Wow!! This is the longest gap I have had since writing a blog update. Things have been a bit busy here and outside of that nothing much blog-worthy has happened. I made it back from the UK safely and soon settled in to life here again. Then things started to get busy as I had to plan a trip to Lagos.
Lagos is renowned as one of the busiest cities in Nigeria, if not the whole of Africa. My last and only previous experience of Lagos was during my trip, after Christmas last year, to Ghana; and that wasn’t the best experience (see ‘Ghana – Must Go!!’ page for details). In fact I only spent about 12 hours there in total and that felt like enough. So I wasn’t cherishing the thought of having to spend 4 days there in order to attend the Nigerian Society of Physiotherapy (NSP) Conference.
Deborah, the head of department, is pregnant and so was unable to make the trip to Lagos. This meant that I was asked to go instead. Despite my reservations about spending time in Lagos I felt it would be a good for someone from the department to go and it would probably be helpful for me to be able to understand some more about Physiotherapy in Nigeria. So I agreed.
Now I had to plan the trip. After experiencing the coach journey to Lagos once before I decided that although more expensive, flying would be a better idea. It was probably also safer as I would be travelling on my own and it would mean I could spend less time in Lagos. So I got the flights booked and liaised with Kulthoum from the conference organising committee who was very helpful in arranging accommodation and allaying my fears about getting stranded alone in the chaos of Lagos.
The conference ran from 27th-31st October so on Tuesday 27th I headed to Jos Airport and made my way to Lagos. When I arrived I was met by Kulthoum who took me to LASUTH (Lagos State University Teaching Hospital) and then after to my hotel. This was when I got my first experience of Lagos traffic. I don’t know how far we travelled, but not very far and it took us about 1 and a half hours to get to the hotel. The plan was for me to check-in, have a shower and then head back to the cocktail reception at LASUTH for 6pm. But, when we eventually made it to the hotel it was already 5.45 and so I thought it probably would be best just to check-in and then leave otherwise the welcome cocktail reception would be over before we made it back. When I thought about it afterwards, I should have had a shower as in effect now we had just spent more than 2 hours just to drop my suitcase in my hotel room. Anyway, we made it to the reception by 6.45 and then after a few drinks and a chat with some of the other delegates I headed back to the hotel, this time getting there in about 45 minutes.
The next day was the presentation of scientific papers at LASUTH. We had to leave by 7 and it took about 30 minutes to get to there. After a day of different lectures we finished at about 6pm and then it was back to the hotel. Again it took about 30 minutes to get back.
Thursday was the big celebration day and opening Ceremony. This was the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Nigerian Society of Physiotherapy so a big event had been planned. It was to be held at the National Arts Theatre and the Governor of Lagos State was due to be there. The hall was decorated in the NSP colours and there were people from whole the history of physiotherapy in Nigeria, including the first ever African physiotherapist. The event went well with typical Nigerian time keeping but we did finish on time at least. I managed to get back to hotel by 6pm so I enjoyed a relaxed evening making the most of the TV in my room, not that there was a huge range of channels, but it was TV!!
Friday was scheduled for the NSP AGM in the morning, then time in the afternoon to go on a tour of the tourist sights of Lagos and then a celebration meal at the Sheraton hotel at 6. Well, once again we were working on Nigerian time and the AGM didn’t start until about 11.30 and I left the AGM at about 6.15!!!! after I had been sworn in as an Official member of the NSP. I then had to rush back to the hotel to get changed and then make it to the Sheraton. Unfortunately, thanks to, you’ve guessed it, Lagos traffic I didn’t get there until about 8.30 and by then a lot of the food was gone, but there was still enough to fill myself up. Then I was dragged up onto the dance floor by one of the Fellows of the NSP. I usually quite like a bit of a dance but when everyone is looking at the only white man in the room and all the cameras (including the TV ones) are pointing at you it is difficult to feel completely comfortable. But everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves so I just smiled and got on with it. I don’t know if my dancing moves made it to the TV that night, perhaps it’s best I don’t think about it!!!
