Shelter & The City

The city of Abuja is a most unfriendly town to newcomers. Trying to find an apartment here feels a bit like looking for a four leaved clover; or trying to find that elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Just when you think you’re almost there, you look up and realize you still have a long way to go.


I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of Real Estate “Agent’s” in this town, they string you along in a continuous state of hope while bleeding you dry of your hard earned cash along the way.

At the bottom of the agent’s food chain are the ‘touts’ who hang around street corners and under leafy trees that line the quiet streets of Abuja. They have no offices or complimentary cards, and more often than not, have never even come close to seeing the “fantastic” places that they promise to show you, all in a bid to lure you out to their hang outs.


Now because you long deeply for a little spot to call your home, you convince yourself that they may have something good to offer you. You pick them up, and drive round in circles as they make calls on their cell phones, then, somewhere along the way, you end up picking two or three scruffy looking characters who all claim to know the person, who knows the person, who may know the person, who once used to live three streets away from the actual agent of ‘The Place’.


You put up with their body odor and disturbing habit of shifting just a little too close for comfort because you’re hoping that maybe this time, you will be lucky.


Eventually, after wasting a good amount of your time and racking up a fortune in Taxi fees, you get to ‘The Place’. And discover it is an abandoned building surrounded by three feet high weeds, with no electricity or running water, at the end of a lonely looking Close.


The Middle level agents are those who work for registered Real Estate firms. They usually will have a means of transportation and their clients are mainly retired Civil Servants looking to make some extra income off their government acquired property. If you’re lucky, you may end up scoring a place with them. If you are really patient and are willing and able to embark upon a six month or more waiting period as they wait for a vacancy to open up from among their clients buildings. They are usually totally clueless about any properties available ‘To Let’; that are not located in one of the ubiquitous, former civil service quarters that are found on every street corner in Abuja.


Then, at the very top; are the cream of the crop agents. They refer to themselves as Quantity Surveyors or Professional Estate Managers and work for high end property developers and construction firms. They drive around in shiny SUV’s and have three cell phones, two personal assistants and a professional pen holder. They have no time for middle class, entry level, government employees searching for one bedroom apartments in the heart of town. Unless you are a young female who's willing to meet up with them after hours in a dingy motel somewhere in that part of town. They are too busy making hefty percentages off multi-million naira serviced apartment rentals, and sales of government approved, multinational construction firm built mansions in choice areas.


In the end, I am starting to believe that it takes a small miracle to end up in a semi-decent place that you can call home.


If I sound at all bitter, it is probably because I am you see. After months of being manipulated by touts, pushed around by the middle level agents, and totally ignored by the cream of the crop. I am just around ready to take radical action. Starting next week, I think I will take to the streets and begin to march around town with a placard on my chest saying “WILL WORK FOR FREE HOUSING!!”


So do not be surprised if you happen to pass by a major intersection, and you look up and see someone who looks a lot like me standing in the middle of the road. I may be trying to get the attention of passers and drivers-by who look like they may own property.

If you’d rather not come over and say hi, you have my permission to cross to the other side of the street and pretend like you don’t know me

I’ll totally understand



Cheers.

A Weekend Perspective

I had quite an interesting weekend; it all started when I snuck out of the office a little early to catch a flight. (I sincerely hope my boss never gets to read this)


I rushed home, gathered a few things and hailed a cab to the airport. Any one who knows Abuja knows that going to the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport from town can feel like you’re travelling across state lines. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had escaped the insane rush hour traffic and got there in record time. That was the best part of my journey.

Entering the Local airport, I felt like I’d stepped into a war zone. Arms and Legs flailed every where, children cried, men frowned and women sulked. It was everyman for himself as hundreds of people struggled to escape from Abuja for the weekend. Harassed airline staff struggled to keep up with the demands from their customers, a ‘Chiefy looking man’ (you know the type now) yelled “Do you know who I am?” to someone in a uniform, as airport touts ran around the place making copious amounts of money doing dodgy deals.

