The differences overwhelm me. The relentlessness of daylight forces me to eat supper at 12 midnight since my subconscious only acknowledges night-time after the sun has buried its head- late as it gets in the summer. I sleep fitfully, and am awakened by the sun’s glare at five am, by which time it has already gained a few hours’ head start progressing west.
It was wet out yesterday, forcing me to tot a giant red umbrella. It might be windy tomorrow and I’d feel my toes getting lifted off of the ground, with only my bulky jacket managing to keep me grounded. Today is sunny, a throw back to the diabolic heat of Lagos. I mop my brow with a soaked paper towel, and I’m tempted to peel off my little tee-shirt which is already shaded darker under the arms due to perspiration from my armpits. I make a mental note to buy a strong antiperspirant roll-on.
I get on the bus, climb to the top, move forward and take the left seat on the first row, all the better to make my heart jump in my mouth anytime we approach a bus-stop or a turning; believing each time that the inevitable crash would happen, until surprisingly, we glide past looming sign post, or car or pedestrian and I exhale with relief. This is my favourite seat on the bus and each time I wonder why I put myself through the mini torture of seating at the extreme where everything looms closer, worsening my misgivings about the big red buses snaking through London’s already narrow streets
It’s funny the driving practices here. How a motorist has to wait to allow traffic on the left, where I come from, the motorist on the right welds, or attempts to weld, his bumper to the boot of the vehicle before him, and blocks off the attempts of ‘traffic on the left’. He pointedly ignores the other driver’s not so subtle appeals and drives off; somewhat regretful that he couldn’t get the joy of rolling up the asphalt road in his wake.
I see a car half the size of a picanto popping its little bonnet out of a street to join the traffic on the road… ‘chancing’ my big red double decked bus. In my favourite Nigerian city, only the most daring of drivers could attempt this, and even then under the influence of some potent alcoholic concoction or failsafe ajesara procured from some ogbontarigi herbalist. And to think my bus driver had the fortitude to place his foot on the brake to allow the little bugger go before him. In the place I continue to think and speak so fondly of, one of three things would have happened. The driver of the little car would have had his heart blasted out of his body by the trailer-sized honk of the yellow molue he was trying to get ahead of. If he survived this horn blast, his brain would have immediately sent an unbidden impulse to the nerves controlling his foot to activate a counter reaction to acceleration, and he would have looked on, pretending to be deaf and blind as he was subjected to curses and the five fingered profanity of our tribe, even as his car was battered by feet and arms and elbows till he feared the roof collapsing on him in the heat of such a violent rebuke. Now if he did manage to squeeze in before the molue, he would have experienced the joy of having a lovely yellow streak bestowed on the nose, or flank or butt of his (hopefully for his sake not tear rubber) vehicle as reward for his daring.
The little car gets in front, and I get none of the lovely scenarios that had been playing in my mind. We move on and I look down on people, see the ladies in their summer outfits, flesh exposed. And they say we do not dress decently where I am from. But to be fair, at least we have the advantage of year-round decent weather so we do not have to expose bum-cheeks and white stomachs at the first hint of the sun.
Now to those white stomachs- guys have been known to complain that ladies in my country have stomachs that are not pretty for being too large. Large, I agree they may be, but they aren’t distended like those that can be found here. My Nigerian sisters are fortunate enough to bear their projections with dignity, having them stand firmly below their bosoms with the tenacity of a leather ball. Here, their stomachs bear down with the consistency of jelly bags, seemingly in need of an extra extra strength packaging. The stomachs are so formidable that they spread into the flanks of their bearers. The cute versions of these phenomena are called love handles, but the gross bands of fat obtainable on the white babes cannot be mentioned in the same breath as the word ‘love’. They sag over the pubis and undulate in an endless dance with each step their owners take. No wonder liposuction is so popular around here, if I had to lug that belly around all day, I’d consider going under the knife too.
I am racist, I decide. I do not like white skin that turns pink or is decorated with the smattering of brown spots they like to call freckles. I do not like red spots on white cheeks or green veins beneath porcelain flesh. I do not need a colour spectrum on a human. I see them clinging to and touching each other oblivious of the nasty colourations on their bodies but I hold a special grudge against black brothers draped over white flesh that can in an instant turn pink or red or blue or grey. I like Greek/ Latino guys though… such lovely golden skin
And they say we are dirty, I think as I get off the bus and hop foot to foot to avoid the dollops of phlegm of different grades of opaqueness dotted on the side walks. Maybe we are just as bad at spit projection in my country but at least our sandy ground allows our expulsions to bury themselves rather than cake into formless masses on the roads.
