Proof of identity

"Do not take the company's signboard as sufficient proof of identity"
Corporate security warnings for airport arrivals

As we got out of the plane we immediately felt the humidity and the heat mixed in the air. We crossed the passport control without problems and we stood waiting in front of one of the two luggage conveyors that exist in Lagos International Airport.

Behind us we noticed a large balance in ancient industrial style, still headed by an enormous wheel though each a needle road from zero to two hundred and fifty kilos. It was surely used to weight luggage, but me and Paulo had immediately the idea of using it to evaluate the measure of our loss of health in this expedition to Africa: we would weight ourselves on arrival to compare with the value when leaving the country in five months, and check what will be the effect of local food, heat, humidity, abounding bugs, malaria, contaminated water, ... Paulo registered 81 kg and I stayed at 76,5 kg.

We waited then for our luggage: three pieces had we sent, the same amount we expected to recover. Three is not a large number, nor difficult to count, but if we have to do it at the same time as we count the power cuts that make the conveyor stop, the task becomes tougher. It was only after more than one hour and some nine power cuts that we were finally able to cross the last door of the airport. Summary: an average of three power cuts per piece of luggage!

They had promised to us that there would be someone trustful waiting for us at the airport. At the same time they warned us of the existence of fake guides, very well disguised, with the company's logo and even knowing our name. "Ask him his name, ask him for ID, compare his face with the picture that was sent to you", they had told us. With so many warnings, I even thought about doing him an DNA test, but Paulo had left the micro-portable-laboratory at the research centre in Europe. Therefore, we were forced to trust the company card.

If we had felt the humidity and the heat when exiting the plane, now it was for real: even if such a statement may seem embarrassing and even indecent for those with an imagination too large, I have to admit that thirty seconds past there was no piece of cloth on me that wasn't wet!

We look around us searching for a car that could be our transportation, but we didn't see anything. Our host seemed to read our thoughts, and answered that someone was just about to pass through and take us. Three minutes later we were swallowed by an off-road vehicle escorted by another car filled with security guards, and both left at great speed.

At the beginning, we advanced quickly and in an impressive slalom through cars, little vehicles, large Mercedes, vans, trucks, people walking, on motorbikes, on bicycles, all approaching us in the North-South direction, but also in the directions South-North, West-East, East-West, North-East, South-West, left-right, up-down, down-down-to-the-ground, from there you shall not fall, but get the corps out of the way, once the transit must go through! And then more would show up, cars, little vehicles, large Mercedes, vans, trucks, motorbikes, bicycles, all were allowed as long as they were more than twenty years old and had less than half the lights working. Priority was given to those who had more than five damages per square metre of metal: even in the middle of such an anarchy, the human being keeps respecting the higher experienced and the mutilated!

But suddenly, everything stopped, as if we were in a virtual reality video game and someone had pressed pause. The cars, the little vehicles and the large Mercedes were still around us; The vans and the trucks also, but everything was stopped. Not even the motorbikes nor the bicycles would move, such was the amount of engines per square metre. Only people on foot would take the opportunity to make some little money, selling fruits an bread throughout that compact tissue.

The radio in the was broadcasting the football match between Egypt and Ivory Coast. In reality, less than broadcasting, the voice seemed to have accepted the challenge of throughout the match not to refer to anything else but the current score, always in a different way: "the score is now two to one, that is, two for Egypt and one for Ivory Coast, what puts Egyptians one goal ahead, once there is one team with two while the other has only one, one for one nation and two for the other, and it seems now that Egypt has scored, making now the score three to one, that is, three for Egypt and one for Ivory Coast, what puts Egyptians two goals ahead, once there is one team with three while the other has only one, one for one nation and three for the other..". In the end, a truly cultural radio that places the beauty of language ahead the emotion of the goal!

All good things come to those who wait, and bit by bit (one hour more, one hour less) we left that messy ball of wool, when the driver turned the wheel strongly and the car entered a dusty road without asphalt, but with craters that could be of a full moon. The craters were there, but the moon was not, condemning the night to absolute darkness, broken here and there by candles lit on stalls by the road. Stalls that were numerous at the beginning, that moved to some, to become rare a few kilometres afterwards. By this time, the little that the car lights would show us was desolating: just some unstable constructions by the road, miserably stained either by mud, either by dust. What if that that wasn't the true driver? What if those following us in the car behind weren't the true escorts? In that place it would be easy to kidnap us and ask for a valuable ransom to who had sent us to this country. Or even worse, to attack us, take all our belongings and leave us there, exposed to mosquitoes, malaria, lizards and criminals of the worse kind! Paulo seemed to share my thoughts, as he asked the driver how much time was left to arrive. He answered some disturbing 45 minutes: we had been on the road for already more than one hour and someone had told us about a total distance of only forty kilometres! We looked at each other and we relaxed: we hadn't brought any gun, we didn't know anything about martial arts and it didn't seem to me that the Swiss army knife that I had in my bag could do us any good in case of problems. Catholic prayers wouldn't do any good either in a country dominated by Allah, and so he just tried to think about something else.

Those 45 minutes would have passed until we felt again the asphalt rolling below the tires. With it came the lights, the cars, the little vehicles, the large Mercedes and all the remaining transport paraphernalia, and though that may seem absolutely contradictory, the vision of all this vibrating anarchy tranquillised us. At the end of a long wall covered in barbed wire, we entered through a large gate and into a village whose colours couldn't fool us: white and grey were guarantee that this was the safe harbour.