9/6 Air France 852 en route Paris-Lagos
Left Paris at ten-thirty in the morning after flying all night and will arrive in Lagos at four or so. I should sleep to avoid jet lag, but am too worked up.
Fellow first-class passengers are Nigerian kleptocrats, their wives returning from shopping expeditions, plus UN or NGO types, paler than the former group, less expensive wristwatches. Also two drunk Texans, in the all bidnis, lots of all in Nigeria so they tell me. Pronounce the name of the country Nigger-rhea. In Charles de Gaulle before flight, W. away buying duty-free, made themselves at home, heard I was going to Africa for the first time, regaled me with all sorts of useful information about the country. Should’ve told them to fuck off, I am too polite. W. came back and I introduced him as my husband?expression on their faces worth the first-class ticket. W. said I leave you alone for ten minutes and you’re practically joining the Nazi party? This is the last time I’m taking you to Africa! W. not particularly bothered by old-fashioned naked racism of the good ol’ boy type, hates cryptic racism of chattering classes a lot more, his worst hate = unacknowledged skin-tone racism of African-Americans.
Later. The Mediterranean is gone and we are over land again, over Africa. Reading Yoruba cosmology. It is a lot to take in. Yoruba cosmos divided into aye, the tangible world, and orun, the world of the spirits. At top of orun is Olodumare, creator god, but He’s really too high up there to pay attention to the small stuff. Orun is thickly inhabited by a variety of spirits, plus orishas?deities or deified ancestors. Much of their religion = communication with orishas, divination or spirit possession, the orishas come down into aye and speak to their devotees. Key here = two orishas, Eshu, gatekeeper between worlds, also cosmic trickster; and Orunmila, aka Ifa, the orisha of prophecy. Whole thing runs on ashe, kind of spiritual gasoline. Every created thing has ashe?rocks, trees, animals, people? asheboth ground of existence and power to make stuff happen and change. Social relationships determined by flow of ashe, also one’s personal fate and achievements. (Note X-cultural, how different peoples imagine some unseen, yet controllable force underlying life: ashe in Yoruba, ki or qi in the Chinese culture zone, cheg in Siberia. Westerners don’t believe?? Did we never or did we once and lost it. If so, why? Industry? Xtianity?)
Thinking of M., wonder whether I am making a mistake plunging back into fieldwork, especially fieldwork associated with sorcery. Can’t recall more of my experience in Siberia = problem. Some kind of allergic reaction to food or water. Is this true?
W. just up, grumpy and hungover, lovely African flight attendant brought hot towels and orange juice and aspirin and vamped W. I will not complain to the airline, I am used to it amp; it makes him feel better. Watched Africa unroll beneath us, empty, blank, ocher, the desert. We flew south-southeast, the land greened up underneath us, dry savannah, wet savannah, then true rain forest. W. grinned, said de jungle, recited Vachel Lindsay: then I saw the Congo creeping through the black, etc., in overly deep Robesonian voice. Not the Congo, but the Niger basin. Poetic license. The all men glanced over suspiciously.
We’re going to the Tropic of Night, I said, but he didn’t hear me.
Later, Lary’s Palm Court Hotel, Lagos
W. is right out, poor thing. Obviously, we landed. Usual stuff in customs and immigration, the guy looking longingly at my cameras and notebook computer; apparently it used to be quite bad here, but everyone is on good behavior since the new regime took over. Outside of baggage claim, two men from our outfit, Ajayi Okolosi, a driver, and Tunji Babangida, porter at the hotel. Ajayi said hello in English and I launched into my Yoruba greeting mode and slowly shook his hand: how are you; how is your wife; how are your children; how are your parents; is everything peaceful with you, and so on. Got big grin, language tapes work.
Outside, the usual scene at a third world airport, masses of poor people trying to grab a piece off the divine beings rich enough to fly. When they spotted Blondie, things got really insane, “cab, miss, cab, miss,” in my ear, trying to rip the backpack off me, rescued by Tunji. The car was a venerable Land Rover, and into this I was tossed together with my gear. W. was sitting there, looking stricken. Silence in car, squeezed W.’s hand. Our welcome to Africa, sad. Up front, Tunji messed w/ old tape player wired to the dashboard, and shortly the sounds of Public Enemy, top volume, song “Fear of a Black Planet.” Tunji checked to see how W. was enjoying this bit o’ civilization. Not much, hates that music. Tunji adoption of rap style from U.S., interesting, wonder how widespread, analogue to same among white teens. Search for cool universal?
Clouds of gritty dust, south on an expressway of some kind. Lots of cheap motorcycles, a few big, shiny Mercedeses with smoked glass, lots of yellow buses, military vehicles in numbers. Soldiers in trucks look like children.
