My first Road Trip

It’s hard to believe that it’s already August 7th. It has been one month since I arrived in Warri. This one month has gone by pretty fast and I have a lot of stories to tell but I am still very busy with settling down, both in the work front and in the home front so I apologize for being behind in sharing my experiences with you all. In the work front, the co worker that I am taking over from is taking a two year leave of absence starting yesterday, so I had been busy doing a complete handover as it will not be very easy to contact him now that he is gone. In the home front, I have been meeting with sales people and designers every evening after work trying to pick curtains for the new house. I can’t seem to make up my mind, mostly because of how expensive these curtains are! Whew! I so should have bought curtains from Bed Bath and Beyond! My weekends have been busy with trips to Lagos or Abuja for one thing or the other. Anyways back to my story for today.... "My first road trip".
Within ten days of my being back in Nigeria I embarked on a road trip from Warri, Delta State to Owerri, Imo State. I would estimate the distance between these two towns to be about 150 miles..... maybe a little more. So this drive which is the equivalent of the drive from Houston to Austin, TX will not normally be a big deal or blog worthy but for two issues. One; the fact that there is a lot of heat in the south eastern part of Nigeria due to increased cases of kidnapping. Two; the fact that armed robbery on Nigerian highways has always made road trips quite risky. Since there were no flights from Warri to Owerri, a road trip was my only option.
Why did I want to go to Owerri you may ask? A few months before I relocated back to Nigeria, my cousin had informed me that she will have her wedding in Owerri on July 17th. I promised her that I will try my best to make it, if at all possible. So when I arrived in Warri and was assigned a temporary car and driver, I quickly asked if I could use the car to go outside of Warri. My on boarding HR looked at me and asked; where would you want to take the car? I told him about the wedding in Owerri and he said he would make some inquiries and get back to me.
He got back to me on Thursday, just two days before the wedding, I called my aunty who lives in Owerri and made arrangements to spend Saturday night at her house after the wedding. Incidentally my aunt relocated back to Nigeria about this time last year. Now I had the means to make the trip, so I started to talk to God about the tough part. I prayed constantly to God for my safety, but I was still so scared that on Saturday morning when I got into the car and my driver asked for us to pray before we started the journey, I found my voice shaking while I was praying.
I refused to let fear keep me from reuniting with my relatives who I knew would be at the wedding and helping make my cousin's special day, so I embarked on the trip. Surprisingly the roads were not as bad as I expected. Most of the roads were under construction on one side but the side that was open was pretty smooth. We drove a little slowly, about 80km/hr because the company car was equipped with a tracking / safety device that set limits on the driver's speed. We also had to stop after every 2 hours and rest the car for about 20 minutes.

We ended up spending about 4.5 hours on the road. The only snag in the journey, which was a major snag for me, was the lack of clean rest rooms on the way. When I couldn't hold my pee anymore, I asked to use a restroom at the gas station where we had stopped to rest the car. I am not exaggerating when I say that it was the nastiest place I had ever had to pee in my entire life so here are some tips. When going on a road trip in Nigeria, if you can help it, drink very little or no fluid! (I did this on my way back and held my pee until I arrived in Warri. If you have to drink something, take a little bucket to pee in and then throw the pee in the toilet. Seriously, if I didn't have a strong stomach I would have puked in that bathroom.

As you can deduce from the fact that I am still blogging, I travelled to Owerri and back to Warri safely. I thank God for his mercies, but the risk was quite real as I arrived to work on Monday morning and learned that the company had issued a security alert to all staff on Friday warning against taking any trips to Abia state, which is very close to Imo state because of several recent cases of kidnapping. I thanked God for journey mercies and will probably not been taking any road trips any time soon......or so I thought. I did take two more road trips two weeks later but that will be part of another story. Until then stay blessed.

The Unexpected Marriage proposal

Believe or not, within 48 hours of being back in Nigeria, I got a marriage proposal, albeit from a total stranger! No wonder people asked if I was going to Nigeria in search of a husband…..

I was sitting in the Company airport shuttle with some other employees waiting for the bus to leave for our various hotels when out of no where one of guys in the bus asked me for my phone number. I had exchanged a few words with him earlier and although I was not particularly interested in this guy, I didn’t see any harm in making friends at my new location, so I gave him my recently acquired local mobile number. I got a call from him that night while I was enjoying my snails and French fries dinner; he wanted to know if I was ok. We chatted for a few minutes and said goodnight.

