Africa for the very experienced

The last brick

2006-06-13T12:52:00.000+01:00

With a few hours left in Nigeria, I lay the last brick on this wall. Others may be built in the future!

Experimental travel

2006-06-12T12:38:00.000+01:00

As we have little to do inside this factory compound, I've decided to challenge a few guys spread around the world. The idea was to choose a starting point and take a photo in each one of these steps:

1. Choose a starting point
2. Walk in any direction for 34 to 43 paces, and then turn 180 degrees (34 is the number of the PTM participants - it is, isn't it?)
3. Continue walking in that direction until you see something grey (the usual colour of Nestlé logo in our factories)
4. Make a left turn and walk 43 to 86 paces
5. Walk in any direction until you see something that is either the number 3 or the number 4
6. Take the first left, and continue walking until you find somewhere to sit (why not to take a break?)
7. Choose any direction and walk 34 to 68 paces
8. Continue walking until you see an unusual colour, shape our texture. Turn 180 degrees
9. Keep walking in any direction until you see an archway or an unusual architectural feature
10. Head for home, but continue looking for something that catches your eye
Where directions don't match the environs, improvise!

Here are my photos...

Natural starting point: my bedside table.

The big descent to the living room.

Light switch, originally gray and made yellow by the light of the living room, and contrasting with the cold light from the kitchen.

The world seen from the kitchen window.

Temperature switch of the freezer in the kitchen: better than #3 only both #3 and #4.

An outside chair laying inside escaping the rain.

Old style minimalist kitchen equipment.

The History of Art book and it's magnificent wine colour.

The retro half globe light of the living room.

The antique lock on the way back to the bedroom.

Capacity building in the food industry

2006-06-08T13:18:00.000+01:00

The last theme, proposed by Duba...

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim Capacity building in the food industry I, Maio 2006

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Capacity building in the food industry II, Maio 2006

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Capacity building in the food industry III, Maio 2006

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Capacity building in the food industry IV, Maio 2006

Why and how to use performance indicators

2006-05-18T18:04:00.000+01:00

The second theme coming out, proposed by Duba's assistant...

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim Why and how to use performance indicators I, Maio 2006

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Why and how to use performance indicators II, Maio 2006

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Why and how to use performance indicators III, Maio 2006

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Why and how to use performance indicators IV, Maio 2006

Despair

2006-05-10T18:09:00.000+01:00

The first theme coming up, proposed by Prince...

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Despair I, Maio 2006

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Despair II, Maio 2006

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Despair III, Maio 2006

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Despair IV, Maio 2006

Closure experience

2006-05-08T10:47:00.000+01:00

The world outside of the factory compound is dangerous, specially when we're carrying a reflex camera with dimensions difficult to hide. Apart from the potential assaults and aggressions, the inhabitants of Lagos are known for disliking being photographed and for reacting sometimes violently to the presence of a camera. Therefore I cannot have the pleasure of repeating experiences such as the one in Lahore. However, I wanted to record in images the closure experience in this factory compound.

During the weekends we stay at the guest house area of the compound. It's a small corner, where there are eight houses, spread out between grass gardens and covered by small but opened trees. To compensate the closure, there is a pool and a tennis court. It's not a vast or diversified space that can present several motifs. The residents are occidentals and in their free days they rest inside their houses, or they kill their time in the production line "finishing some points left from the week". The few workers that keep the place only come for small fractions of the day, they try to get unnoticed and the try keeping an European behaviour to please the "sirs". It's then a place where it is difficult to find things to take photos of. I thought I needed specific themes. I thought three themes, with four pictures per theme would be enough. But in some way they had to have a Nigerian mark.

I wandered several times around in the search for Nigerian marks, but everything looked the European way. No doubt the vegetation is different, but I'm sure the photographers of National Geographic have already documented it extensively. I had then to find another way of introducing the Nigerian factor in this work.

