Friday morning

L-R: Nancy, Al, Emmanuel, Opeyemi

Halim & I (sartorially naturalized)

Halim arrived with a gift of a beautifully made Nigerian casual suit for me - handmade by one of his connections. The tailor measured me up last week (impressing me by memorising half a dozen measurements before actually committing them to paper). It's linen, lightweight and very cool, with drawstring pants. My early bird colleagues Emmanuel (Art Director) and Opeyemi (Account Exec) were suitably impressed, as were Nancy and Halim himself.

A last minute client briefing was scheduled before the trip to airport, so I packed beforehand. The rainwater from the mighty storm in the wee hours had flooded most of the roads on Victoria Island, the drains not being designed to handle the wastewater demands of the city.  I was very glad not to be one of the people I saw taking off shoes and rolling up their trouser legs to cross the street! The okada drivers - and their passengers - fared not much better, even trying to drive the pavements to avoid the deeper stretches, with feet raised to handlebar height, looking like paper marionettes.

Rhapsody in Grey - One thing about Lagos, even though it's always hot, it's overcast more often than not.

 After the meeting we took the long road to the airport - first time I had seen it in daylight. Crossing the long bridge from Victoria Island to the mainland, I admired the enormity of Lagos Lagoon (I'm told that Lagos is actually named from the Portuguese for lake).

What appeared to be a regatta was, on closer inspection, a flotilla of white sailed dugout boats. On even closer inspection it turned out that the sails weren't white; they were made up of a patchwork of old plastic/raffia bags - like the material used for grain or dry dog food. The bags were neatly arranged so that the branding colours matched. These boats aren't for fishing (my initial assumption), in fact they are dredgers. The owners use them for scooping up sand from the floor of the lagoon, which is then packed into bags (not unlike the ones the sails are made of), drained and sold for building construction. It's backbreaking, low-wage work, but the Lagosians are, typically, resourceful workers and compete for any job that's going.    

Out and about

Finally!
Freedom!!!
With extra exclamation marks!!!!!

Quintin from Video Lounge arranged to pick me up last night and we headed out for a few drinks. Started off at the Lagoon, a complex just past the Civic Centre that has four or five restaurants with bars and a function venue. Mostly run by French Lebanese, very friendly. There's also a sushi restaurant that Quintin reckons puts any in SA to shame. But we were on a drinking mission so after a quick tequila and beer chaser we moved on to the next spot. Bottles is a well known, popular expat pub/Mexican restaurant. For the first 15 minutes or so I was like small town hick transplanted in a busy city; I caught myself gawping at all the white faces!

The food looked very good (although I didn't order as I had already eaten), but a squizz at the menu confirmed that eating out in Lagos is indeed pricey. A steak is around R180, a burger around R100. Starters are areound R60-R80. And this isn't a fancy place. Anyway, we settled down to plenty of beers interspersed with a few more tequilas and enjoyed the buzz. There was a live band - actually pretty good - playing an interesting cross section of covers, from Black Eyed Peas to Abba, The Police and Ryan Adams, all with a reggae disco flavour. Turns out Quintin is a Weskus lad, so we reminisced about cool spots up and down that magical coastline. At one point we were joined by another SA couple and the entire conversation switched to Afrikaans. It struck me that this is possibly the last push of the Great Trek - a diaspora deep into the hinterland. Soon they'll be speaking Die Taal in the Sahara. Eventually, we called it quits and I was whisked back home, pausing only momentarily for the temporary roadblocks that are the local constabulary's way of shaking down people for pin money (you just put on the interior car light so they can see who's in the car, hopefully so that they don't shoot you as you accelerate past them without stopping). I was poured off at the office. My Joburg CEO Sandy and Account manager Erica had arrived from Ghana in the interim and were asleep already (exhausted by a trip that was rerouted and grounded in Benin due to bad weather) so I tiptoed upstairs for a reflective nightcap on my balcony.

