Looking for Transwonderland

by Noo Saro-Wiwa

  Back at the hotel that evening, I ordered dinner at the front desk. Emmanuel, the receptionist, was a very sweet young man who went out of his way to make my stay as comfortable as possible. He was attentive, professional, timely, and took care to caress my ego at every opportunity, bombarding me with a volley of superlatives and compliments. He was everything one could possibly wish for in hotel staff. In a repeat of the night before, I requested rice and goat meat stew. Emmanuel called the kitchen to place my order, diligently setting the phone on loudspeaker to prove that my order was being expedited.

  ‘Do you have goat?’ he asked the cook.

  ‘No,’ she replied.

  Emmanuel: ‘Do you have chicken?’

  Cook: ‘No.’

  Emmanuel: ‘Do you have rice and stew?’

  Cook: ‘No, we have no rice.’

  Emmanuel: ‘Then get some then.’

  Cook: ‘No. I will not go out this night.’

  Emmanuel: ‘But I have a guest who desperately needs to eat.’ (He kindly added that embellishment.)

  Cook: ‘I will not go out.’

  Emmanuel looked up at me: ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘we’ll get some rice.’

  Cook: ‘OK.’

  Emmanuel: ‘No, I’m not talking to you! I was reassuring our guest that she will get some rice.’ He angrily dropped the receiver. ‘Don’t worry, we will bring you your food.’ His face was disappointed, and a little embarrassed. I was witnessing the battle of the two Nigerias: the cooperative side that tries to impress and provide, versus the selfish and unprofessional side, holding the other one back.

  In the end, professionalism triumphed over inertia, and I went to bed on a very satisfied stomach.

  ‘Africa time,’ Ophelia sighed. She and I and her friend were sitting among rows of empty chairs beneath a tarpaulin canopy, and fanning away the brutal heat. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, but their friend’s wedding, scheduled for two o’clock, still hadn’t started. Luckily for me, I was dressed in a cool T-shirt instead of the long, hot wrappas Ophelia and Jessica were wearing, because I was attending this wedding at short notice.

  Ophelia had invited me at the last minute after finding me pottering around the hallway of her house. I hadn’t intended to trespass – the house stood on the side of a busy Calabar road, and looked completely unoccupied. Its 1920s English style, assaulted by tropical heat and poor maintenance, had taken on an appealing dilapidation. I’d walked through its gaping front door to investigate, only to find Ophelia walking down the stairs. Unperturbed by my presence in her home, she casually offered me a drink and invited me to her friend’s wedding.

  And so there we were, sitting in a small residential side street, waiting for all the guests to arrive. We were almost sun-blinded by the sea of white plastic chairs around us. What insanity had compelled us to be punctual?

  ‘Africa time, nawa-oo,’ Ophelia repeated regretfully. ‘They should have said twelve o’clock . . . people would take their time to come at two or three. Then we would have started by now.’

  ‘It dey vex me that,’ Ophelia’s friend lamented.

  In the background, the DJ played synthesiser versions of Roberta Flack’s ‘Killing Me Softly’ and Norah Jones’s ‘Don’t Know Why’ over and over again on a loop. The songs’ sluggish melodies seemed to slow down time itself.

  ‘I beg, let them start,’ Ophelia’s friend implored, guests or no guests. Somewhere in the vicinity, the bride and groom must have been sitting ready and waiting.

  The only distraction came from across the street, where we spotted a tiny fifteen-month-old girl walking with her mother, wearing nothing but a nappy, and carrying a mini jerrycan of water like a responsible adult.

  ‘Just look at her!’ Ophelia squealed in delight. ‘She wants to help her mother, o!’ We had a good laugh at that.