I then asked for the assistance of Nigerian two cooks and one helper that work in the guest houses. I asked each one of them to tell me a theme, but without referring that it would be to take photos. "A theme?", Duba asked me confused. "Yes, a theme, a topic", I complemented, without going into further details. He asked me for some time to think about it, and after some hours he handed a paper over to me where we had written "Capacity building in the food industry". I was surprised, afterwards disappointed and in the end unmotivated, because I had no clue about how was I going to photograph such a theme. But I kindly accepted it, not to reject something that the man had prepared with such a dedication. Later I concluded that Duba had probably thought that I needed a theme for the work at the factory, and in fact for that capacity is a very pertinent theme. I thought it would be highly improbable that the helper would have the same thinking, and I did the request to him in the same manner. He also asked for some time to think, and he also gave me afterwards a piece of paper, where this time was written "How and why to use performance indicators". The theme was once again important for the factory, but it became too difficult for my plans. I gently accepted again. At the third request, I added that it could be any type of theme, "related to work or not", and I insisted that Prince said the first theme that occurred to him. He told me about "Despair", and I was relieved.

The concept had been established since the beginning: I would shout about what they indicated me, and I create four photos per theme. I had then to take the themes as a challenge. I did a lot of tours around the guest houses in different days, I took hundreds of photos, I analysed them, I choose them and I retouched them, until I completed my portfolio, that I will leave here for you in three different posts, one per theme.

The King

2006-05-05T19:45:00.000+01:00

My mate's baby.

He proudly insisted that I met him.

The future King of Agbara.

With the guidance of Jesus.

Worker's day

2006-05-01T12:46:00.000+01:00

publico.pt, a Portuguese web newspaper publishes this morning the photo of a worker in Karachi, Pakistan.

They made me remember my wandering around the streets of Lahore and the conversations with the workers on the streets of the old town, things I cannot do in the outskirts of Lagos. This way, I leave you with some images of exactly one year ago.

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Mending, May 2005

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Fast Moving Consumer Goods, May 2005

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Self portrait with rikshaw driver, May 2005

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Children playground, May 2005

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Chaque un à ça place, May 2005

Eduardo Fonseca Joaquim, Urban rider, May 2005

A bit

2006-04-21T19:15:00.000+01:00

Right, a bit of colour to make this easier!

Chocolate and other goods

2006-04-21T19:08:00.000+01:00

Before I went to Switzerland for a few days in March, I asked politely around if people wanted something from there.

Everybody said they wanted chocolate. I guess most people in any part of the world would have asked that, but here in Nigeria the request makes even more sense as the good chocolate is very difficult to find, as it melts easily on its way through see and when it arrives, if it arrives, it is too expensive.

But there was one person that didn't ask me for chocolate. The only one. It was one of the mechanics. I was astonished when he naturally asked me to bring him "a flower from Switzerland"!

We must be the unloved

2006-04-19T08:52:00.000+01:00

If you're in Africa

If you're within a society constantly at the edge of a civil war

If you're in a factory compound from where you cannot leave for safety reasons

If when you risk leaving it you're involved in rubbish

If you see human dead bodies on the side of the road that nobody bothers to bury.

If you go to the beach an you see people shitting on the sand

If you go to the cinema and you pay more than in London

If you don't have access to fresh or UHT milk

If you find ants in the powder milk that is left

If you eat spaghetti Bolognese every day because the cook can't prepare much else

If you have to brush your teeth with bottled water

If you find lizard shit on your bed every night

If you find new mosquitoes bites every day on your skin

If your mission is not well defined

If you have to work with a supposed technical drawing specialist that doesn't know what a computer mouse is

If you spend your days in a production line that covers you with fat from the edge of your hair to the nail of your foot toe

If you're in this situation, don't see episodes of The Twilight Zone on Friday evenings, because you can run the risk of feeling identified with some sentences like "we must be the unloved"...

Tribute to Anna

2006-04-17T08:30:00.000+01:00

Because some people just can't seem to be able to forget about us!

Sociologically beyond

2006-04-12T17:42:00.000+01:00

To forget the hard things, it was it despair that we left the complex on a Saturday night. With such a need to see something different, there's no danger warning that can scare us. Patrick even dared to drive himself! And, after all, we had to have some drinks on poor Faisal, who was loaded with malaria and that had been sent back to Pakistan for a few days!