The next morning, I found out that I had forgotten to ask when the shuttle would come to the hotel to pick me up for my flight to Warri. I remembered I had the guy’s number from last night’s call and for a minute, I was glad I had given him my number. I called him and he informed me that the shuttle times are available at the reception with a phone number to contact the shuttle office. I thanked him and got off the phone.
I arrived at Osubi airstrip in Warri safely and once again I was thankful for the safe arrival of my four suitcases. With the help of the company’s welcome team, I was sitting in the company shuttle 10 minutes after I collected my last suitcase from the belt. The drive to the company’s guest house was uneventful, we had a police escort driving in front of the bus but there was no sign of any unrest. The roads were free and we were parked at the guest house reception in no time.

I arrived at the guest house to find out that the accommodation reserved for me was less than adequate for myself and my 6 pieces of luggage ( I had left 2 pieces of luggage with one of my new colleagues during my assignment preview trip). The room was way too small with very little closet space and to make matters worse the bathroom was outside the room. When the guy who was showing me to my accommodation announced that the bathroom was shared by two rooms in the house, I had heard enough. I told him, I couldn’t stay in the room and would like another one. I knew that there were better accommodations in the company guest house as I stayed in a room much bigger than the one I was just offered during my 5 day assignment preview trip, a few weeks back.

I ended up in a hotel that night because the receptionist at the company guest house informed me that they had no other vacant rooms. I checked into Wellington hotel in Warri as it was recommended as the safest hotel in town by a colleague, I won’t endorse the hotel because I was not impressed by their facilities, but they had bigger rooms with the bathroom inside the room so it was ok. They did have an AVIS car rental service. Although it worked differently from what I was used to in the US as it came with a driver ,that was pretty cool.
While I was in the hotel my new friend gave me a call to check that I arrived Warri safely, but when I got subsequent calls from him, I ignored the call as I was not in the best of moods after my accommodation hitch. He tried to call back a few more times, to the point where I found it annoying so I decided to ignore subsequent calls from him.

At this point I would like to let you know that my temporary housing issue was sorted out the next day when the HR on boarding team and the guest managers found me better accommodations at the guest house and apologized for my inconvenience. Now back to my marriage proposal…..

The next day, I got a few more calls from him which I ignored. Later in the day, I started getting some calls from another number which was unknown to me. I ignored the first 4 calls but picked up the call the fifth time around and was greeted by a complete stranger. The woman at the other end of the line introduced herself as a big sister to the guy I had given my number in Lagos and proceeded to tell me a little bit about their family and then she informed me that her brother wanted to marry me. I calmly told her that I found the request very surprising since her brother was a total stranger to me, to which she told me that it was understandable, but she would like for me to get to know her brother and hopefully marry into her “good” family.

That concludes the story of my first marriage proposal in Nigeria, and I said 1st because since then I have gotten a second one. And to answer any burning questions anyone may have; No I don’t see marriage to any of these two guys in my near future as I am not particularly interested in any of them but you never know, so stay tuned……

Arriving in Lagos

I arrived in Lagos July 6th, 2010 with an Aifrance flight. I have been traveling for almost 24 hours.... the flight from Paris to Lagos was delayed for over 3 hours. The good thing about traveling in an upper class cabin was the ability to alight early from the aircraft and beat immigration lines so I was done with immigration processing in no time.
As I stood in front of the luggage belt waiting for my luggage, I couldn't help but reflect on the reality of what I had just done. I just gave up my beautiful home in Katy, TX, being close to my immediate family who were all living in the US, great friends, and a 6 figure salary, not to mention an environment where things work as they should for the most part, to come back to Nigeria.... The fact that I was already missing my kids did not help matters as I plunged into a state of panic. What was I thinking? What if I totally hated living in Nigeria? What if this works out to be bad for my career? For my kids? The What if's continued to parade in my mind until I was jolted awake by someone asking "madam you haven't seen any of your bags?" I realized that the luggage had started coming out. I got all four suitcases and apart from one with a broken handle, everything seemed intact, even the unlocked luggage.

I was met outside the airport by my distant aunt who came to pick up a letter from my mom, and my company's logistic staff who pushed my cart and directed me to the company's shuttle bus. I spent my first night back in one of the guest suites at Protea hotel in Maryland. It was the best hotel I had stayed in Nigeria so far. Much nicer than Eko Suites in Victoria Island. The room was clean, the garden tub in my room was clean enough that I could have had a nice long bath but I was hungry and tired and opted for a quick shower before dinner. Their food was also much better than the food at Eko suites so if you ever need a hotel in Lagos, I would recommend Protea hotel in Maryland.
After dinner I returned to my room and called my family, I especially needed to hear my 2 year olds voice. I knew the next two months will be very long and lonely. I had made a very tough decision to leave my two sons behind with my parents while I set up in Nigeria to ensure a smooth transition for them. I went to bed on my first night in Nigeria missing a lot of things....but top on that list were my boys.