A VERY DANGEROUS PROJECT.

A DANGEROUS PROJECT

We arrived in Lagos, Nigeria with two cats and a 13 year old child. The first thing that happened in this terrible country, Willem was detained when passing the passport control. His vaccination papers were not okay. Someone of HBG was supposed to meet and help us with everything, but he or she didn’t show up.
Then a Nigerian took one of my cats, their vaccination was also not in order. My heart was in my throat, I was so nervous and sweat was gushing from me. I kept myself brave for Andy’s sake, it will be all right. Meanwhile the arrival hall was nearly empty and we just stood there. Willem surrounded by cops and I sitting on our lugage with my child and one cat. Further on I heard my other cat meowing piteously, they were thirsty. The temperature rose and the Nigerians were grinning at us.
Finally the HBG man arrived. Sorry, sorry, there was so much traffic, we went so slow. After talking and talking for half an hour and paying all was settled. Happily we went to the bus with both of our cats. We lived on a compound completely surrounded by a wall. Opposite our house was the house of the ITT man, who worked for an Italian company. In front of his house were 12 men, who lived in the garage. Despite the wall around our houses, despite the guard in the house near the gate, this ITT man thought he needed 12 more men from Niger to guard him. It wasn’t very promising. Between the houses was also grass and trees. In one of the trees in front of the 12 men hung a skinned monkey, my stomach turned. You wouldn’t believe what I have seen these Niger men do, it is unbelievable, they ate everything. In the beginning I was scared of these Arabic looking men, with their black capes, indigo blue turbands and long curved swords, very impressing. All day long there was a coming and going of these figures. We also had a day- and night guard, a Hausapappa, an old Muslim man, also Arabic. I estimated him 60 years. From experience of my earlier visit 7 years before, I knew that these men are very reliable and soon he had a good contact with the 12 men on the other side. We gave our guard a hot meal twice a day. One day he came to me and showed me his hand, which was infected and swollen. I understood that he wanted me to give him something to cure it. I gave him some penicillin cure, which I always have ready to take at home. You can buy it there without a prescription. After 7 days the hand was better and he was happy.
One night, we had been away to the site the whole day where the actual work was done, finishing the airport project Port Harcourt, there was a hard bang on the door. We woke up while the pounding continued. There is someone at the door, I said. We walked through the large gate at the bottom of the stairs, which we had to open first, before reaching our barred front door and saw our Hausappapa. He gestured that we had to open the door. Okay, okay, Willem said and carefully opened the door. Our guard gestured that we had to follow him to the other side. We didn’t understand him, there was a man with him from the other side, we had to come with him. Dress well, Willem said, they are Muslims. We didn’t want to go but finally, after taking good care I was very proper dressed, went to the other side in the pitch dark. There was a man on the ground moaning with pain. They pointed to me, that I had to do something. My God, Willem said. They want you to treat him and when he dies it is our fault. But we couldn’t refuse either with all those men standing around us with their daggers and swords. What now, I said. What are we going to do? As a woman you can’t touch him. How do I know what is wrong with him. Willem said: the safest thing you can do is give him a cure for worms. They always do that at the site as well, it works perfectly and at least it can do no harm. Later in the day you can always say that a real doctor has to come. Okay Willem, that seems an excellent idea. Will you get the worm cure? There I stood in dark Africa alone with 12 men with swords. The worm cure was given with lots of water and we went quickly back to our house locking everything. When next morning we carefully looked outside, we were amazed to see 12 men with happy faces. The man was cured. So, Willem said, they were right at the site, most of the people here have worms. We regularly gave them frozen chickens, pillows and a lot more of other things and we have felt always safe with them around us. They were extremely nice and took good care of us as we took good care of them with a lot of food.
A follow up on this story is about calling to Holland through radio Scheveningen on a dredger on the river Warrie in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Dinkie