The car complained, screamed again, but at the third attempt it ended up by setting wheels on the sand of the unpaved sidewalk, right in front of Pat's club, in downtown Lagos. The entry was crowded with young girls with provocative looks. I asked François if they were hookers, but he explained to me that "here they can only get in when in the company of a man", something that I found quite strange when I recalled the night queues of Lisbon.

Once the front door crossed, we went through the garden that was still empty, we went around the squared dance track, and Paulo insisted in standing in front at the TV that broadcasted the most classic of all Spanish matches. But, blame it on destiny, right bellow the screen, and, therefore, right in front of us, stood the counter. The counter was not a problem, but the gorgeous woman next to it created a real dilemma for Paulo: to look at the game or to look at her? At the same moment Ronaldinho did a great go through, the girl bended her appealing breasts forward and Paulo had to revolve his eyes to manage to follow the three spheres. I was even afraid that he would get some eye disease with such an effort. And I was glad I was never a huge football fan: for me the choice was clear, and I turn towards the dance track that was filled of women of similar kind. But I wasn't going to be an ordinary voyeur, and I hided behind the first row of tables, where were sitting the real and ordinary voyeurs. May the report state that I was not observing the people on the dancing track to watch the beautiful black girls moving with perfection the sublime curves of their bodies. Nope, never, "no way", I'm not voyeur, I was just ... humm... well... I was conducting a detailed sociological study so that I could better understand the Nigerian culture and habits, knowledge that could prove to be very helpful in dealing with the local people at work. Apart from being stated in report, may it also be stated in my project appraisal: not only was I raising my effort to never yet explored areas in this context, I was also working until three in the morning. On Saturday!

At a certain point some guys of the first row of tables (the voyeurs, those guys) decided to join the dance track party, and this time I was sorry that the match on TV was over: it is better to see Real suffering than to suffer seeing 50 year olds trying to prove that they're still young, foolishly shaking their arms and swinging their beer bellies, trying in despair to catch up with the girls. Bigger pain is to see them trying to seduce twenty year old beauties. "And achieving it"!

Huh? What? What did you say, Paulo? Achieving it? Wait, but that's impossible. Not even in the Twilight Zone! François, with the experience of four years of sociological observation in Nigeria, explained: "they're not professional hookers, but some flirting with white rich men that don't know where to spend their money are a breath of fresh air in the girls bank statements.

At a certain point the lights were lowered, and as then we could only distinguish the male white skins, we came back home.

Like rats

2006-03-31T19:49:00.000+01:00

Just like rats waiting for the last breath, we wait for the unavoidable malaria...

Two more to go

2006-03-31T11:24:00.000+01:00

Three came.

One is already down with malaria.

There are two more to go...

Easier

2006-03-29T19:08:00.000+01:00

It is 6 pm on Saturday afternoon and the pool is empty before me. I am alone between the bushes of this artificial oasis in the outskirts of Lagos. The songs of Sigur Rós depress me as I remember the days when I would cross the country to go share the beauty of their concert with people I could really share a life with.

The rubbish on the streets, the smoke, the diseases, the poverty, the chaotic traffic, the insecurity, the walls of this compound that prevent me from seeing all of that... It's none of it that bothers me the most, but the lack of sharing the life that runs within my veins and which is ready to come outside.

I'll just turn off the music, go for dinner and forget about it all. Can I forget it and lie to myself to make it easier?

Beyond bizare

2006-03-27T17:44:00.000+01:00

It was not enough to be working on Sunday. I had to find this fellow below my desk when I got to the office in the morning.

I showed it to one of the locals, and he told that "no, that's no cockroach sir; that's an agbakara, and it's excellent to eat when grilled".

Please note that the "Rivera Card" on the picture is the same size as a normal credit card...

