The Ups & Downs of My 29th Birthday

Unfortunately my birthday video is too long for Youtube. I had to break it up into three bits. It will give you a good idea about my life in Benin City as well as the ups and downs of my 29th birthday.

PART I


PART II


PART III

FELAbration

I’ve never had my bottom grabbed like when I pushed my way towards the stage through a sea of Nigerian men.

I had come back to Lagos to wait out my final days in Nigeria. I craved the luxuries afforded by the US Embassy digs (hot water, shower heads, couches and cable TV) as well as the company of friends I knew I could trust. To my delight, my visit coincided with Felabration - a week of concerts in honor of the late Fela Kuti, father of Afrobeat, political activist and husband to 27 of his back-up singers. I quickly signed on for the outing to the final evening at Fela’s Shrine (a large music venue built by Fela adjoined to his house where he preformed regularly while he was alive.

The night had started calmly around 10pm. We got to the Shrine and collected all-access passes secured through my “media connections” (I was with the CNN, BBC, AP, etc. contingent). I invented some obscure Internet-based media outfit to represent. Scamming? Who cares, this is Nigeria! With this pass came free booze, free reign back stage and access to a balcony VIP area where all the Westerners were gathered. We climbed the stairs to the balcony and looked over the hundreds and then thousands of young Nigerian men who were gathering below in anticipation of the nights unnamed acts.

The structure was wooden with an A-frame roof made of aging, yet not meriting concern, wood. A few no-name mediocre hip-hop type entertainers tried to warm up the crowd. Big rumors preceded this event - Common, Eryka Baidu, Flea. No one held their breath, however. A few months prior J-Zee and Beyonce failed to materialize at a concert billed with them as the headliners. One great musician, however was guaranteed - Femi Kuti, son to the late Fela. The excitement was high, but the show slow to get going. The crowd suffered through bad DJs and dance squads until finally the “big hitters” came out and jammed until the early morning. Flea and Femi were the only names I recognized.

The media boys were a bit braver than I and ventured first down into the crowd to rock amongst “the people” rather than in the sheltered elite in the VIP area. I stayed behind with the other woman, Kati. We weren’t quite ready to give up the comfort of chairs, elbow room and a sightline to the stage.

After a while one song in the jam session blended into the next. No new (or big) names emerged. We searched back stage to no avail. It resembled the VIP area. Backstage with Fela would have been wild - sex, drugs & afrobeat. Backstage at Felabration was...well...there was an open bar. We sipped our drinks as the boys came by glowing from the energy of the crowd. “You really must go,” they said.

We finished our drink and walked to the edge of the crowd. It was a sea of black. People were packed shoulder to shoulder. One couldn’t sway alone or help being swayed along with those around. We parted our first path and started in. I almost tripped, but the tightly packed bodies kept me up. We met elbows and resistance at first. When people turned to see we were women and WHITE we were pulled to the front, 5 to 10 hands groping us at any given time. Instead of being boxed out like the boys had encountered and endured, we were shepherded through, everyone in front of us wanting “a piece” and taking a handful. Finally we made it to the front. I looked up. Femi was jamming on his saxophone, nearly sweating on my. I checked in with Kati. We had made it. The hands had calmed as we stayed still. Both of us had charted escape routes under the stage. We, however, focused on the music, trying our hardest to ignore men asking for our phone numbers, our hands in marriage and offering us water. We had regained our sightline to the stage.

To our right was a small square platform jutting off the center of the stage. It was populated by photographers and security. We hardly noticed until a series of taps made it our way. Everyone in the immediate area was directing us to the security guard. What could we have done wrong? Was he scared for our safety? Before we could figure out what he was trying to communicate, we were being pulled in that direction. Dozens of hands were pushing us (gently) and then grabbed our legs, lifting us straight on to the platform. I fumbled, trying to get control over my own limbs and grabbing the security guards arms as I was raised above the crowd. When I collected myself I looked up at the thousands of Nigerian eyes on me. No time to think...I smiled, we danced.

Luckily I had been practicing in the discos of Benin City where I was considered “a good dancer for an oyibo (foreigner). I was dizzied by the spotlights and the cheers. I listened and felt the music that was being made a few feet away. The energy was incredible. “This is what a rock star feels like,” I thought.

