Buckets

In a one-hour flight I went from bucket showers to buckets of $300 bottles of champagne. Benin City and Lagos: 328-miles and a world apart.

Friday 11:00 AM: I arrived at the house of a friend of a friend of a friend, Erin. Her freelance journalist roommate, Will, let me into the armored US Embassy quarters and returned to his computer to finish an article to meet a deadline. With little within walking distance and having been deprived of the comforts of the familiar for the past month, I hunkered down and watched the programming piped in for the American military stationed abroad. There was news, movies, a history channel – all with “commercials” about how everyone “at home” supports our American troops, how important it is to vote, where to get help with alcoholism, how child molestation is wrong and whistle blowing is okay.

Friday 6:30 PM: There was a live band at the “American Club” – a well-lit gathering place serving frozen margaritas from concentrate and processed cheese. It’s a gathering place for American Embassy staff and expats that find themselves missing home. There is wireless Internet, a basketball court, swing set, a pool and a pantry of American goods for sale ranging from Pace Picante Sauce to Chex Mix and Heinz 57. For some, it is a Friday night tradition. For others, it is a place to open the evening with relatively inexpensive booze and a networking hub.


Friday 8:45 PM: High heels and lipstick, five women went to the Bambudah Lounge to meet “friends” – a Rawandan runway model slash socialite and her latest lover, a jovial Lebanese man who attempted to prove himself by sponsoring our drinks with little to no concern about cost. Five women, ten passion fruit martinis, $170 USD. We sat legs crossed on couches listening to ambient beats and discussing who knows who from Harvard and how Bambudah’s brunch was supposedly good. We killed time until we could be appropriately late for our next engagement – a champagne party at a private residence.

Friday 10:45 PM: The large black gate of the compound swung open and the security guards waved us in. We parked among Land Rovers and Mercedes then entered the champagne party through a foyer filled with family photographs. Our hosts were two brothers. Their mother slept upstairs with the help of a sedative. Friendships seemed flat, but the bubbles in the champagne provided a temporary fix. People rattled off where they had gone to school in the States and the UK in perfectly cultivated and clear accents. The dress code was collared shirts, some worn with blazers. Are we in Africa?

Saturday 12:00 AM or so: The party moved to Volar, a dark club with a deep beat. Outside boys hustled to sell gum and mentos for 100 Naira (80 or so cents) as people pushed to purchase tickets for 2,000 ($17). Bodies pressed against one another trying to get in past the newly erected gates. Keeping people out seems to be the best way to get people in. Our affiliation with the boys from the champagne party earned us entrée and a table that was soon covered with more buckets of bubbly. I watched those around me, drunk on money and high-priced booze.

Saturday 12:00 PM: We headed out for food. Lettuce and a latte – two things I can’t get in Benin City, but can at over-priced colonial cafes. Lagos is small…at least “this” Lagos is. Of course we ran into people. Conversation centered on planning beach weekends, upcoming live music events and lamenting the challenges of finding a new crew for the boat, preferably Indians.

Saturday 3:00 PM: We had been invited to a wedding. In Nigeria these types of affairs are open to all who come into contact with an invitation or someone who has. I got more than a reception befitting a friend of a friend of a coworker. We were seated at a prominent central table with the other “oyibos” (white people). Well-wishers showered us with gifts of umbrellas, plates, notebooks, rubbish bins and pens with congratulations to the couple printed in slightly smeared ink. Family members paraded by thanking us for coming, one going as far as saying that our presence (“oyibos”) had added status to this nuptial celebration. In some’s eyes, we were more important that a good band. We were like making the NY Times wedding section.

Saturday 9:30 PM: After a brief rest, we got dolled up again. The girls headed out to a club called “10” and I joined Will for a more low-key get-together at Bar Beach, an outdoor venue of plastic chairs and tables in the sand. The waves were violent and crashed less than 50 yards from where we sat. A man dressed like the wild Fela Kuti danced on a stage and I was introduced to the journalists stationed in Nigeria – Mr. CNN, Mr. BBC and Ms. AP. They were all very nice and terribly interesting. I marveled at the life they must lead. I wish I could have had more time with them, but text message after text message was beckoning me to meet the ladies at “10” and the hard-working journalists were ready to head home.

Saturday 11:45 PM: I arrived at “10” and began to walk through the small rooms looking for the ladies. Will grabbed my arm and pulled me into the VIP room where I found the crew along with 4 bottles of high-end champagne sitting on our table. A glass fell into my hand as everyone chattered about Kanu, the club’s owner and famous Nigerian footballer that now plays in the UK. He was standing arms length away. I was more focused on the wallpaper – gorgeous, black with modern pastel floral accents. The VIP room was in the center of the box-shaped club with windows and crystal curtains dividing us from the masses. The music was as fantastic as the design elements and I lost myself in the beats while also trying to figure out how some of the girls had gotten so intoxicated in the short time I was gone and who these men were buying us champagne.

12:Something AM: The stay at “10” was too short for my taste, but then again, I had been absent for most of the early part. Before I knew it we were off again, following someone’s crush to another club that everyone seemed to detest “on a Saturday night.” When we arrived, I saw why…The club, Caliente, was overflowing with oily oil men, 16-year old Lebanese teens and prostitutes. I almost vomited in my mouth when a 60-something Scottish man with a turkey neck commented that it must be his lucky night when I slid in next to him at the bar. I couldn’t stomach the thought long enough even to get a free drink. The bar tender, a flaming gay Latino, kept sucking on a lollipop and dancing to the music rather than serving drinks. Everything about him annoyed me, especially the cheap red satin button-down shirt that was worn by the staff. A short Turkish man with man-boobs approached the group. It was explained to me that he was in love with Erin and had been for the past few months of seeing her out at clubs – this was very unrequited. In a unified decision we left, the Turk crying and everyone in the car agreeing “Thursdays are the night for Caliente, not Saturday.”

Sunday: The day was low-key – more television, some wireless Internet and the game of Life. Later in the evening we went to see some live Nigerian music at a local art gallery. I was tired, not terribly social and trying to mentally prepare for the next day when I would be visiting Nigerian entrepreneurs, some who make in one year, what I saw consumed in two nights. It was in this no-mans-land that the contrast seemed so stark. While at the clubs or in the markets, the worlds were too far apart. Still, it is only in quiet moments of reflection that I can fathom the great divide between the moneyed and impoverished Nigeria. I am uniquely privileged to have seen and experienced both.