Just until the next morning

2006-03-25T12:27:00.000+01:00

There's a life outside, I know that there is. I remember that when I hear the accelerated rhythms of the speakers that get energetic at the end of the day on the other side of the wall, in preparation for the religious ceremony. Those who know it say that they don't like people watching, but it wouldn't be just for watching that I would like to go outside. And yet I continue as advised the path that is not naturally mine towards the guest house where I'll have dinner after thirteen hours of work, without ever leaving the factory, without risking having a life.

I sit at the table and I look at the faces around me, them also anxious for other places, but that don't seem to hear the noise from outside, or at least don't seem to be disturbed by it. Around the long table tepid conversations cross each other, with words being dragged around efficiencies, the new machines, the old operative procedures. The fatigue eliminates my patience to stand more of what I've been doing all day long, and after the fantastic pineapple that Duba, our cook, prepares for us every night, I abandon the table. I try to sit for a while in the living room, but I'm kept away by the screaming of another reality show that someone insists on watching.

I go back to my room, just to surrender myself to bed. I still manage to peep through a badly closed eye into the anthology of Portuguese poetry, but by this time there's no soul left to receive it.

In the morning I walk the ten minutes path between the guest house and the factory. It's during these minutes that I feel that another day has gone by without real life. Those are the minutes during which all the weight of my frustration falls over the expression wrinkles of my face, and it's almost when reaching the office door that the question is formulated: "what am I doing here?". But once the door of the office is crossed, the stress from efficiencies, the new machines and the old operative procedures makes me forget to look for the answer until the next morning.

Not all is bad

2006-03-22T19:05:00.000+01:00

The European Commission has just published the black list of airlines that, due to lack of plane safety, are forbidden to cross the European air field.

None of the Nigerian airlines shows up in this list!

Coreia do Norte: Air Koryo

Comores: Air Service Comores

Afeganistão: Ariana Afghan Airlines

Kazaquistão: BGB Airlines, GST Aero Air Company

Quirguísia: Phoenix Aviation, Reem Air

Tailândia: Phuket Airlines

Ruanda: Silverback Cargo Freighters

República Democrática do Congo: Africa One, African Company Airlines, Aigle Aviation, Air Boyoma, Air Kasai, Air Navette, Air Tropiques, ATO (Air Transport Office), Blue Airlines, Business Aviation, Butembo Airlines, CAA, Cargo Bull Aviation, Central Air Express, Cetraca Aviation Service, CHC Stelavia, Comair, Compagnie Africaine d'Aviation, CO-ZA Airways, DAS Airlines, Doren AirCargo, Enterprise World Airways, Filair, Free Airlines, Galaxy Corporation, GR Airways, Global Airways, Goma Express, Great Lake Business Company, ITAB (International Trans Air Business), Jetair (Jet Aero Services), Kinshasa Airways, Kivu Air, LAC (Lignes Aériennes Congolaises), Malu Aviation, Malila Airlift, Mango Mat, Rwabika Bushi Express, Safari Logistics, Services Air, Tembo Air Services, Thom's Airways, TMK Air Commuter, Tracep, Trans Air Cargo Services, Transports Aeriennes Congolais (Traco), Uhuru Airlines, Virunga Air Charter, Waltair Aviation, Wimbi Diri Airways

Guiné Equatorial: Air Consul SA, Avirex Guinee Equatoriale, Coage (Compagnie Aeree de Guinee Equatoriale), Ecuato Guineana de Aviacion, Ecuatorial Cargo, GEASA (Guinea Ecuatorial Airlines SA), Getra, Jetline Inc, KNG Transavia Cargo, Prompt Air GE-SA, Utage (Union de Transport Aereo de Guinea Ecuatorial)

Libéria: International Air Services, Satgur Air Transport, Weasua Air Transport

Serra Leoa: Aerolift, Afrik Air Links, Air Leone, Air Rum, Air Salone, Air Universal, Destiny Air Services, First Line Air, Heavylift Cargo, Paramount Airlines, Star Air, Teebah Airways, West Coast Airways

Suazilândia: Aftrican International Airways, Airlink Swaziland, Jet Africa, Northeast Airlines, Scan air Charter, Swazi Express Airways

In Público

Disturbance

2006-03-22T09:03:00.000+01:00

"Thinking disturbs as walking in the rain"
Fernando Pessoa

Worse than being in Nigeria trapped in a factory compound is being in Nigeria trapped in a factory compound while heavy tropic rains are falling. Even worse is to stop having electricity, and the worst is that the buildings have not covered communication between themselves, and I have to face all this water whenever I need to go for meetings or to look into the line...

