127. Bus to Nigeria

127.

Bus to Nigeria

When I eventually climb aboard the bus to Nigeria I actually get a seat!

The bus travels across a flat smoke-tree covered prairie until late at night when it halts in what might be called “Mudtown”.

All the passengers and the driver get off the bus and disappear into the pitch-black darkness. I am the last person to leave the bus and as I step out, I catch a kid picking my pocket. I jump back aboard the empty bus and slam the door. Nobody follows me and I soon fall into a restless sleep in a back seat to dream of getting robbed.

Morning. I leave the bus and buy coffee and bread squatting in the mud with the rest of the passengers.

In the vague early morning light I make out many groups of pedestrians moving in the street: Arabian Knights dudes in blue robes with scimitars, work gangs dressed in brown and carrying short hoes—just all kinds and lots of people. Most of them who pass close to me say: “Bonjour, Monsieur. Cadeau?” “Cadeau” means: “Give me a handout.” It is one French word I am absolutely sure of because I hear it about a thousand times a day.

There are hordes of begging children. The normal ones don’t do too well, but the oddballs, like this one here with no arms passing his bowl with his teeth rates pretty high on the freak scale so he gets the coins. There are more bizarre freaks per square yard out here in the desert of Nigeria than in any other plot of real estate I have experienced.

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