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.