and I’m a good girl and don’t normally do that ‘cos it’s illegal and that’s why he agreed to pay more’ etc. and that’s if you’re lucky. Yet another expat, really drunk by the end of a Saturday spent in the Portofino restaurant bar, persuaded one of the waitresses to come home with him. He thought he’d already closed the deal but I know this guy, once he’s had his customary gutful, he’s pretty much incomprehensible even to a fellow Englishman, never mind a pidgin English speaking local so all the seeds of a ‘misunderstanding’ had been sown. Services having been rendered the girl held out her hand and politely asked for the one hundred US dollars that she had been promised (about 14 thousand Naira). There are various accounts of the verbal exchange that followed suffice to say that he wasn’t exactly nimble on his feet and the frying pans in the houses here are bloody great lumps of cast iron that not even Le Creuset can match for weight and destructive power. I have seen mob hits that looked tamer by comparison.
One final piece of advice before we drop this subject. Be careful with mobile phones. A survey published by Italy's largest private investigation company said that in nearly 90% of cases, it is mobile phones, or rather careless use of them, that betray extra marital activities. As an expat, and especially in the oil industry, it is very likely that you’ll be using the same mobile as your back to back, the guy that does your job when you are on leave. No real problem if you both have similar interests and get on well. Tragic if he’s a backstabbing git. Under no circumstances, if you have any desire whatsoever to maintain a discreet relationship, should you hand out your phone number. Do that and it’s another sign of commitment and the inherent right for them to phone at any time of day or night. And watch that dreaded giveaway, the caller ID function. I know, at work you want the people you call to know that it is you calling (and not a recently dumped concubine hell bent on revenge) so that they will answer, so of course you must have your caller ID activated. Get a few pints down your neck and start feeling a bit lonely, however, and I guarantee that you’ll hit the one key dial without thinking and as soon as you’ve hung up having arranged a meet, she’s pressing ‘list calls’, ‘last call’, ‘options’, ‘save’, ‘[your name]’ on her mobile and you’re doomed.
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