Today was a grim lesson in How To Be The Client's Bitch. An ad was due to be placed tomorrow, but was delayed because the client was apparently incacapable of organising the shoot they insisted on taking over from us. Then they changed it at the last minute - they wanted the kids shot on a grass background so we had to comp in the grass. That was just the start. Apparently the detail that the media booked a DPS, not the A4 ad they had approved, was too trivial to notice or mention. Another redesign. It ended up that my Senior Art Director had to take an okada (kamikaze motorcycle taxi) to deliver material, the traffic being too congested for driver Halim to take the 4X4. Upon his arrival, the client decided that the grass was not to his liking; he wanted to drop in his own lawn. So now it was my junior copywriter's turn to take the open working files - and his life - in hand and chase after my AD on another okada. You want a nicer lawn? Sod off! (In fairness, when I saw the lawn we had supplied, I had to agree with the client; it looked like a yellow and green patchwork. It occurred to me that my designer had no actual point of reference - you don't see any lawns in Lagos, so any unbroken patch of green grass would be considered fair game)

After all the panic, I was less than thrilled to receive a call around 8pm informing me that on Monday I will be required to present all the work we have done to date to the Chairman. Besides the fact that Monday is a public holiday (Democracy Day - their 12th Anniversary), I have been counting the sleeps till my flight back to Jozi tomorrow night. So, now I'll have to see... If I can confirm that Richard will be back in Lagos in time to handle the presentation, I'll fly out as planned and paid for; If not, I'll be stuck here till next Tuesday. I will only know by noon tomorrow. Hold thumbs!

 Continuing my mind bogglingly exciting voyage of discovery in the kitchen, the green spiky heart-shaped fruit that had me baffled turned out to be a kind of feral cousin of the mango, called fuko'fuko. Possibly, the name is derived from the first question posed by pioneer English speaking missionaries in these parts, i.e. "What the fuck is that?" It's very juicy and quite refreshing, the fibrous sticky white flesh more tart than sour, although it has large black seeds dotted throughout, like rounded watermelon pips, that you need to pick (or spit) out.

The rough, hairy looking brown root thingy [below] is the humble, but highly celebrated yam. Besides featuring in Popeye's signature song (I yam, I yam) it's one of the staple foods of central and west Africa and it occurs abundantly in sixth grade geography text books and crossword puzzles.    
 

The heat is (the only thing) on

Post script to last night:

Woke up around three 3.30, too hot to sleep. The power was still off. I lapsed into a prickly, uncomfortable doze till a powerful tropical storm lashed the building, narrowly pre-empting my 6.30 alarm clock. I staggered to the bathroom to discover there was no water again. Unbefuckinglievable! I splashed bottled water in my face and went downstairs to investigate. The generator was still off. No idea when the electrician will be here (he was called last night already). So I’m sitting sweating in a studio that’s inoperable, with deadlines approaching fast. Not my idea of a good time. My boss is due to fly in from Ghana this evening with some new recruits for the satellite Firehouse being set up in Accra. Hopefully there'll be power and water for them!

Power Struggles

The power is off. Again. Frankly, I’m gatvol. It’s understandable that the country’s power supplier, PSC (the non-performer formerly known as NEPA), can’t keep up with the demand. Hell, they have about one third of Eskom’s generating capacity and about three times as many people to service. That means you get, on average, about four hours’ supply per day, the times and uninterrupted duration of which are apparently dictated at random. So, every dwelling and workplace worth its salt has its own generator. Ours is a big beast about the size of a Smart car. And that’s where the trouble started - last weekend it blew as the not-so-Smart guy tasked with keeping an eye on it forgot to top up the oil and also failed to notice that a fan belt had gone, so the thing not only overheated, it ran the battery flat. Miraculously, it didn’t seize as well. It was late Sunday before a repairman could be found; late Monday before he finally arrived. 

All went well until Saturday, when a power surge blew our modem (and the wireless interweb connection with it). Yesterday another power spike popped half the lights in the studio and, by midnight, the municipal power was fluctuating so badly that I felt I was in a Stephen King movie, lights dimming and flaring, air conditioners switching on and off as if by an unseen hand, before everything finally faded and died. Unbeknownst to me, the water pump also took a direct hit. We have a borehole, so no pump equals no water pressure equals no water this morning. 

