Visiting Nigeria: Part 2 -Omens and the Getting There

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From left to right: Nash, Michelle, David P., and me

Sad goodbyes notwithstanding, the trip first concerned itself with a 12,700km journey, from Vancouver to London, London to Lagos, and then from Lagos to Ibadan, our final destination. During this time (and we had about 20 hours of it), the traveling would be made easier with the opportunity to acquaint ourselves with each other - each other being the three members of the teaching team: myself, Michelle Brazas, and David Peterson.

Michelle, I knew already. She was a colleague from the British Columbia Institute of Technology, and someone who had a lot of experience teaching, particularly in the field of bioinformatics. As well, I had arranged for her and two other colleagues to participate in the previous year's West African Biotechnology Workshop offering. To be honest, it was nice to have someone along who knew, more or less, what to expect. Michelle would also serve as our mosquito bait, as it would appear that we were safe from bites as long as she was with us, her presence often revealed with the smell of citronella permeating the air.

This was David's first time to Nigeria - although he was not a stranger to the continent itself, having made trips to Mali in the past. David's primary research interests at the University of Georgia, Athens, concerned the examination of how Plasmodium falciparum secures itself and invades red blood cells. This only seemed too fitting given Malaria's prevalence in the neck of the woods we were heading to. We rendezvoused with David at Heathrow, actually only moments before boarding the plane to Lagos. Initially, he looked a little worried, as if for a few hours in our absense, he had entertained the idea that perhaps he was the only one going.

The flight parts of the journey themselves were exhausting, with a number of incidents that we took as possible omens. To begin with, during the flight from London to Lagos, I noticed that the video screen directly in front of me had broken off, and was literally "dangling," wires exposed and all. This was a touch ironic since one of my most vivid memories from my last trip was seeing all the airplane debris at the Lagos airport - here we had a form of debris right in front of my seat. Anyway, I had to resort to a somewhat lame attempt at keeping the screen in place with the sticky bits from my check-in tags. The improvisational aspect of my efforts, seemed strangely prophetic of things to come.

As well, there was a Nigerian woman and her infant daughter, sitting more or less right behind Michelle and I. They were of note because (as far as I could tell) they were being sent back to Lagos for immigration reasons. As a result of this detail, the woman was screaming wildly, in an effort to get the crew to let her off the plane. It was, admittedly, a little unsettling. Here was an individual adamant on not returning, and yet here we were, three foreigners making the same journey willingly. It made me wonder if she knew something that we didn't.

Eventually, however, we arrived at Lagos' Murtala Mohammed International Airport, and then pretty much settled into the Nigerian "go slow" mentality. This notion could also be referred to as "African Time" which is where things seem to take much longer than they need to. Often, this was a result of some inefficiency related to a problem of resources or infrastructure, but sometimes it was more related to a frame of mind - one that reflected a degree of apathy towards the concept of the schedule. Suffice to say, that for whatever the reason, it took roughly three hours to get through immigration and luggage check before we finally made it out.

But not without casualties - two of our checked luggage were delayed or detained (at the time, we couldn't quite figure out which), and it was the two that contained a fair number of test tube racks, test tubes, rubber gloves, as well several pipettemen. The pipettemen, in particular, were a concern since they were actually worth a fair bit of money. Because of this, we weren't that optimistic that they would resurface.

On a brighter note, the luggage that actually contained our reagents, as well as copies of the lab manual and the lecture notes, had succeeded in making the trip. This was very good news, and like before, whether transporting via "carry on" or via "checked in" luggage, there was nary a peep from any part of the security system. I guess the moral is that we've done this enough times to know that bringing things like live bacterial stocks, enzymes, DNA constructs, etc (including the always freaky sounding Material Safety Data Sheets) is far easier than smuggling 101ml of bottled water.

Once out, we met Nash (Dr. Oyekanmi Nashiru), who was the principle organizer of this affair. I had known Nash for the better part of my academic career, having played a central role at the very first of his West African Biotechnology Workshops. Trained in Seoul, Vancouver and in New York as a biochemist, Nash was your consummate scientific workhorse - full of energy and drive, perhaps too much so - and in this respect, he was both a person to be admired and to be considered a right pain in the ass. But in his defense, his somewhat aggressive manner was all for his beloved country. He was our immediate catalyst in the pursuit of pushing Nigeria, and indeed Africa, towards scientific respectability, and for us, this seemed to make it all worthwhile.

When we stepped out of the terminal, it was about 10pm at that point. We took a moment to phone our loved ones, to say that we had arrived safely, but we did so tentatively. This was because there was one more leg of the trip left, arguably the scariest part - the drive to Ibadan.

This drive, in daylight, would have been a pretty straightforward affair - just your usual crazy speed demon driving, video game style, seatbelts absent, and with the frequent swerving to avoid the neglected potholes on the highway. Except that we were doing this in the dark. As well, we needed to ensure getting off the highway before midnight, because at midnight, the oil tankers (hundreds and hundreds of them lined up against the sides of the highway) would be given freedom to drive on the highway as well (the highway was only opened to the oil tankers from the hours of midnight to dawn. This was to minimize the hazard of sharing the road with countless large vehicles, filled with flammable gas). In any event, this consideration translated to the driver feeling free to push the boundaries of velocity even more. And guess who got stuck with the middle seat in the back - I don't think I've ever held on to the seats as tightly as I did that evening.

Needless to say, we were relieved when we arrived safely at our destination. So, with the long journey behind us, we settled in for a night of sleep. The place where we were staying looked decent enough, but we would have plenty of time to assimilate and note our abode after resting. As well, tomorrow, we would finally get to check out the lab. I couldn't wait.