Arriving in Lagos marks the beginning of a long stretch of work. It starts the minute the luggage drops onto the luggage carousel. Lifting nine fifty pound bags on to three luggage carts, wheeling the loaded carts through hundreds of people, digging through your pockets to find the baggage claim stubs so that the bags can be checked, and finally flinging the bags through the window of the coaster in 90 degree heat, it’s a workout.
The next day is spent unpacking the 9 bags, unpacking the things we boxed up, and locked up, and catching up on the sleep we missed in the 12 hour flight from Seattle keeps you moving. You are also meeting the new neighbors and trying to remember their names, while you catch up your old neighbors. Not so much a physical workout, but it is mentally exhausting.
Then work starts. The students and parents are ready to go from day one. Homework calendars, grades, books, and meetings all start from day one. Within a week of school starting the kids start their activities and then Saturdays become another workday.
August is a blur, and September becomes a grind. Not long into September, we all begin to look for two things, the end of rainy season, and the moon. The end of rainy season just means you can walk to work with out getting soaked; the moon means a holiday. Id-El-Fitri celebrates the end of Ramadan and it is totally dependent on the arrival of the moon so its exact date is hard to put on a calendar. Our first year at AIS the holiday was marked as “tentative” and the past two years Tom has tried to predict the holiday. He has failed both times, and this year we ended up with a full week of vacation.
We spent the first part of the week in Lagos, but the whole week on campus would have caused a complete and total epidemic of cabin fever in all of the Rainbolt’s. The only choice was to get out of town for a while, so we joined up with Joseph, Mary, and Yvonne to travel to the Republic of Benin. We had heard about a wonderful beach resort just across the Benin border and we thought that would be a great way to end the holiday week.
Unlike driving from Bellingham to the Canadian border, getting from Lagos into Benin requires a bit of planning. First because of the infamous Lagos traffic, traveling in several cars would be an impossible task. Challenge number one then was to find a vehicle to take all of us to the tropical paradise know as Papa Del Casa. Last year a group went and they used the school van, but on the way back the van was rear-ended. Tom was not very willing to repeat that little adventure, so we needed to find another van. Add car rentals as another task that is difficult in Lagos. No phone book, no Hertz, no Alamo; we were ready to call it over when Tom said we could use a school van as long as we paid Tunde, one of the school drivers, to take us.
The next item of business was obtaining visas. For most places that you visit getting a visa can be done when you enter the country. We have done that for Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Egypt, Botswana, and Zimbabwe. A visa for Benin had to be purchased in advance. That required a trip to the Benin Consulate for visa forms, filling out the forms, passport pictures, and of course the money. Sonny, one of the other driver’s, was willing to make the run to the Consulates with our passports. Then as with all things African it was time to wait. Would the visas be ready before our expected departure? Would the consulate close for the week because of the holiday? When would the actual holiday be announced and what days would it be?
As we inched to within days of our trip, everything seemed to fall into place. The visa showed up, we nailed down security to accompany us to the border, and we actually had confirmed reservations at the resort. Then the next planning nightmare hit us. The paperwork on the van had expired and we could not use it to cross the border. We would have to arrange transportation from the border to the resort, a distance of about 50 miles. In other places this might be easier, but of course we need to add another hitch. Benin is one of the West African countries where French is the official language. We tried to call the resort and see if they would have someone to pick us up at the border, but they only spoke French. We did get another number to call for a taxi service but they only spoke French. All was not to be lost, because it is nice to live in a place where people are willing to help you out. One of the French teachers got on the phone and arranged for a car and driver to meet us at the border.
Wednesday morning the seven eager travelers meet in the garage. Tunde was ready with the van, security was on time and we were ready to head out, but of course, we had one more little hitch. The security that was going with us to the border was from the US consulate and they were going to pick someone up at the border so they had an embassy vehicle that we could all ride in if we wanted. A quick discussion and Tunde was out of a weekends work, although he seemed to be pretty glad about that. The embassy vehicle with diplomatic plates made negotiating the frequent police checkpoints a breeze and within and hour of leaving the compound we were at the border. And it is at the border that our story truly begins.
Now, we have crossed borders in Africa several times. We crossed the border between Kenya and Tanzania twice and the border between Botswana and Zimbabwe. At these locations, the border look likes a border with official gates, an immigration office, and uniforms. The border between Benin and Nigeria was not quite the same as these borders. In fact, the border resembled one of the many go-slows you encounter in Lagos, along with one of the area boy toll booths you encounter when you head to the beach, along with an outdoor office. The diplomatic plates on our car caused bamboo barriers to be lifted, ropes to be lowered, and crossing gates raised, and soon we were parked next to the customs house.
Getting out of Nigeria is not an easy process. It involves several stops. Stop one the passport desk. These guys want to see if you have a passport, they want to look at all the pages in your passport, and they want you know how hard the work at checking your passport, how little they get paid for looking at your passport, and how much they would appreciate a little gift from you honoring their hard work. We offered them our best wishes for them and their families, got our passports back, and moved two steps to the left for desk number 2. The official function of desk number 2 is to record your passport and Nigerian Visa information. In most places, these would indicate the presence of a computer, but the practical tool of choice in countries with undependable electrical power is a large accounting book with carbon paper. This was missing at the border so a copy of yesterday’s newspaper was good enough. Once again, we were asked to appreciate the hard work of the official and again we offered our best wishes and stepped to the left to desk number 3. Desk number three was there to check our yellow health cards. You are supposed to carry these cards with you wherever you travel in Africa and we have had them checked exactly once, so of course we had left them at home. This should have ended our trip to the beach officially, but after a little bit of discussion we found out that this health officer was willing to get us all a yellow card for 1000 Naira a piece. A bargain price for a great Nigerian souvenir so we quickly said yes and soon were in possession of a Nigerian Yellow card complete with inoculation dates. So now on to desk 4. Desk 4 copied down the information from Desk 2, but wrote it in a book instead of a newspaper. They handed back our passports along with a departure card that we filled out with the same information that had been just written down in the accounting book. We were now ready to hand our passports, yellow cards, and departure cards over for the official stamping which actually took place at an immigration window. Of course, stamping passports is hard work and the gentleman doing the stamping is under-appreciated. More best wishes were extended and we were out of Nigeria. The Benin process was much simpler and hour and twenty minutes after we got to the border we were across the border.
Yvonne’s steward, Emmanuel, has family in Benin so he had been tagging along with us. We made use of his French language skills to double check with the car company and sure enough, they were waiting for our bags and us once we crossed over the border. We drove through a few more make shift border gates and we were soon on a paved road headed to the city of Cotonu, where Emmanuel helped us change money.
We enjoyed the beach and were very appreciative of the US consulate vehicle when we headed home, because there were 23 police, immigration, customs, and military checkpoint between the Benin border and Lagos. We breezed through every one of them.
1 comment:
Wow......... what a great journey you have....... Cheap Flights to Accra ..........
Post a Comment