Feeling sticky and grumpy, I was put through the hoops today – rushed late from one meeting in Victoria Island to be yanked out of the second one (45 minutes in traffic from Ipapa) to attend another at the gilded MAT building back on Victoria Island. In the interim, an electrician was called in to fix the problem. Which he almost did. The water was flowing again by lunchtime and the interweb was back in business by 6pm. Then the generator started playing up, or, more accurately, stopped playing along. After half a dozen aborted start-ups that lasted from 5 minutes to zero minutes over a 20-minute period, we were left in darkness. Apparently a short circuit (how this was divined without the benefit of a search escapes me). Anyway, I’m stuck till tomorrow with no power (unless PSC/NEPA, on a whim, grants us some juice), with the happy prospect of being woken by the heat already building in the room, just in time for a cold shower (or possibly none). The mozzies are also getting more active, with no refrigerated air to cool their ardour, so I’ll sign off now. I’m hoping that the stench of the Peaceful Sleep I’m slathered in will buy me enough time to escape to Dreamland before they move in en masse.             

Cabin Fever

I’ve had an entire Sunday without internet access, which is a real pain in the ass – I was looking forward to catching up with everyone on email, Facebook, even Skype if I was lucky. So much for that. Anyway, as much as I feel isolated, confined in solitary, I’m by no means stuck in a garret. So, in lieu of anything else to report, here’s a guided tour of my humble abode…

This first shot is the exterior from the road (once you’re past the huge metal gates, that is). The doors open into an enclosed porch/lobby that keeps the heat from coming in the front door (in the studio shot, that’s the door on the far left). The windows above the door serve a small boardroom on the second floor and, on the top floor, you can see the sliding doors and railing of the small balcony where I have a pre-bedtime smoke and nightcap most nights. There’s only standing room as it’s mainly taken up by two large air conditioning extractor units that blast out hot air; it gets very toasty.

Below is the second floor - my living area. There’s a dining room table, lounge suite to pass out on and a nice big screen TV with DSTv to pass out to. The square black box on the table to the right of my laptop is a compact speaker system I bought, wearying of listening to music through headphones. 

The recess on the left opens onto the small boardroom I mentioned above.

                                                                                                               

The reverse POV (right) is taken from the recess looking towards the back of the house. The staircase in the middle goes up to the third floor and two bedrooms (the main one being mine, directly above the lounge). On the other side of the staircase the passage leads to two smaller bedrooms. The stairs on the extreme right descend to the ground floor; the window looks into the pool area, accessed via an exterior door to the right.

At the foot of the stairs, the kitchen door is to the left and a door on the right opens to the pool area.

 

 

 

 

If you turn back towards the front door you’re in my alternative living area, a.k.a. the office/studio. I sit in the corner next to the window on the far right.

And that’s it; 
My home-sweet-grindstone!

I'm really looking forward to getting back online (in this lifetime) so I can post this! The wireless internet thingy was hit and fried by a power surge on Saturday and they’re still battling to fix/replace it. In anticipation, I’ll pre-date this post so it makes chronological sense.                                                

In the meantime, here are two more interesting items spotted around the house. 

 

The first is an attractive little fellow about 35cm long. He hangs out around the gatehouse and when you approach he bobs his head (much like our agamas). If you keep advancing, he bolts. They’re pretty common, like our skinks. Besides them I’ve only seen a few small, pale yellowish pink geckoes on the exterior walls. There’s practically no wildlife here – hardly any gardens – and the air con inside is too cold for most self-respecting creatures! 
That excludes the accursed stealth mozzies (no whine; no warning).  