  Finally, the guests began to arrive. Women sauntered towards the seats, wearing wrappas of every colour and pattern, their majestic head ties soaring skywards. The men wore the traditional clothing of many south-eastern people (including my own Ogoni): thigh-length, long-sleeved white shirts with round-neck collars, teamed with beaded necklaces, a wrappa from the waist down, plus a walking stick and bowler hat – the accoutrements of ageing Victorian gentlemen. The bowler hat was once the standard head gear, but these days anything goes: ear-flapped caps, Kangol flat caps or cowboy hats. Some people have given cowboy hats the nickname ‘Resource Control’ hats since they’ve been adopted by some people in the Niger Delta who are campaigning for more control over the oil wealth. The person responsible for this new trend, so I was told, is Peter Odili, the Stetson-wearing former governor of Rivers State. South-easterners seem unique among Nigerians in the fluidity of our traditional wardrobe – we’ve been co-opting foreign and modern influences since colonial times.

  Ophelia and I had moved to a smaller ‘in-law’ tent next to the house of the groom’s parents. We listened to the MC announcing the names of the various chiefs and their wives attending the event. The band began playing Nigerian highlife music with their electric guitars and trumpets, while women carried drinks on gold trays for the newly-weds’ parents and elders, who were sitting inside the house.

  In the distance the drumbeats grew louder and louder, and people chanted a song in Efik (‘We are bringing the husband!’). The groom arrived with his male entourage, enveloped by a gaggle of women dancers. He and his men shuffled down the street in time with the rhythm, laughing and singing. Dancing beneath a large parasol, they punched the air with their walking sticks and bowler hats, the whole lot bobbing to the drumbeat, a happy mass of limbs inching slowly towards the house.

  The groom and his dancing coterie approached the in-law tent to loud cheers and claps from the seated guests. Just before entering the house, he turned to the crowd, raised his arms and wiggled his hips once more. Everyone cheered again, even more loudly and enthusiastically. The groom then disappeared into the house to join his waiting bride for the private part of the wedding ceremony.

  While this went on, the guests got ready to eat. I could barely contain my glee when women began distributing pots of jollof rice, goat meat and moi moi, a steamed pudding made from black-eyed peas and onions. The party had truly started now. People ate and chatted amongst themselves while the MC cracked jokes on the mike. A boy ferried boxes of wrapped presents into the house. Another child led a bleating goat into the building, a gift for the bride and groom.

  ‘What’s happening inside?’ I asked Ophelia.

  ‘The parents and elders are talking to the bride and groom,’ she explained. ‘They ask the husband how he intends to take care of the wife and household. The man and woman are told they must stay together until death. They will tell the husband that he must have patience. And the wife must endure.’

  Endure. That word featured heavily in Ophelia’s explanation. She repeated it several times. Still, I found something very appealing about the parents and elders of newly-wed couples giving stern talks about the virtues of patience and endurance. It seemed the antithesis of the fancy-dress ‘Las Vegas’ approach to marriage.

  Traditionally, Calabar women were fattened before marriage. The woman spent weeks in a fattening room where her husband-to-be gave her a small bucket of gari (powdered, uncooked cassava mixed with water) twice a day to soften her skin before her body was massaged. Afterwards, the woman would sleep for two or three hours, then stuff her belly with other foods. This gruelling routine of force-feeding and sleeping lasted from one week to three months, depending on how quickly the woman developed the necessary flab. The government has now banned the practice for health reasons, though a defiant few still continue it.

  Half an hour later, several of the traditional dancers emerged from inside the house, looking magnificent. Ornate gold combs cascaded down their hair weaves, and their smiling faces glittered with matching gold paint. Their arms and legs were covered with feathered bands and bells, while a kaleidoscope of beads criss-crossed their tor
sos, colour coordination be damned. After them came the stout newly-weds, dancing out of the house and onto the street. Several guests gathered round to dance alongside them and shower them confetti-style with 500 notes or slap the money against their bodies. As the notes floated onto the ground, two designated collectors scooped them up into plastic bags.

  If the government has its way, this money-throwing practice will be scrapped. For weeks, I’d seen state TV commercials ordering the nation not to abuse its newly issued banknotes. In the commercials, the police break up a joyful wedding celebration and fine the guests 50,000 for violating the notes. At the end, a stern voice says: ‘No march am, no squeeze am . . . otherwise government go charge you, o!’

