Arrival

Time flew, all I can remember is waking up at about 11 in the morning, after bathing it was time for Zuhr the Muslim afternoon prayer. Mother called and suggested I go the ticketing office and demand for an explanation a confirmation and an affirmation that I would be on tonight's flight. Transport around Lagos in probably the worst on the planet, Lagos is super dense, super hot and super stressed, the antipathy to tranquility. We left for the airport at 4:00 pm hoping the timing would be right.

This time no problem with check in, thou a slight embarrassment at customs, I couldn't find the keys to open our luggage. So the custom officer let us pass, without being checked! I can't imagine that happening to me at an American airport! The 9:25 flight time turned out to be bogus the plane was still somewhere over Accra! Me and mom spent the time at the departure lounge watching the crew of the outgoing flights, KLM, Lufthansa, Iberia dragging their luggage behind them soon to be air bound while we waited in anxiety. Our nerves were slowly sedated with the arrival of each Dakar bound passenger. Surely the weren't going to disappoint all of us?

The flight did finally take off at about 11:40 pm, storms over Sierra Lone made the pilot detour from the original route. We landed at the Lepold Senghor airport past 2:00 in the morning. From the air you could see that the city was small probably no bigger than Kaduna, but it was much more well lit than Lagos. Sodium lamps divided the the city into neat blocks and rues (streets). At immigration there was a bit of a problem, we needed to know the address of our hotel to fill in the part of the immigration form where it said residence a Dakar, so I tried calling Zubairu my cousin (my phone an MTN line had connected to the local Tigo network) to no avail, I explained in the little french I had learnt that my cousin worked with ECOWAS and scribbled his number on the arrival form for non nationals. After passing the scanning machine at customs, I saw the same entrepreneurs you had a the Murtala Muhammed airport in Lagos, the peripatetic argent d'change, the phone card sellers, taxi drivers, it was like they had boarded the flight with us!

"Usman"! I heard a voice in the night it was Zubairu I hadn't seen him for a long time, but I instantly recognize all my family members. He took us to his car a blue Peugeot 406, at that hour there was little traffic on the high way (only taxis). Traveling makes you a stranger, the climate was a desert Savannah with little trees and wide sandy spaces between the houses and apartments. Dakar had a placid soul.

On the way in the metropolis we talked about the situation back home, (Nigerians are always taking about Nigeria). Zubairu had booked two rooms for us at the Keur Mame Adja, in the neighborhood of Sacre Coeur 3 of the VDN quarter right in the vicinity of the airport. The compound had a neatly trimmed lawn in the front a large and beautiful banana tree, it leaves fan out like a long time exposure of a golfers swing, next to the stair case it stood sentinel to the rooms on the upper floor. The rooms were comfortable, not five star but the kitchenette between the living room and the bedroom made it more practical. Cost? 25000 CAF a night, (N9500, 38.5 Euros) The bedroom had a balcony straight above another compound, not much of a view. It was late we were both tired so we slept, but not without looking at the skies first. Scorpio was lying down sideways, we were higher up the equator, Mami was first to spot Saturn next to Leo.

Yesterday's disappointed was complete forgotten.