This is plantain, which I thought was a giant banana (in the market yesterday there were bunches of them piled ceiling high under the zinc roof).  The pic below right shows how these monsters compare to real bananas. My sample was fried, apparently that makes them sweeter. They taste like a cross between a banana and a potato, the texture more closely resembling the latter.  Far tastier  was the croaker we braaied on Sunday afternoon. It’s a silver coarse-scaled fish, about the size of a large trout, with flesh a bit like hake, but bones more reminiscent of snoek (although not as numerous). Stuffed with chopped tomato, onion and spices and served with a tomato, chili and lime salsa (mild by local standards, but with a respectable bite) and fries - the best fish & chips in town!
 

Shop talk

This is the first weekend I’m not working flat out. Yay! Last night I was all revved up to go out for a drink with Mordi, my copywriter who was celebrating his 31^st birthday with some friends. On the way back from the client (around 6.30p.m.) we made small 2km/30-minute detour to confirm a table reservation at the proposed watering hole in Ikoyi, tucked away just across the Falomo Bridge (see last post, maps etc.) Accustomed to keeping an open mind, the one thing I wasn’t expecting was to be turned away for being a white man. The problem is, the venue is situated on a military base and they don’t allow foreigners in for “security” reasons. How ironic that I should travel all the way to Lagos to experience xenophobia.  So my big induction to Lagos nightlife ended up being yet another night in. Curse you, Red Baron! Probably just as well though – I woke up yesterday morning with a stress spasm (that old recurring trapezoid pain in the neck). So I switched on the NatGeo channel, took some pain killers and muscle relaxants, nailed a few quarts of beer – including my first two Stars - and passed out for dead.

Star, by the way, Is Nigeria’s main beer brand – like Castle was in SA before they started poisoning it. It ‘s a bit sweeter and rougher than my favourite Zamaleks, but (like most alcohol) it improves with the drinking. This morning I went to the The Palms shopping mall with Nancy and Halim. Keen to find an alternative to Heineken (passable but not my favourite) I chucked a few Harps and Guinness  into my basket this morning along with some whiskey and gin. There I was pleasantly surprised. Although I’ve been warned that drinks are pricey when you go out (like, double pricey), buying booze at Game is even cheaper than Jozi. I got a bottle of Johnny Walker for Naira 1950 – about R90. And (you’ll be as alarmed as I am chuffed) cigarettes are about 1/3 of the price, around R12 a box. Good thing I don’t smoke when I’m working… so Lagos could be good for my health!  

The Palms - Victoria Island's modern shopping mall

 

After a morning at the mall, I was keen to see something authentically Nigerian so I invited myself along for a trip to the market where Nancy buys her fresh vegetables. The market is crammed into what was probably a large yard behind a big building, purpose unknown. It’s a steaming, cramped grid of narrow alleyways, packed to the nostrils with stalls covered over by tin roofing. The daylight elbows its way through the gaps in the roofing, giving highly contrasting lighting effects – dazzling white patches and dark, almost hazy shadows. Down the centre of each alley runs a narrow, deep gutter, that is patchily boarded over for pedestrians. Brightwater Commons it is not (although, for variety of goods it could probably give the Commons a run for its money). Seeing that the one alleyway was totally congested up ahead, we backed up and sidestepped down another way. As luck would have it, this was the meat, fish and poultry department. I found myself jostling past stacked crates packed with large, black live chickens. And, in the same instant, the smell hit me.  Remember Frank Zappa’s Voodoo Butter Panties? The ones that made his keyboardist throw back his head and say, “JaHEEsus!?” This was worse. Suddenly I was in vegetarian hell (haha, my veggie friends, you know you’re going there… and I can tell you it’s baaad). Everywhere I looked, there were chunks of bloody meat being slapped down (amid squadrons of flies) and hacked up. Chickens being plucked, fish being scaled, pork carcasses (sans heads and trotters) piled on tables like grey napalm victims – possibly, smoked? The din of a score of square bladed machetes chopping through flesh and bone meant I had to raise my voice to be heard. Which I did, immediately, when I spotted a stall selling king size fresh prawns. Hoo-ha! They were going for  about R120/kg. We also bought a croaker to braai tomorrow (I was shown how to check the colour of the gills for freshness). 