  This was one Nigerian law I was happy to break. The newly-weds grinned and danced to the music, shuffling their feet and making their way slowly through the crowd. There was no starchy, ritualised dancing, but a freestyle boogie from the soul, laced with humour. People stuck out their bottoms and pouted theatrically. Two men faced one another, twisting and gyrating their hips as they lowered themselves towards the ground. Even the masquerade playfully followed me around (masquerades are costumed men who wear masks representing spirits that possess the human body, making their wearers dance).

  A new song started playing, a new rhythm that immediately gripped everyone, infected them, rotated their hips and turned their smiles into frowns of exquisite concentration. Ecstasy was a serious business.

  This, I realised, is what Nigeria does best. The weddings, the humour, the music – often too visceral to convey in our tourism brochures – were what made Nigeria special. It was an epiphany for me. The concept of ‘Transwonderland’ with all its artifice and modernity wasn’t our strength right now, but it didn’t matter. The alternative was so much better and richer.

  The masquerade stood in front of me and wordlessly cocked itself sideways as if asking me something in jest. I waved it goodbye and returned to my hotel, feeling pleased to be a Nigerian.

  As the motorised canoe sped through the choppy waters of the Cross River two days later, I crouched to avoid the fountain of sea spray spewing from the side of the boat. Goodbye to smooth hair. I sat with several other passengers behind a mountain of suitcases, big bags of rice, and crates of wine and soft drinks. The boat sliced through the gold-flecked, olive-green water, fringed by glorious mangroves, palm trees, and Calabar’s lush hills rising around us. Nestled among this bountiful greenery were oil installations, petrol helipads and, peeping furtively above the foliage, the home of Charles Taylor. The former Liberian president and warlord was granted asylum in Calabar by President Obasanjo in 2003. Taylor was eventually extradited to face war crime charges, but his wife and children still live in Calabar, enjoying these fabulous river views.

  We docked at a short jetty in Creek Town, a small settlement further down the river. WELCOME TO THE CENTRE OF BLACK CIVILIZATION, the signboard said. Its message was more aspirational than indicative: we were actually standing close to the very part of the river where hundreds of thousands of slaves were transferred from canoes to ships and taken to the Americas. Many of them were Igbo people, whose stocky, strong physiques made them valuable as slaves, a fellow passenger told me. Creek Town is the heartland of the Efik people who settled here in the fifteenth century before spreading out into Calabar. The town was also one of the first areas of Nigeria to be settled by missionaries.

  One of my fellow passengers helped me onto the jetty. Ekpenyong Cobham was in his forties, a tall, quiet version of the American boxer George Foreman. Ekpenyong was the only person I’d met who sweated as much as I did. In awe, I watched as he used his fingers like windshield wipers to slake sheets of sweat off his bald pate before dabbing the re-emergent perspiration beads with a saturated handkerchief. Ekpenyong told me he used to run a traditional dance troupe that performed around Cross River State. One year, a French visitor to Nigeria was so impressed by the troupe he invited them to a festival in Paris.

  ‘How did you find Paris?’ I asked.

  ‘It was wonderful,’ he replied in his quiet baritone. ‘The streets were so clean. I looked at Paris and I realised that we Nigerians like to dupe people.’

  ‘I know. All our politicians want to do is steal. They don’t want to build a Paris.’

  Ekpenyong agreed. ‘In Nigeria, if you are not a thief, you are nowhere.’

  I thought he was criticising corruption, but I was wrong. ‘I liked Babangida very much,’ he said, referring to the former military dictator. ‘When the national debt was 10 billion, Babangida was worth 33 billion.’ Ekpenyong’s eyes flashed with approval.

  ‘But that money should have gone to the rest of the country,’ I said incredulously. ‘Aren’t you angry about that?’

  He shook his head. ‘I would do exactly the same,’ he smiled. ‘If you go to government and come back with nothing, your people will think you have not used your head wisely.’

  The former state governor, Donald Duke, came from Creek Town but, judging by its state of decay, he hadn’t used his head ‘wisely’ here. It was a listless place, a rural, goat-strewn backwater, where people made palm wine and counted the hours on their porches. Despite the village atmosphere, it was officially a town, and most houses were made of cement rather than the traditional adobe and thatch. The green lawns fronting each house gave one of the few indications that this was one of the first areas to make contact with the British.