But as everything bad can get worse, when the rain stops we'll be moving targets for the raising mosquitoes!

Imagine if he wasn't

2006-03-17T19:55:00.000+01:00

Yesterday somebody from the factory got robbed on his way home. They stopped his car and took everything from him!

And the guy is Nigerian!

Long shirts and short skirts

2006-03-14T22:19:00.000+01:00

I said I wanted to go there. He laughed. I repeated that it was there that I wanted to go. The driver laughed again, but this time not hiding a trace of fear that I was really serious about it. "It's already 10 am, so we'd better start going, right?", I asked trying to put a sad end to his doubts. Already accepting the idea, he just advised me that the Ojunwoye market was a messy place.

Messy? The most complicated of all the labyrinths is a child's game compared to such a place: now I can say that pure anarchy in not an utopia and it does exist on Earth. It exists in Lagos, Nigeria! I'm talking about an endless circulating path strangled by big shops, little stalls, fast selling carts, wooden shelters and cement stained constructions; infested by dust, dirt, stinking odours and terrible mosquitoes; crushed by striking heat and breathtaking humidity; crossed by stagnated highly polluted canals and involved in contaminated rubbish.

A market that has everything one can imagine. We walked in through the detergents area: for the floor, the dishes, the windows, but also the car if you have one, if you don't have, search for one further ahead, and also for your toilet, in case you don't use the beach, that is much cheaper than building a WC, and then you save money for the Johnny Walker Blue Label just right after, or the Chivas 20 years, the William Lawson's, the Port, the gin, vodka or tequila, the Martini, on the rocks is a possibility, because ice is also available, not white anymore, but for white we already have the t-shirts, sweat-shirts, long shirts, short skirts, jeans and jackets, hats and caps. Let's not forget the CDs, DVDs, boredom remedies and other goodies, engine parts, broken equipment for fools and other mechanical tools, from the more complex to the simplest, like that big dirty knife used to cut the raw meat disposed on the dusty floor, but to cut also the fish, the vegetables, the fruit and other hardly called food. When I saw living chickens in cages, I got immediately out of there and got back to the cosiness of the factory.

In the end, I bought a bottle of water, a cutting hair machine, a British old style hat and a Nigerian suit!

Worse than good

2006-02-21T20:48:00.000+01:00

I was already tired of hearing about that Danish cartoon story, so I decided to have it settled with the Pakistani of our team.

"But what the hell is all that fuss?", I threw at him around a beer (I was drinking).

He replayed that the Muslims could accept all kind of criticism about all kinds of things, except about the prophet. He explained me that the respect to Muhammad is the untouchable basis of Islamic civilization, and that, although the laws of the Koran can be questionable and criticisable, in Muhammad nobody touches.

And I got to thinking (yes, it's true that I had to ask the beer for some help) that it is actually true that there are some people that question the Koran, and it is because of it that in different countries different rules apply. We can see the example of the Sharia law in Northern Nigeria in contrast with the easy going of the people from Dubai. And it is also true that while I was in Pakistan I saw quite a lot of people questioning certain Islamic laws, but never Muhammad.

But hold on! How can these guys think they're entitled to demand our blind respect by a figure? Is it that now I cannot say whatever I feel about everything? Yes, because in Europe we have the right to say anything that comes to our minds: it's an undeniable right! At least in Europe. Untouchable. Exactly, untouchable like Muhammad.

Wait a minute, but if we have the right to have an untouchable thing, maybe they also have the right to one... Well, then lets make it that each one gets their precious thing, and let's not create any confusions: if they don't want to say bad things about the prophet, that's up to them, let them forbid it, but we will stay with our freedom of speech. We won't accept having them imposing us their jewel, once we're not tying to impose them ours.