Wherever there is a space in the crowded fish section, there are also steel basins full of glistening black, resentful looking live catfish, like small barbel, that are very popular with the locals. Every so often, one flips over, the flick of its tail splashing the smelly water across the walkway and (if you’re unlucky) onto you. A woman right in front of me was thus surprised. I’m told that expats don’t go there much; I can believe it.

Speaking of expats, I bought a pair of locally made basic flip flops for N300. When I told Halim he roared with laughter and denounced it as a white man’s price.  Apparently I should have paid N150. That would work out to a mere R7.00, so I don’t really feel that hard done by! Nancy told me that the marketeers are pretty hardcore - the one time she tried to intervene and haggle on behalf of an expat she was hosting, she was surrounded and threatened with stoning! Prices for the Oy’bo (that’s “honkey” to you, Mr. ‘Mlungu) are pegged at 200%. End of discussion.

A porter

When we had completed the shopping, Nancy having bargained down and browbeaten the sellers for every last bean, banana, yam, lettuce leaf or knobbly heart-shaped mystery fruit/vegetable (seriously, I still can’t tell you what that was) there was one last surprise. A short, elderly woman who was (I thought) patiently standing in the queue next to me turned out to be our human shopping trolley. She loaded all the purchases into a large plastic tub (like you’d use for doing the dishes when camping), hoisted it atop a folded cloth pill on her head and navigated through the throng back to our car waiting further down the road. Images of Tintin in Africa leapt to mind; I was just one pith helmet short of a storyboard…

I was mildly depressed, actually, completely bummed out about missing James's 15th birthday (hot on the heels of missing Cal's 13th), so, after phoning him I resolved to work methodically through my assortment of drinks and, again, the TV couch claimed me as a victim.

Who Am I? Where am I?

I just woke up to the fact that most of you won't have the foggiest notion of where I am. So, here's some help:

How time flies when you’re on the run!

Into my second week here and the shit-storm is showing no signs of abating. I’ve been frustrated beyond measure by the lack of a sense of urgency, even when deadlines are upon us. The only time anyone looks lively is when the Chairman’s name is mentioned. I’ve also realized that ass-kissing is very important to people in the corporate world. Possibly it’s as bad elsewhere in the world, but I’ve yet to see it. 

On the home front, my housekeeper is impressing me no end with her global ex-pat friendly cooking – proper Mexican chicken fajitas (with refried beans and guacamole), Beef Wellington, Spanish omelette, Cottage Pie, even a very passable pizza with a light crust! The only thing is, the meat – even the bacon - tastes funny. Carnivore-wise, I much prefer the spicy chicken from Chicken Republic (their equivalent of Chicken Licken) down the road. I also like the suya the creatives buy down the road – a kind of medium-hot spiced crumbed schnitzel that comes with red onions. The Nigerians are spice mad – especially chilli – probably a function of having to disguise the godawful taste of the meat. I have been warned not to order pepper soup. Not ever. My (currently absent) boss Richard explained it thus: Grind up about 3kg of black pepper, boil it up with chilli for a few hours and serve. Add salt to taste (yeah, right)!

I still haven’t had much time to venture forth, but the shoot over the weekend took me out to Fiki’s Boatyard, reached by driving through the fish market under the Falomo Bridge (that crosses over from Victoria Island to Ikoyi). The market is vaguely quaint and scenic in a scrappy, muddy, polluted, bombed out kind of way.

The boatyard is, literally, falling down, chunks of concrete crumbled off the walls, the metal rusted through, the railings collapsed and the cement pier crazy paved with sizeable cracks. For the sensitive of stomach, I won’t describe the toilet!  But owner  Fiki Bal isn’t fixing anything as he has finally gained official approval (some 20 years after buying the property, following much legal wrangling and sizeable payoffs) to develop a proper waterfront venue with a 6-story hotel and a floating restaurant! 

I took his number – you never know...