Race to a Standstill

There are many reasons one might encounter traffic jams in Nigeria. I’ve experienced the following on my limited travels through the country: flooding, armed robbers, check points, burning fuel tanker, bus crash. I became accustomed to these “hold ups,” but always assumed that there would be a catalyst to traffic. I was wrong.

On the road from Ibadan to Lagos cars and trucks came to a complete stop. I looked ahead to try to see what had happened ahead. Impatient motorists crossed to the other side and drove towards the jam’s epicenter where oncoming traffic normally would be. Two lanes became four (this is a normal response to traffic in Nigeria).

Young men were around directing traffic and helping cars, vans, buses and trucks, trying to improve the hold up. The jam was bad. What could it be? We inched forward. Others tried to squeeze forward. Four lanes became eight.

In the race to get ahead, buses got suck in muddy potholes. Vehicles continued to crisscross over the median. I wondered what they were doing once they reached the issue ahead.

I started to see things moving ahead. But there was no accident, no robbers, no fire - just the proverbial smoke. What had happened?

The Answer: Impatience. Traffic had slowed as it had neared the city. Trying to get ahead, drivers had reacted. Two lanes had turned to 4, turned to 6, turned to 8 until northbound faced vehicles faced southbound traffic and no one could move. It took over 45 minutes to untangle the mess while approaching vehicles complicated matters. I shrugged my shoulders and laughed - T.I.A. (This is Africa).

Powered by JESUS!

The minibus had broken down 2 times already (20 minutes apart). We had 2 hours left in our journey to Ibadan. There seemed to be a leak in the water. The van kept overheating. The first time the passengers had pooled our water to get us going. The second time the driver had disappeared into the brush in search of a bore hole, emerging 10 minutes later with a canister of water. We couldn’t sustain this. We’d never make it.

We continued slowly. Small motorbikes (okadas) were passing us at about 25 miles per hour. We stopped for a third time - no water around. The van cooled as passengers chose either to get out (and bake in the sun) or stay in (and bake in the van). After a while we re-boarded.

The woman next to me closed her eyes and started rocking back and forth muttering prayers and praising Jesus. The entire bus joined in as the driver turned the key. The engine purred and we moved slowly down the highway. “Praise Jesus!” “Oh Jesus, help us, see us through!” “Jesus, give us the power!”

One by one the passengers stopped vocalizing their prayers, but the woman next to me continued for 45 minutes. So did the bus. We made the 4 1/2 hour trip in just under 8 hours. Thank, God!

"Big Men"

I walked into the party with my friend, 10-10. Young men and women were waiting around just inside the the large compound gate. We continued through the front door. The room was lined with white leather couches, glass coffee tables, empty bottles of Hennessy and BIG men (well-fed and important).

We walked directly to a man in a white button-down shirt. I was introduced to him as “the Chairman,” with no explanation. I was then seated next to another man who had lived in New York for 25 years while 10-10 made the rounds.

Where was I? Who are these people? I was the only woman inside. I was the only non-Nigerian (probably for miles). I made small talk...

So, what do you do in Benin City now that you are back from NY? He was a contractor and “dabbled” in politics. In Nigeria this told me one thing. Leave that line of conversation. Getting into a discussion about corruption in this country would not be a good idea. I followed his lead and we discussed the upcoming American election - a much safer option (socially and perhaps even physically).

I looked around my surroundings. The plot of land was small and the architecture felt cramped. The living room was taller than it was wide and had an overly steep staircase leading up to a sliver of a balcony which ran around the perimeter of the wall half-way up. The curtains were ample as was the decorative metallic hardware. The floors were polished marble. Each architectural and decorative element seemed to display wealth rather than service any function. Then I noticed the door.

The door was metal and 9-inches to one foot thick. “That is quite a door,” I commented to the nice man from New York. He informed me that it was bullet proof. “Why does our host need a bullet proof door?” It slipped. “For security,” was the answer I got, but not really the answer to my intended meaning. I decided, however, to save my hardline questioning for 10-10.

All of a sudden “the Chairman” stood up and the entire room followed suit. He walked out the bullet proof door and the rest followed out in a seemingly intentional pecking order. I sat alone, wondering what had happened. Again, where was I?