  In the tall-grassed cemetery, the headstones of English missionaries who worked in Creek Town from the eighteenth century sprouted at forlorn angles. Their old Presbyterian Church, one of the oldest in Nigeria, had retained its original wooden pews, pulpit and organ, which had been gathering dust in the choir gallery since 1850. The church creaked with a pre-evangelical quaintness.

  Back outside, Ekpenyong introduced me to a young relative of his, Benson, a good-looking twenty-two-year-old with a dark angular face disfigured by knife wound scars. Despite not having a university degree, his English was as good as any graduate, and he seemed innately overqualified to be a hotel housekeeper, the job he was hunting for. Benson had done this sort of work in Abuja and Calabar, but quit after an African American tourist falsely promised him employment in the US.

  ‘He said he would get me work in Atlanta,’ Benson said. ‘He gave me his telephone number and said I should call him. But I never heard from him again. It’s not easy to find a new job in Nigeria. If you don’t have godfather2 you cannot move.’

  As Benson and I sauntered along the sandy path we encountered a masquerade. Over the decades, Nigerians have incorporated masquerades into our Christmas celebrations, with bands of masked dancers parading through the streets, sometimes travelling miles away from their home towns or villages.

  The Creek Town masquerades were striking. They had smeared themselves with a mixture of palm oil and charcoal to give their bodies a glossy, jet-black hue from head to toe. Their masks were also black with grotesque human features protruding from an opulent raffia mane. The masks were decorated with monkey skulls and topped with a plume of banana leaves. The jerky crouching movements of the masked men jingled the small bells attached to their raffia miniskirts. It was so scarily compelling, I had to take a photograph.

  ‘They want money for the photos,’ Benson told me. Reluctantly, I paid the masquerade as well as the other three that we encountered on our way back to the jetty.

  Ekpenyong was sitting on his motorcycle by the riverbank, waiting to meet a friend who was arriving on the next boat from Calabar. Another masquerade approached us, standing opposite me and shaking his creepy bells. I looked at him but gave no money. Did I need to? I hadn’t taken a photograph, and I’d run out of small change anyway.

  Suddenly, the masked spirit moved forward and slapped me firmly, but not too painfully, across my face. I was stunned. He slapped me again, smearing my neck with black oil. Ekpenyong rebuked him in their dialect and instructed me to mount his motorbike. As the engine revved up, the masked thug r
aised the small cane attached to his belt and whipped my arm with it. I was still trying to absorb what had happened when I was whipped a second time. Ekpenyong shouted at him again, but the man challenged him with wordless, defiant lunges accompanied by spooky bell-tinkling. To my dismay, Ekpenyong angrily motioned to him, dared him, to attack me once more.

  ‘Let’s just go!’ I screamed, tapping Ekpenyong’s back. The masked man took up Ekpenyong’s challenge and flinched forwards. ‘Oh God, please, let’s go!’ I begged. Quickly, a young man grabbed the masquerade and restrained him with an arm lock, allowing Ekpenyong and me finally to ride away.

  ‘I’m sorry about what happened to you,’ an ebony-faced, silver-haired man consoled me. I was sitting in the courtyard of Ekpenyong’s house, letting his wife Ekanem wipe the black oil off my face with a cloth. Both she and the man were extremely embarrassed about the incident.

  ‘It’s OK, I’m not angry. I know it’s just the one person causing trouble,’ I said. ‘Is money part of the masquerade tradition?’

  ‘No,’ the man replied. ‘Things have changed . . . it’s the condition of the country.’

  Though I don’t believe in spirits, masquerades still retain a mildly unsettling power. As a child, the mystique of their masks, their speechlessness and obscured eyes scared me. Now, I was all too aware of the flawed, money-grabbing human beings that occasionally stood beneath those costumes; my childhood fears of masquerades were temporarily supplanted by an adult anxiety of a different kind.