So that was the end of the conference. I made it back to my hotel, packed my things and then early the next morning I headed to the airport. My flight wasn’t until 11.55 but in Lagos on the last Saturday of the month there is street cleaning between 7-10am and all the roads are closed. This meant I had to get to the airport before the shut-down so I ended up arriving at 6.45. I could have waited until afterwards, but after experiencing the Lagos traffic I thought it was too much of a risk to try and get there in time!! So, I waited around and then eventually boarded the flight and made it back to Jos by 2pm. Home at last!!!
So what was so bad about Lagos? Well, it was not as bad as I thought and probably could never have been.
The conference was well organised despite the typical Nigerian timings and it gave me a valuable insight into Physiotherapy in Nigeria. So it was definitely worth the trip to Lagos.
The weather was hot and humid as I had expected, but it turned out that rather than being hot and sweaty all of the time I actually wished I had brought some warmer clothes. Everywhere I went the air conditioning was on its lowest setting and at times I was on the verge of shivering!! So that was a nice surprise.
The food at the hotel was excellent and that provided at the conference was good too. So I didn’t go hungry.
The traffic. Now this is where I start to sound more negative. There is so much to say about the traffic, mainly because there is just so much traffic. It’s chaotic!! I don’t know how people manage to live in Lagos for any length of time, it would drive me mad – literally. There is no way you can plan your schedule accurately because you have no way to telling how long it will take you to travel from one place to another. The times I travelled from my hotel to LASUTH it took anywhere from 25 minutes to almost two hours. It was so frustrating. Sometimes it seemed like there was no reason for the traffic apart from the sheer number of cars crammed in to such a small place. Sometimes the traffic was just caused by the fact that all the cars had to slow down to negotiate the huge craters in the middle of the road at certain places. Other times it was that a junction that should probably have just two lanes had been made to have four lanes by all the cars squeezing through trying to get to where they wanted to go. It seems to me that there is no solution to the problem, unless they knocked the whole city down and started again, or just banned all cars completely. What made me really laugh though, was when I realised that a lot of the motorbikes had their handlebars bent upwards, I guess so that they could squeeze through even smaller gaps than they usually do!! But that wasn’t as funny as when I saw people getting into a taxi bus. Apparently, the taxis don’t stop to pick up customers and so whenever they slow down enough the would-be passengers have to sprint across the road and dive in the open door before the taxi has moved on. There is then the comedy scene of everyone in the taxi trying to reposition themselves so they are actually sitting somewhere near a seat and are somewhat upright. I am so glad I didn’t have to do that. Thankfully Kulthoum arranged for Ifeanyi (a physio student from Lagos who was attending the conference) to help me with my transportation. He arranged for a private taxi to pick him up from his flat before coming to pick me up from my hotel to go to the conference and then the opposite on the way back. This was such a blessing as it made travel much more straightforward for me, apart from the traffic that is and there’s nothing you can do about that. Although Jos can be busy at times, it has been a joy travelling on the roads here in the last week, I have got to work in less than 15 minutes every day!!
So as I said, it was definitely worth the trip to Lagos but the traffic just put a downer on the whole experience. Would I go again? It will need to be a good reason and I might see if my budget stretches to flights around Lagos as well as to it!!!
Back in Jos, work has been quite busy. Deborah is now on maternity leave which leaves me as Acting Head of Department and having to deal with all the paperwork and procedures etc. What fun!! I think it will take me while to get used to. Hopefully I will be able to get my head around it all so I can work on some service development things as well.
On Challenge compound we have a new resident. He/She is yet to be named but suggestions include Wilbur, Babe, Bacon and my personal favourite Naman Christmas (Christmas meat in Hausa). We have a pig on the compound. It was all part of a prank that Dustin played on Lisa when she got back from a visit to the UK. She got back to her flat to find a pig inside. Apparently thanks to the tiredness from the flight her reaction was not all that spectacular so Dustin was disappointed. But I am still happy. We have a pig to eat all our food scraps and then we get bacon, pork and Ham for Christmas (well maybe Easter as its only a little thing at the moment!!)
So, life goes on here with its typical mix of normality (well that’s what it has become for me) and the odd strange occurrences. I don’t know what my next blog will be about. We will just have to wait and see.
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