Yeah, but... Maybe we are. Maybe we are doing it with all our attempts to make the Arab world a democratic copy of the western civilization.

Dammit, after all they're trying to have an untouchable jewel, but so are we; they want to impose us their jewel, but so do we!

Shit man, please explain me again who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, because the beer will not help me any more!

Bird flu

2006-02-17T17:47:00.000+01:00

The first Nigerian signs in front of me...

His

2006-02-15T22:51:00.000+01:00

This is Sammy.
This is his Sun Tan Beach.
It's his because it was on it that he was abandoned by mother and father.
It's his because it was on it that the neighbourhood collected him.
It's his because it's behind it that sits the house made out of sticks and palm leafs where he lives. It's his because he lets it teach him the few things he can learn without going to school.
It's his because it's from its palm tree that he collects the oil that he sells.
It's his because it's there where he spends his lazy Sundays.
It's his because he was the only person I found on the sand that day.

Exhausted amazement

2006-02-11T16:29:00.000+01:00

So we left the factory compound. There had already been one week that we were in Nigeria, and this was the first time that we dared stepping outside.

We had settled it a long time before, once expeditions of this kind have to be prepared well in advance and very carefully: ask to a Nigerian colleague to exchange in the black market our dollars into the (as Paulo calls it) "Mickey Mouse currency" of this country; ask for a driver, since the streets of Lagos are just for masters; and ask for police escort. Our imagination also went far away when they mentioned "police escort", but on the morning of the adventure we were just entitled to an unarmed policeman: "Robbers? No, I'm just going with you to protect you from the police; don't worry because I have my contacts; they won't hassle you, I know them all".

We crossed the factory gate leaving behind the well painted and clean buildings, surrounded by hectares of properly cut and strong grass, spread over a landscape composed here and there by trees coloured with red flowers; leaving behind the pool surrounded by aligned bushes, the clean tennis court, the low guesthouses and the rooms illuminated by large windows that open over all the garden.

We crossed the factory gate to face the dusty road, split in half by rubbish, interposed by skinny and dirty people that between the two lanes scratch the abandoned packages, eats the rest of the leftovers, gives breast to their children and watches the infernal traffic go by. They have by now lost all hope to raise their begging hands. By the sides unstable wooden and metal stalls try to sell some raw meat spread on top of stones and covered with old empty cement bags, or packed products decoloured by the sun, deformed throughout time and infested by humidity. The driver speeds up, never stopping, not even by the numerous police patrols that hassle the locals: our escort is doing its job.

More or less intense, the landscape outside the car window doesn't seem to change throughout the long hour that we take to get to the town centre. Agustin, our driver, makes sometimes comments about the places we go through: it seems that he's proud for driving the white "sirs", masters of that skin colour that we cannot see on the streets. We haven't seen any white people in any of the areas we crossed. And yet we know that they exist in Lagos, but they hide behind the dark windows of their high luxury cars or behind the security of their houses covered in barbed wire. Agustin probably thought that like them we don't like to mingle with other colours and he suggested that we stopped at the new shopping centre in town, probably one of the few places where the faces are brighter, in an aseptic environment made by products that are more expensive here than they are in Europe.

We crossed several areas in town, but without ever leaving the car, so the security rules obliged. Outside the car semi-famine people would come close; Agustin told us not to take pictures. We still managed to stop at the city beach, where kids dived in contaminated waves, leper beggars collected old bills and someone shitted far away on the sand. Our arrival was followed by that of a group whose entirely white tunics obfuscated their dark skins. They were from a radical Christian religion that scratched with sea water the brain, source of all washable sins.

Back to the car we took a look at a stall that seemed to be selling some sort of food. From far, it seemed to be some too fried, too dried, too dirty kind of fish, but a closer look identified grilled meet.

From then onwards our amazement was already too tired to notice anything. It's maybe because of that exhausted amazement that the Europeans that live here have already forgotten about this reality. The last thing I felt before falling asleep in the comfort of the bumps on the road was the smoke from rubbish burning.

