Awesome Weekend
Well this past Friday night/morning, I did not have to worry about getting locked out of the hotel because I came in after they had opened for morning operations. By the time I got in my bead it was 6:20AM on Saturday, and I had pulled my first all night party scene in as long as I can remember. We ended up bouncing from club to bar to club all night, capping it off with some late night/early morning Chinese food. Needless to say, I stayed in bed till about 1PM that day. I got up, watched Venus overpower her sister in the Wimbledon finals, went to the gym, and then got ready for the night again.
A co-worker named John wanted to take me around so he stopped by the hotel and picked me up. The idea was to go to a movie, but Hancock ended up being sold out. Instead he suggested Karaoke. Who can turn down Nigerian Karaoke? Certainly not me. So we get to this Karaoke bar, and man, this was completely different from what I expected. It was dark, there was no stage, but more surprising was the fact that the people could SING. I always thought black people could generally hold a note, but these folks were making me wonder if it was the real thing playing or karaoke. My friend John evidently is a singer too, so he was none too fazed by this. I guess it did not stop me either. I told John that Karaoke in the states usually consists of drunk people singing terribly to wild applause, he found that to be quite backwards. One other minor difference, during love songs, the background to the lyrics was what I would describe as PG-13 soft porn. The usual scene consisted of something like a white couple making out in a bed naked with all their squirly areas tastefully covered… meanwhile the words scroll unabated.
I did not notice this until the girl I invited along pointed it out… which made me think either that I was too into the song or a little too used to porn. After the Karaoke, the lady friend Pauline invited us to a house party. The house party was in an insanely rich neighborhood. The houses in this place were some of the biggest I have ever seen anywhere. Nigerians as a whole may be poor, but this country is rich. [Side note: I was told that contributions by ExxonMobil and Shell alone would put 18000 USD into the pockets of every Nigerian citizen annually if the money was split up. I hope that’s gossip, otherwise that’s just sad.] There have only been two times thus far that Nigeria really blew my mind. The first was when I saw a Rolls Royce Phantom (450KUSD vehicle) parked outside of a club, and the second was the size of the houses a mere mile or two away from the poverty of mainstream Lagos. What might have been more amazing was that the roads in this neighborhood were even worse than most of Lagos, and that is saying a lot. We had to creep through at about 5 mph or else we would break the car we were driving in. Now why can’t these obviously filthy rich people pull together 2000 bucks each and pay to get the road paved… there has to be a reason. I am sure the driveways inside their gates are paved, why not outside? Oh well. So the house party was in a big, but reasonably sized, home of a well-to-do Lagosian. The party was very awkward mostly because Pauline ended up leaving me and John to socialize (understandably so, she was trying to score a job through flirting with the head of Zenith banks) and because John was very uncomfortable there. This was not his crowd. John is what I call a real Lagosian. He is not rich, he is not westernized, he is very religious, and he, traditionally, is only interested in finding a wife these days. So here he was in this crowd of rich folks being offered alcohol that he is not interested in (it was some good stuff to, Grey Goose, Hennesey, etc.) and dressed in traditional clothes in contrast to everyone else in Western attire. So I was stuck not drinking the free booze, gasp, and not getting to socialize with anyone because John says ‘You don’t meet good girls in clubs.’ Disregarding the fact that we were not in a club and that these girls seemed perfectly normal (and besides, I was not looking for a wife), I agreed with him. We did not stay too late, and we ended up leaving Pauline at the party with her friends.
The ride home was pretty interesting. I was finally told what exactly was so dangerous about going to the mainland in the late hours. He explained that there are gangs are on either side of the bridge and underneath the bridge, and they sometimes just trap people on the bridge and rob them. He explained that if your car breaks down on the bridge late at night, you just leave it and run. Let them have it.
Sunday was another failed attempt at seeing Hancock, so I was forced to watch the Incredible Hulk again. We did have quite the adventure getting to the theatre though, but that’s for another post.
A co-worker named John wanted to take me around so he stopped by the hotel and picked me up. The idea was to go to a movie, but Hancock ended up being sold out. Instead he suggested Karaoke. Who can turn down Nigerian Karaoke? Certainly not me. So we get to this Karaoke bar, and man, this was completely different from what I expected. It was dark, there was no stage, but more surprising was the fact that the people could SING. I always thought black people could generally hold a note, but these folks were making me wonder if it was the real thing playing or karaoke. My friend John evidently is a singer too, so he was none too fazed by this. I guess it did not stop me either. I told John that Karaoke in the states usually consists of drunk people singing terribly to wild applause, he found that to be quite backwards. One other minor difference, during love songs, the background to the lyrics was what I would describe as PG-13 soft porn. The usual scene consisted of something like a white couple making out in a bed naked with all their squirly areas tastefully covered… meanwhile the words scroll unabated.
I did not notice this until the girl I invited along pointed it out… which made me think either that I was too into the song or a little too used to porn. After the Karaoke, the lady friend Pauline invited us to a house party. The house party was in an insanely rich neighborhood. The houses in this place were some of the biggest I have ever seen anywhere. Nigerians as a whole may be poor, but this country is rich. [Side note: I was told that contributions by ExxonMobil and Shell alone would put 18000 USD into the pockets of every Nigerian citizen annually if the money was split up. I hope that’s gossip, otherwise that’s just sad.] There have only been two times thus far that Nigeria really blew my mind. The first was when I saw a Rolls Royce Phantom (450KUSD vehicle) parked outside of a club, and the second was the size of the houses a mere mile or two away from the poverty of mainstream Lagos. What might have been more amazing was that the roads in this neighborhood were even worse than most of Lagos, and that is saying a lot. We had to creep through at about 5 mph or else we would break the car we were driving in. Now why can’t these obviously filthy rich people pull together 2000 bucks each and pay to get the road paved… there has to be a reason. I am sure the driveways inside their gates are paved, why not outside? Oh well. So the house party was in a big, but reasonably sized, home of a well-to-do Lagosian. The party was very awkward mostly because Pauline ended up leaving me and John to socialize (understandably so, she was trying to score a job through flirting with the head of Zenith banks) and because John was very uncomfortable there. This was not his crowd. John is what I call a real Lagosian. He is not rich, he is not westernized, he is very religious, and he, traditionally, is only interested in finding a wife these days. So here he was in this crowd of rich folks being offered alcohol that he is not interested in (it was some good stuff to, Grey Goose, Hennesey, etc.) and dressed in traditional clothes in contrast to everyone else in Western attire. So I was stuck not drinking the free booze, gasp, and not getting to socialize with anyone because John says ‘You don’t meet good girls in clubs.’ Disregarding the fact that we were not in a club and that these girls seemed perfectly normal (and besides, I was not looking for a wife), I agreed with him. We did not stay too late, and we ended up leaving Pauline at the party with her friends.
The ride home was pretty interesting. I was finally told what exactly was so dangerous about going to the mainland in the late hours. He explained that there are gangs are on either side of the bridge and underneath the bridge, and they sometimes just trap people on the bridge and rob them. He explained that if your car breaks down on the bridge late at night, you just leave it and run. Let them have it.
Sunday was another failed attempt at seeing Hancock, so I was forced to watch the Incredible Hulk again. We did have quite the adventure getting to the theatre though, but that’s for another post.
posted by Anthony Jackson at 5:12 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home