I found 10-10 and we said our goodbyes (to those who were left...mostly young men paying their dues by cleaning up after the party). As I settled into the car I asked about our host, my new friend and “the Chairman.”

My friend: a contractor for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the government agency responsible for distributing oil revenues through public works projects in the Delta. *Note: This does not necessarily mean that the money ever makes it to public works.

Our host: contractor for the NDDC and cousin to the Chairman of the NDDC.

The Chairman: the Chairman of the NDDC.

...BIG men!

Malaria & My Trip to a Nigerian Hospital

Since arriving in Nigeria, I’ve mostly been hot. When I’m not hot, I’m comfortable. Cold is a word that I reserve for specifying how I would like my bottled water. When I became chilled and goose bumps started popping on Wednesday night, I knew something was wrong.

Within one hour, my forehead was burning up. I returned home from my friend’s house and went straight for my sweatshirt and thermometer. One hundred and two point four degrees. I popped some drugs, collected an arsenal of bottled water and went to bed, telling my Bengali housemate, Rafiq, that tonight I would not be locking my door and that if I did not emerge in the morning, he should come in. I had a sneaking suspicion that this Mac truck of an illness that had hit me might be malaria – the high fever, the pounding head, the aching bones, the fatigue.

Soon after closing my door, dressing myself in socks and my warmest lounge wear and wrapping myself in my silk sleeping sheet that was usually more than warm enough for these Nigerian nights, I began to shiver. I reached for my cell phone and called Rafiq in the other room. “Do you have an extra blanket?” I asked. He brought his blanket and spent the next hour or so brining blood to my extremities by squeezing my feet, arms and hands as well as calming the headache with pressure points and head massage. I fell asleep.

In the middle of the night (around midnight – I had gone to bed at 8:30pm), my fever piqued. I cast off the blankets, tore off my shirt and lay in a pool of my own sweat. I forced myself to drink the line of bottled water that I had gathered with great foresight. I thought I’d call and tell them I wouldn’t be able to go to work tomorrow. I popped more pills in hopes of calming the fever.

As the sun broke, so had my fever. Ninety-nine point eight, much better. I almost felt whole as I called Cynthia, the woman I ride to work with, to tell her I would be spending the day in bed rather than at my desk. She suggested that she still pick me up and we go to the hospital for a malaria test. I agreed, still tired and achy.

A little delirious and still half-asleep I prepared myself for my trip to the hospital. I took money and a bottle of water…I knew that these were the most important things. I didn’t imagine I would stay long and thought that if I had forgotten anything, I could surely purchase it. Other things seemed trivial – my phone, my computer, movies, a book, my iPod, toilet paper.

We pulled up to the hospital. It was a private hospital – one of the best in Benin City. It was a large cement building surrounded by dirt. It almost looked as if it had been newly finished – structurally sound, but still a bit rough around the edges. The doctor was outside and greeted us with a smile, showing us through the front door where the nurses gathered in their white nurse uniforms, some with small white nurse hats. Their dress reminded me of Halloween more than it instilled confidence. They stared at me. I stared at them. One sat me down right there in reception, stuck a thermometer in my armpit and took my pulse. She flipped through a disorganized notebook to find a blank page to write my name on and recorded my data before taking me to the doctor in his office.

I sat down, staring at a large diagram of the female anatomy behind the doctor’s head. “When was you last menstruation?” he asked. What? I’m here for malaria, not a pregnancy test (Nigerians are obsessed with pregnancy, children, fertility, etc.)

“I don’t know,” I replied, a bit annoyed that he wasn’t getting straight to the heart of the issue. I had DVDs waiting for me at home.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t know. Less than a month ago,” I replied. He pointed to the calendar and continued his questioning. I was not of the state of mind that I wanted to expend my precious energy on figuring out when my last menstruation was. I saw little to no relevance (at least not until he had determined that I needed some form of treatment that could endanger a fetus). I knew I wasn’t pregnant and threw out some numbers to appease him, “I don’t know…the 6th…or the 13th.”

“You know you really should know when your last menstruation was,” he said. “It is important to know so that you know when you get pregnant.”

“No sh*t, Sherlock,” I felt like saying, but bit my tongue. I just wanted my diagnosis and drugs so that I could go home.