How better can this get?

2006-02-09T08:09:00.000+01:00

"THE H5N1 avian influenza has been detected in Africa for the first time, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said here yesterday, reporting an outbreak among poultry in northern Nigeria that has killed 40 000 birds.

According to the latest official toll compiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO), there have been 165 recorded human cases of H5N1 infection [worldwide], 88 of them mortal."
The Herald online

Which other catastrophe can happen to this country? I accept all sorts of estimates, speculation, futurology and witchcraft of all kinds.

Nigerian charm

2006-02-06T20:55:00.000+01:00

The travel guide classifies as highly risky any adventure with a photo camera outside the factory compound, and the company's policy prohibits almost all image transfer from the inside. I have not yet decided if I want to loose my life or my job, but in the meanwhile, I concluded that I had to work too hard to find a motif for a contemplative Sunday. I abandoned then the passive contemplation, deciding to follow my most recent friend.

He's always around, him and his brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, nephews, grandparents and girlfriends. Oh yes, girlfriends: I would say that this is the season for it, and we see him running wild after the poor females.

I caught him on the sensors while he looked killer at a female before the attack. What do you say about this look? How much charm is this one?

I need to find a name for my friend. Can anyone help me?

What to say about us?

2006-02-04T19:03:00.000+01:00

It's Friday night and while I zap through TV channels, Paulo bites some humid soft chips. We're both under thirty, and this is the way we live this closure that we were put into. We try to keep frustration away with sips of mediocre Nigerian beer.

"Hey, let it in FashionTV", Paulo asked. I accepted, but after two minutes I protested: "Right, the girls are nice, but this is a bit boring", to what he answered "yeah, but the girls are nice".

Just five minutes after he was sleeping on the sofa. I went up the stairs and I let myself fall on the bed: the fatigue of a week passed in the mixing tower, assisted by the lack of permission to leave the compound, threw me into bed.

Up Nigeria

2006-02-03T21:17:00.000+01:00

The man sitting next to me kept a serious and tense expression. He would barely move his face muscles, rarely close his eyebrows, and never, ever, move his eyes off of the TV screen.

I asked him for the score, and he answered me one null, like a machine and without moving his lips like a ventriloquist. My next question made all sense to me: "and who's winning?", but he almost got offended, just spiting "Nigeria is loosing". Such an answer almost made me loose all motivation and I seriously considered asking Paulo to go back to the office. After all, we had decided to take a break to see the match with the line operators so that we could establish, right from the first days, a close and equal relationship with them. We thought that the match could be a moment when they would be more relaxed and that they could for a moment forget about our condition of "coming from headquarters", thus creating with us an unconscious empathy. And us with them, once after all we'll be working together for the next five months, and we don't want to have to stand a bad working environment. But as we saw it at that stage, things weren't going according to our plans.

Paulo insisted more. He spoke to the fellow at his right about the Nigerian players he knew of, but the guy paid little attention. He turned his words to the left and tried to make analogies with Mexican football, but they didn't even blink. There were only fifteen minutes for the game to end, and Paulo suggested that we went back, and that we left those attempts to some other day. For some strange reason, and even going against my feeling of fatigue that was internally trying to get me out of there, I refused and I proposed that we stayed a bit longer.

Thirty seconds later, the right Nigerian player manages to penetrate de Senegalese defence and make the ball fly in front of the goal. The goal-keeper hits the ball away badly, placing it perfectly available to the Nigerian attacker, that couldn't do anything else than placing the ball inside the goal.

The man next to me jumped off of his chair and started screaming with all his strength, clapping hands and jumping out of explosive contentment. The others around us also got up as an infernal crowd, hugging each other and transforming the wooden tables into loud drums. Thirty seconds later, all instantaneously sat, returning back again to the impenetrable pose. We hadn't had time to react, and they were already closed again. Not even our "great goal, hein?" could get them back to relaxation. Paulo wanted once again to return, but now there was little time until the end and we could stand there for a bit more.