Left the highway at a big intersection guarded by a white-gloved cop spiffy Brit-type uniform and whistle, traffic lights not working.
Central business district of Lagos is south of here, says Ajayi, on or near Lagos Island, and that’s where the tourists and the dozen or so tall towers are. We were going to Yaba, the real Lagos, much safer and cheaper, by the University. The streets narrower, heavily potholed, the big car lurched, I knocked against W. and laughed. He was distant and stiff, staring out the window; I wished T. would turn off that damn music.
Two of them are chattering away in Yoruba, of which I could understand hardly one word in ten. Over 300 dialects, musical language, though, talking sounds like singing a little. Streets lined w/ three-and four-story concrete block buildings, shuttered against the sun, painted white, every few streets a minareted mosque, or a church.
Passed a big street market. Ajayi steered carefully around knots of people, around stalls and stands selling food, drinks, cigarettes, raffles, clothing, shoes. The air smelled of garbage rotting, grilling meat, car exhaust, and something else, unidentifiable, high, sharp, slightly spicy, the base pong of the place. When I can no longer notice it, I will have settled in.
Lary’s Palm Court Guest House is a two-story white building, hipped metal roof painted a faded red. Our team has taken over the whole place, all ten bedrooms. Lary’s cooler than the street, dim, ceiling fans slowly stirring the air, worn wicker furniture, smell of cooking, peppery spices, fried meats, then as we marched to our rooms, disinfectant, wax, furniture polish. Decor amazing: in the reception area, large steel engraving of stag at bay, a litho of Jesus with children, breakfront with cheap souvenirs of English seaside, a dining room with four round tables, set with plastic-covered cloths, heavy, cheap silver and glassware, plastic flowers in vases?could be Blackpool, Brighton. Everything spotlessly clean, except for omnipresent tan dust. W. not pleased, said something about the colonial mind, complained about bath, toilet, in hall. He has not traveled much in foreign lands. I opened the shutters, found our window gives on a little courtyard, shaded by a big mango tree. There are two goats tethered there and a worn table, at which two women in bright dresses and headscarves are doing something with a mound of some vegetable. They looked up amp; saw me amp; waved, smiled amp; I waved back. I am going to like this place.
W. said he had a headache, took a bunch of aspirin and plopped onto the bed. I went downstairs. Mrs. Bassey, proprietor, has mien of the Queen Mother, speaks perfect English in an accent like a song, every sentence ending like a query?We serve dinner at six sharp? I decided to take a walk.
Down the hot, narrow, smelly streets, music everywhere from radios and what looked like dives, dark holes stinking of beer. A wide thoroughfare, across which was Yaba Market. Every dozen or so steps a young man would approach me, asking to become my guide, or trying to sell me something or steer me to a stall. I told each, no thank you, that would not please me, in Yoruba, which usually got a startle, sometimes a grin, and a comment too quick for me to catch. I found a moneychanger and traded dollars for naira, getting a little more than twice the legal rate. I bought a paper cone of something called kilikili, because I liked the name, and it turned out to be spicy deep-fried peanut butter, pretty good, and some gassy local mango soda. Yaba an untouristy kind of market?most stalls devoted to everyday stuff?plastic pans, hardware, dry goods, clothing (new and used), shoes, cheapo electronics, music tapes. Constant pounding of music, most of it interesting, beat driven?Yaba also a big nightclub district, lots of the musicians live here. Also market artists, some of them better than the stuff you see in SoHo, brilliant colors, abstracted natural forms?terrific! In central Asia the markets are segregated by goods?here apparently not.
Joined little crowd between a woman selling fish out of plastic tubs of ice and a woman selling lengths of tie-dyed adira oniku cloth, saw man squatting, bare-chested, dressed only in khaki shorts, thought he was doing some craft, but he was winding length of colored twine around a dog’s skull, chanting. To one side, the client?fat, elderly man in robes and pillbox hat. Shirtless man finished knotting up the skull, placed it on a dented tin bowl, took a brown hen out of a straw basket. He cut the hen’s throat, let the blood spurt over the skull.
Felt faint, not the sight of blood, but confronting sorcery after all this time. Market juju only, but still … repulsion and attraction both. Rite familiar from books. The fat guy is a moneylender or businessman. Someone owes him money, hasn’t paid. Now debtor will have dreams of dogs chasing him every night, he’ll go to a witch doctor so he can get some sleep and witch doctor will tell him to pay his debt, if it’s a just one, or if not, he can set up some countermagic. M. used to say that immersion in a different culture was like an enema for the spirit. Could be: I feel higher than I have in months.