I spent most of the day sweating onshore and killing time with the crew, eventually got on board the speedboat (we just had to pick up some stills of the local actor they were using in the all-action TVC) and enjoyed speeding up and down that small section of Five Cowries Creek. 

On the waterside at the Civic Centre is the pukka Victoria Island Boat Club – some pretty impressive boats, but admission by invitation only. I’ll have to cultivate some larney friends here. Oh, wait, I’ll have to leave the building first. Patience, my pet…     

On Monday I went to the decidedly unscenic harbor-side area known as Ipapa, to present to the Conoil client. Deeply regretted not taking my camera, but I will next time. That was my first taste of the mainland – think Hillbrow, but with more people and worse roads. The ground floors of the buildings are packed cheek-by-jowl with traders whose tiny shops, demarcated by the piles of goods the sell, spill on to the pavement. Actually, everything spills onto the pavement and thence into the open gutters that are bridged (in places) by concrete slabs that fail to cover them, but serve as stepping stones for pedestrians. After a good shower of rain tops them up, they can get pretty rank.   

Pulling yet another late-nighter tonight; presenting brand three new campaigns plus amendments to the 5 others we presented on Wednesday. It’s pretty crazy. I am looking forward to chatting to my bosses when they arrive on Wednesday, among other things, to define “within reason” as it refers to overtime in my contract. I met a few South Africans the other day at the Glo office and they threatened to take me out for some R&R one of these fine evenings, so maybe this weekend will be the one. Watch this space…

Greetings from Lagos!

This is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and collect my thoughts since I arrived. I was warned to expect something of a culture shock when I got here, but the Nigerian work ethic wasn’t mentioned. Thirteen-hour workdays seem to be the norm here, including weekends, although I suspect that is more a function of the demanding client we are working for. Glo is Nigeria’s second largest cellular network, so it’s a bit like working on Vodacom – but with a tenth of the staff complement. We have daily meetings with the Glo marketing department management that can be quite wearisome, a core committee of 6 with a cast of thousands drifting in and out, everyone with their own opinion to add and hotly debate. In spite of that, we have actually managed to present (and sell) some fairly good work. The Glo-world revolves around the omnipotent Chairman, Dr Mike Adenuga who is one of the richest men in Africa – a dollar multi-billionaire. Besides dabbling in telecoms (he personally paid for the only submarine cable from Nigeria to Europe) he owns oil fields and a bank. The size of his business empire notwithstanding, he insists on personally overseeing most of the work that goes on. He's quite a phenomenon. Everyone vies to impress him and keep up with his odd working hours, that start around noon and continue till 3 or 4 in the morning, with all hands expected to be on deck and ready to jump at a moment’s notice. Today’s meeting, postponed thrice since Monday, was cancelled (with his multifarious business interests this is not uncommon), so we’re still waiting to see him!

At the moment I’m living a cloistered life, in Lekki Phase 1, an upmarket suburb on Victoria Island. Kind of like Lagos’s Sandton – the modern business centre with expensive private residences. I’m in Admiralty Way, staying in an apartment on the top floor of a three-storey house with the agency studio and kitchen on the bottom floor and a lounge and small boardroom on the second. Everything’s modern and air-conditioned. It makes going outside a bit like stepping off the plane in the Maldives – a blast of heat and humidity that makes you gasp. Fortunately (at least I think so) we are entering into the rainy season, so most days we have had some solid tropical thunderstorms late afternoon or at night. That cools things down for just a while. It also leaves the streets semi-flooded in places. 

My only forays outside have been in an air conditioned 4x4 SUV, driven by our driver and general sort-outer, an excellent guy named Halim. The streets are incredible – potholes, gravel washaways, half-demolished surprise speedbumps and, everywhere, swarms of motorcycle taxis called okadas. These are mind-boggling – I saw someone carrying a full length stepladder on one yesterday! The okada are regarded as vermin by the other road users; their lack of etiquette and adherence to the rules of the road puts SA minibus taxi drivers in the shade. However, the fragility of their bikes precludes them from the bullying tactics we see at home and, to be honest, they’re what keeps Lagos moving. Actually, everyone here drives like a Jozi minibus taxi, just without that endearing road rage. I reckon the traffic here is so jaw-droppingly dreadful that it’s absolutely pointless getting upset by it. The number of near misses a short (half hour) drive to the client entailed stressed me the first time, impressed me the second and barely registered by the third.

