kano
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(circa September 1997) The first time my plane touched the ground in Africa was in a city called Kano. Kano is in the heart of Nigeria, and consistent with what I expected, the military met the plane on the runway. |
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| I wasn’t prepared for the military to board the plane, however. "A routine inspection," we were told. "We’re just looking for anyone trying to enter Nigeria illegally." |
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I silently wondered why anyone would want to enter Nigeria illegally. Leave, I might understand, given the financial and ecological devastation that General Sani Abacha had wreaked on the country. |
| The expressed concern over immigration was a ruse, which became obvious once the soldiers began walking the aisles of the plane. A business man who had traveled this route many times before was sitting next to me. He told me to place anything of value out of sight before the soldiers reached our row of seats. When the soldiers neared our row, I learned why. I could overhear the soldiers asking unsuspecting people, "is that for me?", referring to headphones, nice watches, and cameras. For the most part, they seemed interested in electronic devices. Once each had a "gift" from a traveler, they left the cabin, and the military told the pilot that we could move on. |
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As the plane taxied to the end of the runway, we moved past a graveyard… only this was a graveyard for broken and decaying planes. There was one that looked almost whole; it seemed to be missing only a front wheel. The whole plane leaned forward, giving the discomforting look of a rough landing.When you’re preparing to take off, that’s not exactly what you want to see. |
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| At the end of the taxi lane, when making that sharp turn to enter the runway, I could see from my window a man harvesting something. I thought he might simply be cutting field grass, but the business man sitting next to me told me that the man was actually farming. Since the Kano International Airport is all that many people ever see of Nigeria, the local government thought it would be a good idea to show travelers the products of rich Nigerian soil… never mind the bath of jet fuels leaching into the rows of wheat. I just hope that no one ever ingests whatever crops are grown here. |
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| Before I put my camera away once we were back in the air, I turned to get one last look at Kano. |
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sick
Staying at home because I am sick is no fun.
Illness is doubly cruel. For the past three days, I’ve felt weak physically, I’m uncomfortable, my body shakes violently every 30 seconds because I cough, my nose leaks, my throat feels like its closing up with thick gooey, sour, sharp tasting crap, my head sometimes hurts, and my eyes seem extra sensitive to the light. So, I do things like keep the shades closed, refrain from playing music, keep the the volume low on the computer and the TV, walk slowly, and I tend to stockpile everything I need to stay in one room. The physical effects of a cold make me want to stay as still as possible without threat of boredom — which is a challenge in itself. Reading a good book is about the only thing I can do without too much light, noise, or movement. But it can’t be a funny book, because that would make me laugh, laughing would make me cough, coughing would shake me, and shaking me reminds me of all those body aches.
Being sick is a double whammy, so the second ‘wham’ is the mental effect of a cold. When I wake up after a full night of uninterrupted sleep, and I still feel like my body has been drained of all locomotive power, that hurts the psyche. When I’m sick, I forget what it feels like not to be sick. All I can think about is how weak I feel, how the fast-moving, loud-noise world that we live in is not very accommodating to people who have a cold. When I’m sick, I feel like I’m never going to get well, even when experience tells me that whatever bug I have should pass in a few days. Intellectually, I know I’ll be well again. But, it’s hard, if not impossible, to feel the truth of it. With the blinds closed, the lights dimmed, and the house so still, the world closes in on me. Unless I go outside to check the mail or do some other simple chore, I can even forget that there is a world outside of the dungeon I’ve created for myself. The very atmosphere that my physical body wants/needs, my mind can’t stand. Competing physical and mental needs is just torture.
The Outspokin’ Cyclist
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