                                                       
Welcome to Nigerian Airports. The last time I’d been there on a Friday, I’d been among the crowd struggling desperately to secure a ticket. This time around, I’d been smarter and wiser and booked an online ticket in advance. So, I confidently walked up to the counter, checked in and collected my boarding pass. Then off I went to the waiting lounge, where I battled with a major decision for the entire hour I spent waiting to board the plane; to buy ice cream, or not to buy ice cream, that was the question. I considered the fact that I’d just recently placed myself on a healthy eating plan (that’s the hip new word for diet) and eventually common sense prevailed. I’m proud to say I acted like and adult didn’t get the ice cream. Someone please clap for me! *Insert Smiley*

An hour plus later and I have arrived in Las Gidi.

It is my cousins wedding tomorrow and I am on the Bridal Train. I need to get my beauty sleep as I have to be up early the following morning. However, as is usually the case when women get together, I end up staying up half the night first with my Aunts and then with my Mum catching up on all the latest gists and family gossip; Those Krazy Kardashian’s ain’t got nothing on my clan, trust me.

Then its 6am and I have to get up. Thankfully, we got to the church on time. I have to say it was soo much fun getting to see so many of my cousins, aunts, uncles and friends. The Bride looked gorgeous, the guests had a blast, and the food amazingly enough did not taste like rubber chicken and firewood as is usually the case with “Party Rice and Meat”. I guess the caterer didn’t have a choice; her fees cost the equivalent of a brand new car. Kai! Weddings are expensive sha.

I have to say, all in all, it was quite fun, aside from having to employ CIA like tactics to avoid the creepy looking, semi-tipsy guys who go around hitting on bridesmaids at weddings. For some weird reason, like over affectionate aunts and tacky gift bags, they seem to be a fixture at every wedding.

And when I got home and tried to go to sleep and realized I couldn’t because my little cousins wanted to show me their year book and tell me about all their friends at school, I didn’t mind at all. They are so sweet, and who knows when next I’ll get to see them.

The next morning is a blur as I am up by 5:30am and out the door half an hour later to catch my 7:30 am flight which surprisingly boards and takes off exactly on schedule. Again I tried to sleep on the plane but realized that I couldn’t, so decided that I would do so when I got home, but then ended up engaging in random gist with my flat mates. You know the type now, that kind that you walk into and intend to spend just a few minutes, and then you realize its three hours later and you still haven’t changed out of your travel clothes. After taking a short hour long nap, it was off to my friend and H.O.D baby’s’ naming ceremony. I didn’t catch the naming, but I met the reception afterwards.

The Baby is adorable and his name is Emery

Got home around 5pm and started a nap that lasted the whole of one hour till my flat mates woke me up with their screaming by 6pm. Apparently, the Big Brother finale show had started. For some odd reason I still haven’t quite figured out, I really got into all the excitement (even though I never really watched the show). Then it was off to bed and I slept.

For real this time.
Like I said, not a bad weekend at all

*Want to use this opportunity to congratulate my Cousin Nkiru and her brand new husband Femi. Hey! Maybe you guys will end up working in the same hospital and be the next McDreamy and what’s-her-name? (Her’s man’s a Doctor; she’s just completed Nursing School)


On second thoughts, as I recall all the major drama that TV couple went through, I’m thinking, then again maybe not.



Cheers

Life at a Funeral

Everyone who is my friend on Facebook, a contact on my BB Messenger, or a follower on Twitter knows all about my recent mini mid-mid life crises. I have been lamenting and moaning about what I perceived for a scary and brief moment to be the end of my youth as I’d known it.

Basically I freaked out. I guess it had something to do with the recent rash of rapid changes that I’ve gone through in the last year or two. All of a sudden, I found myself part of a totally new demographic and I was scared. No. Terrified Actually. Of what? You may wonder. The truth is, I don’t really know. I guess I worried that I wasn’t ready to face the new situations and circumstances life was about to throw my way.