I was still talking to my colleague when I saw that the man by my side was standing again, this time performing a strange dance that I can only identify with the chicken kind. When I turned may eyes towards the TV screen I could just see the replay: the ball had again entered the Senegalese goal. The party required now double the energy, once it meant victory and not just a mere draw.

The game was over a few minutes afterwards, and the personnel retuned to the productions lines walking in an ordered line, and in a whispering silence, but this time without that tense expression of a few moments before. Now they were relaxed: they didn't have in their faces the stress of the game, they just carried the lightness of going to work. When turning around the corner, the whispering silence was broken: one of the operators screamed at us from far "up Nigeria". It was the sign of the empathy that we had been looking for. We screamed the same back.

Proof of identity

2006-01-31T19:21:00.000+01:00

"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.

Goodbye my love

2006-01-30T22:48:00.000+01:00

I didn't say it, but I might as well have said it before embarking on this almost everlasting journey into Nigeria.

The first time they told me on the phone that my next assignment would be in Nigeria I just knew that it was in Africa. Therefore, I was glad to finally be given the time to explore a bit of what I had read to be a most involving and enchanting continent. My mind set itself immediately to this new bunch of adventures, started wandering on how would the people I would meet be and it visualised the fantastic photos I could take.

When I hang over the phone and I told about it to the colleague sitting next to me, his reaction was slightly negative, warning me about the possibility of having to stay living inside the factory compound and about some danger on the streets. "Right, they also said that about Pakistan and I loved it", I thought, keeping my motivation high.

The next day I tried to find some information about the country. All the travel websites I knew had nothing about Nigeria, and I was only able to find one guide book about it in the whole world. I tried to convince myself that this was due to the fact that the country was unfashionable, and not because it was uninteresting or unsafe for travellers. I ordered the book from London, and I went on Christmas vacation. During that time, I was too busy relaxing, that I didn't even thought about Nigeria.

When I got back, I met a friend of my father's in the street. He's a layer, and a passionate about foreign politics. I told him about my next assignment, and he immediately put on a very serious expression. He described to me the horrible things he had read about the country, but still I thought that I couldn't trust somebody that had never gone there.

Later that day, I received the guide book I had ordered from London*. The introduction couldn't be about any country, it could only be about a nightmare:

"one of the world's most chaotic and dangerous places"
"it's dirty and an environmental nightmare"
"nothing works"
"the infrastructure is totally inadequate"
"it has [...] corruption at all levels of society"
"there's an ongoing religious and ethnic conflict that has already killed 10'000"
"it could feasibly be regarded as a civil war"
"Nigerian people are killing each other in hand-to-hand fighting and mob violence"
"run by a government that is largely incapable of controlling the largest population in Africa"
"it's simply one of the world's most difficult places to travel in"
"from 24-hour internet cafés to dead bodies in the street"
"people so poor that they resort to eating rats and maggots"
"there are still rumours of human sacrifice going on"
"it's appalling and awful"

The book went on to describe the real dangers of the country. From diseases like malaria to almost certain credit card fraud, from polluted water to road accidents at each minute, from bugs that can leave inside your body to "area boys" that carry around guns, the book would describe any type of travel danger as quite possible in Nigeria.

At this stage I had to start admitting that Nigeria was maybe not that much of a great place for an assignment after all. However, it couldn't be that bad. But just to make sure about it, I went to check with the real professionals, the corporate security office from my company:

"violent street crime, armed robberies, muggings and carjacks remain prevalent nationwide"
"ethnic groups are regularly involved in clashes"
"business travellers are at high risk of armed attack, armed robbery, carjacking, abduction and extortion in the main urban centres"
"foreigners have been killed in carjacks"
"police and security forces are ill-disciplined and lack adequate resources to combat crime"
"medicines can be difficult and time-consuming to obtain"

I've just arrived in Nigeria. I try now to make the balance between remembering all the safety warnings to take precautions and forgetting about them not to become crazy. Let's see how it works out...

* Nigeria Bradt Travel Guide