Of course, the routine of living at work and living the life of a harem princess (minus the bevies of women to keep me company) is getting to me a bit. I haven’t so much as stepped past the blockhouse that guards the high, heavy metal gate to explore my surroundings. In the evenings I usually stand on my balcony for a drink and a smoke before retiring, by which time all is quiet and there’s nothing to see, besides the flickering fires of some shacks that occupy an empty plot across the road.  Every day, about 1km up the Way towards the Lekki tollgate (newly constructed, but not yet operating as anything more than a hindrance to the traffic flow)  I pass a hopeful looking bar, but I haven’t had a gap to get out and at it. Even going to the shops is taken care of by resourceful Halim.

It was quite funny on Monday – I mentioned to him that I needed to get some sandals, so next thing this shoe-seller pitches up in the driveway pushing a large two-wheeler barrow piled high with sandals. Dozens of sandals! I felt quite bad that the ones I liked weren’t in my size, but Mr Halim wasn’t put out and shooed the sandalman away to find the right size.  This weekend I’ll make sure I go shopping with him and Nancy (the live in Ghanaian housekeeper who is keeping me very well fed), if only to get out. Thankfully I’ll be attending a TV shoot on Saturday, so at least the location will be somewhere new. I don’t know how long it will be before I get to see the less sanitized parts of Lagos that I’ve heard about, but that’s an adventure I’m looking forward to having all in good time.

As I’m sure you’ve gathered from the trivia, I don’t really have much to report; My life consists of: work, present to client, work, sleep, wake up and do it all over again. Overall, though, my impressions of Nigeria have been good. The people I have met have been really friendly (including the clients, one of whom, a senior dude known as the Professor, hugged me when I was introduced!). Even the airport customs security guy who shook me down for R200 when I arrived (my Yellow fever shot was 9 days fresh instead of the statutory 10) was quite cheerful and as malice-free as you could ever wish a career bandit to be. My creative staff (including three brand newbies – a junior art director/writer team and a DTP guy) are highly motivated and passionate, they work like Trojans and don’t bitch about it (we should get some SA prima donnas up here for a week, that would larn them) and I’m more excited and motivated by my work than I have been in a few years.   

C-Day

D-Day minus one. My visa is glued in my passport and my flight is finally confirmed - I ship out at 3.40 tomorrow. Arrive in Lagos at 8.40 GMT (a 6-hour flight). Thank god. I don't think my liver can take another round of farewell drinkies.   

Waiting

Well, it's about time! This is the second new blog I've opened - for some reason it's been taking forever to activate.

Yes, I'm impatient.

It's Wednesday 4 May 2011 and I'm still waiting for confirmation of my flight details. I was meant to fly from Jozi to Lagos on Tuesday, but there was a bureaucratic delay with my visa application, attributed to the public holidays and a general post-election national hangover. So I'm hanging around the The Firehouse in Bompas rd, Dunkeld, trying to stay abreast of this morning's client presentation in Lagos (orchestrated via email and phone yesterday and this morning). I've been warned that comm's are, at best, unreliable and that I'll have my work cut out trying to coordinate the two offices. Other than that, I've been given the lowdown on life in the Big Yam. Sounds busy, sweaty, noisy and chaotic, but not necessarily as dangerous as some would have you believe, although you can't touch the water - our AD came back with a kidney infection that had him pissing Sparberry for 10 days solid.

Waiting... I've heard of 6-hour traffic delays, so maybe this is my pre-conditioning? A little taster of what's in store?

All I know is, my bags are packed and I'm ready to go. If anyone plays John Denver to/at me between now and Friday, I hereby absolve myself of any responsibility for my actions...