Someone I perceive to be incredibly wise said something about fear. He said, that the only reason people get afraid is because they face new circumstances that they have never been in before, they are not sure what the appropriate line of action should be, so they begin to worry and feel under pressure. I think that described my situation exactly.

All my thinking about life, and aging and fear and death (I know, very morbid, forgive) led me to have a sort of mini vision of what my funeral might be like.

So I closed my eyes and visualized myself as a Spirit of sorts hovering (ok, ok, actually I was just standing) beside my gravesite as the internment service took place.

I saw my grown up children, they all looked quite sad, each of them was lost in their own thoughts, each going over a different memory of their Mommy that stood out in their minds as special; my eldest daughter remembered the day I came home from the hospital with her baby brother in my arms, smiling as I gave her a peek at her new sibling, and asking if she was excited to be a big sister. She wasn’t, and for the next one year, she’d harbored secret hopes of someone mistakenly throwing the baby out with the trash.

My son, remembering that time when he was a teenager and I found out he’d cheated on a school test. I didn’t react the way he’d expected me too, with a lot of anger yelling, instead, I’d calmly sat him down and made him prove he wasn’t a totally dummy by making him read War and Peace in the Original Russian twice, and then writing a 15,000 word essay on it. It went a long way towards making him the man he was today, since then, the closest he’d come to reading a book was going over the menu at his favorite Italian restaurant.

My last born, remembering how I’d had tears in my eyes on her wedding day, as I told her that I couldn’t believe that my baby was getting married and would soon be having babies of her own. She’d had tears in her eyes too. She couldn’t believe she’d been hoodwinked into marrying her high school boyfriend whom she’d recently found out was not actually working as an engineer in Canada. The closest thing to an engineering job he’d got was operating the mechanical false teeth cleaner at the old people’s home in Saskatchewan. In fact, he was extremely broke.

                               
Some of my oldest and dearest friends, stood together in a cluster, dabbing at their eyes, together, they’ve had to bury seven friends that year. One of my good friends, DeeDee is getting very emotional, she is 99 years old and has lost total control of her bowels, at the most inappropriate moment as the minister calls for a moment of silence, she farts loudly.

My grandchildren are standing in front of their respective parents and they are extremely bored. The Nineteen year old, thinks for a moment the grandma wasn’t so bad and it was kind of sad that they’d never get to see her again, then she remembers that she is going to the movies with her friends the next day and idly begins to go through her closet, mentally picking out an appropriately cute outfit.

The seven year old, pinches his five year old sister at regular intervals when he is sure no one is watching, she smacks his head in response, and their squabbling continues unnoticed

The fourteen year old nod’s his head in rhythm to the music he’s listening to on his Super Trendy Mp3/computer/phone/wireless satellite gadget which also makes toast bread. He is listening to Piddly Diddly, winner of the hotest rapper award for the year 2085. From time to time, he mouths the lyrics to the song, he thinks he is a gifted rapper and his social network profiles already bear his stage name; Bow Chica Wow-Wow. He just knows he's going to be a world famous rapper when he grows up

The Priest tries to round up the service, he is tired of trying to swat away flies with one hand, while reciting the same lines he has had to at a hundred other funerals. He knows all the words by heart, he also knows that no one is actually paying attention aside from the light-skinned old lady who is presently digging her nose. The other old women are all partly deaf and cannot hear a thing.

Finally, it is done with and everybody can go home.

The grown up children line up to pour sand into the grave as they pay their last respects, the grandchildren hurriedly begin to sprint towards the car park, the grave diggers move closer, it will soon be time for them to finish their job and close the grave.

The Priest is helping the old ladies slowly descend the step leading down from the grave.

The Light Skinned old lady farts again

Then there is silence



Cheers