“What is your blood type?” he continued. Another toughie. I knew I should know this one…I didn’t.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“You should.”

“I know.”

“It should be in your passport.”

“It’s not.”

“It’s in all passports.”

“Not mine.” I pulled out my passport annoyed to be arguing over whether or not blood type is listed in American passports instead of him asking me about my symptoms.

“It is in all other passports. Look next time,” he said still trying to prove his point. “It is important to know your blood type because if you get pregnant and you are…blah blah blah blah…and your fetus…blah blah blah.” I couldn’t believe he was talking about pregnancy again. I could think of many better reasons to know my blood type. As my blood, whatever type it may be, began to boil, he began to ask about my symptoms and I calmed down.

“Fever, chills, sweating, headache, bone ache, diarrhea, nausea, fatigue,” I rattled off the list I had been waiting to share.

He asked a few more questions about other symptoms and jotted notes down in the book. “Sounds like malaria. I’d like to keep you here for 24-hours of observation,” he concluded in less than half of the time he had spent on women’s issues of fertility and menstruation. What? I wasn’t prepared for this! He must have seen the shock and disappointment in my eyes and said that, maybe, if I was doing really well, I could go home in the evening.

I went out to the waiting area and told Cynthia the diagnosis and the request that I stay. A nurse came over and requested that they find someone to stay with me as well as bring some food for me so that I could start my drug regiment. They walked me to my room. I went, first cutting the deal that if I had to stay past 5 o’clock that the driver would go to my house and pick up my phone, computer and some DVDs to keep me sane.

The room was basic. There were two beds with slightly shaky metal frames. The mattresses were covered first in a plastic sheet and then a blue and yellow checkered fitted sheet. There was a pillow and no blanket. A plastic chair sat next to the bed, as did a wooden school desk and attached chair. A small room was to the side blocked by a curtain. Inside was a bag of cement. I lay down.

The hospital was clean – I was grateful for that. I knew it would be basic, but was a little shocked at how basic. I hadn’t expected a TV or an intercom system and could deal with the fact that they brought a second fitted sheet to me instead of a blanket, but had assumed that a hospital (on the higher end) would offer things such as clean drinking water (essential for maintaining hydration), some sort of food (critical to have with some drugs) and toilet paper (do I need to explain?). With a full staff of nurses, it also surprised me that they insisted that I have a babysitter. The company was appreciated, but made me feel like a bit of a burden.

When my food arrived in a small cooler, I ate it up, ready to get on with the drug regiment. Grace, my babysitter for the day, got the nurse to tell her I was ready. She brought in a weathered IV stand. “I don’t want a drip,” I insisted. This sparked a big conversation and the doctor was called in. “Nope,” I shook my head. “I’d like to take the medicine orally.” At first they thought I was afraid of needles. Then I told them that my doctor at home had suggested that whenever traveling that avoid needles. They showed me their sterilized supplies in hermetically sealed wrappers and I politely declined. With a small crowd gathered I looked at the doctor and said that I will start with the oral treatment and that if I got significantly worse, that we could revisit the issue. The American-style medical self-advocacy was a bit foreign to the hospital staff, but went over fine in the end. I got my oral medication and began on the road to recovery.

When 4 o’clock rolled around, I called for the nurse and began my advocacy again. I was determined to go home and spend the night in my bed. The doctor came in and I pinched my cheeks, sat up and looked as perky as possible. “I’d like to go home.”

He smiled and agreed. He also said that my test results were back and that I had malaria (they had taken blood earlier – I had given in and allowed a sterilized and sealed needle for this purpose). We had a brief exchange where he said that even if the test result had come back negative that it would still have been malaria. He used some metaphor about Bin Laden – a malaria test can’t check every blood cell for the parasite, America can’t check every Afghani cave for Bin Laden…even if malaria or Bin Laden aren’t found, we still know they are there. I wondered if he would have used this metaphor had I not been American. I hoped that modern science in Nigeria was more accurate than American intelligence in Afghanistan.

I took my 6 bags of pills and headed home.

Video!

I've been using a small video camera to capture some of my activities with kiva.org. If you have some spare time, feel free to peruse.

http://www.youtube.com/jaheinzelman