I like the dressing here- it follows one easy rule and that is to pile on the colours. You can never go wrong once you bear in mind that you can never have on too many colours. Just garb yourself in a red top, blue bag, purple pants, orange hair band, white belt, green shoes and fuchsia g-string. Anything goes, unlike the obsessive colour co-ordination we practice where I’m from. The practice here makes everything so nice and colourful and makes them look like peacocks at the prime of their reproductive life.
I enter the supermarket, intending to hook myself up with some sweet bread as the sugar-less excuses for bread I get here makes me long for some fresh Agege bread. I look in the aisles; finally find the ‘brioche’ I’m looking for and am about to pick it up when I see the variety of the lot. Cinnamon brioche, orange peel and lemon brioche, crusted brioche with currants, honey and nuts brioche, low calorie brioche … all manner of brioche but no sign of a single, regular, no frills one. I give up trying to discern which would be the safest of the lot and stalk out of the store sans brioche, my intended purchase literally spoilt for choice; leaving me wondering with a bad temper whatever happened to having in stock just one simple, useful product.
My vexation increases as I go past a single twined form which gradually breaks apart before my eyes into two individuals before melding itself together again as one. You see them everywhere- on escalators, on the train on the street corners, in the shops, on the pavement, anywhere but inside a room where they should be if they are that pressed to consummate their love. The ubiquitous lovers who can’t take their hands off each other, clinging, oblivious to passers-by and the discomfort it might be to the not-so-fortunate-to-have-a-partner ones amongst us. But I trust my Nigerian people though, no such expressions of love for them. Never have I caught one such couple of a black origin in the entire period of my observation. They simply won’t take the risk- what with being the highest number of black immigrants here, hence the ease with which you can bump into Aunty Iyabo, your mother’s aunty’s cousin, while riding on the escalator where you are trying determinedly to take a furtive hold of your partner’s erection. Hell no! Also, our black boys, programmed by nature to be polygamous would allow no such intimacy in public even if in private he would stop at nothing to bend your nubile body all the shapes of the alphabet and munch ravenously on your urine and discharge stained panties. On the street though, where girlfriends numbers one to infinity might catch him and punish him by ‘closing shop’ or breaking into his house and blinding the eye of his newly purchased Plasma HD, he’ll pass on the public love.
The sun has disappeared as it usually does; it’s getting chilly and a few needles of rain have pricked my exposed forehead, I quicken my steps to catch the train and brush past a shivering form. I feel like standing before her and crowing hehehehe while I grip my sides in painful mirth. She is clad in a leather skirt the length of a paper napkin; a red cropped spaghetti top with pink bra straps on show. She obviously woke up to the golden glow of the morning sun and decided to make the most of it without reckoning on the fickle nature of the London weather. I give myself a mental back pat for not having ditched my faded black jacket and get on the bus.
I click on the button at my stop and make a mental note to sanitize my hands the first chance I get. It’s a touchy society- you touch in and touch out of train station barriers, click on elevator buttons, lean on and let your fingers trail the escalator hand rails, press the stop buttons in buses, hold on to bus poles and all the while you think of the airborne swine flu and hay fever making the rounds and that terribly graphic advert on Sky TV showing how fast germs can spread from a single sneeze.
It’s been a long day but when I get home there’s electricity to power the cooker and make myself a nice hot plate of indomie noodles. I go into the bathroom to get that much needed soak and water gushes out of the shower, with the temperature varying however I like it. I pad into the living room and put on the TV, watch one programme while I record another and pause or rewind or forward through adverts as it pleases me without fear of NEPA ‘taking the light’ and plunging me into darkness and frustrating suspense over whether Gabby is caught cheating on Carlos in my abruptly terminated TV show. An insistent knock on my door is simply a TESCO delivery and not a signal for me to cower under the bed in fear of a robbery. I can walk on the streets without donning the menacing version of my face because I know no one is at large waiting to grab my bag or hypnotize me into counting electric poles. Food is available, plentiful and cheap, and apple juice isn’t a luxury reserved only for when a visitor comes around. It’s a nice society, I admit, even if I have to encounter distended white bellies and caked spittle everyday I live here.
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