Poverty fair

The sun filtered down from the jewelled skylight, water playfully tinkled from the granite fountain catching the midday sun that poured into the atrium of the Yar’adua centre. I was looking at a set of pictures pinned to the wall. I couldn’t quite see what I was looking at. There were three that seemed to be where rocky ground met a swamp. It wasn’t much of a swamp even, a dirty brown smear with spines, porcupine quill reeds bristling up. In the third photograph there is a woman walking toward the camera. She has an enamel bowl on her head. Her red wrapper looks dull and muddy, I can’t tell if it’s the photograph over exposed or the swamp smeared on her body.
In the first of the next row of photos, a man sits on the floor, holding a cup. His green caftan is rumpled. I see his face. It looks punched. The photo looks as if it’s captured the moment he hit the floor on his rear. His mouth is pushed to one side and pursed in pain. It looks like he’s been pushed down, humiliated.
I can’t see what the other photos are because my eyes are on the next three. They’re drawn to the pictures by a kind of grotesque fascination. A woman stands with her arms open, fists clutching the corners of her wrapper. Her torso is exposed, her head removed by the edge of the picture. Her breasts hang around a giant bulbous belly. Under her skin, it seems, are bags of pawpaw, or potatoes. One of the bags has erupted in a raw, open, weeping wound.
The pictures are part of a display wall in the Rotary Project Fair. Tony, a smartly dressed Rotarian from Yola, explains the village is a few kilometres from Numan in Adamawa state. “When I went to this village I had to take a bike. It was dry season and the driver went a very narrow path that would have been impossible during the rains.
In a salesman’s voice he says: “There are maybe 500 families in this village, and you know with our polygamous culture, there could be ten to fifteen people in one family. This water here is their only source of water,” he said pointing to the slick of mud in the first shots.
“Their only water?”
“Yes, drinking, bathing, washing. If you can see in this photo there is a woman taking water from behind these reeds.” I hadn’t seen her. He pointed her out. “They don't even boil it before drinking. They believe if they go further in the water is cleaner.” He shrugged.
Pointing to the man “This is the head of the village, and he’s drinking the water straight from the marsh.” The water was thick and brown, it looked like tea.
“Two decades ago some people came and dug a borehole, and after two days it packed up. Maybe they didn’t dig it properly and it dried up very quickly. And here,” he said pointing to a stack of dusty concrete blocks, “Is a well that never worked. In this area there is a lot of Bilharzia. This picture you can see samples of urine.” He pointed to a picture I had skimmed over because I was gripped by the pictures of the woman just below it. “All these are samples of bloody urine. The parasite lives in the bladder and feeds off tissue and the inside of the bladder bleeds.”
How many people have the disease in the village?
“Virtually everyone,” he said. “We want to dig a series of boreholes that will work. A standard borehole will cost 800,000 naira.” (3200 pounds)
And what does this lady have? I asked pointing at the pictures.
“No one knows,” he replied, “Because there is no health clinic or any facilities. Even this school," he said pointing to a building “was built by a charity, but in this school many children die of measles, because the disease spreads through the still air in the classrooms.” He points to a picture of a sandy piece of land with a tree. “This is where the villagers have designated someone can come and build a health facility if they want. The last time the government employed a village health worker, he came and after two days he ran away because there was no water.”
The only thing I could think to say was “I suppose most of the young people leave and go to the city.” Tony nodded.
As I thanked Tony for taking the time to explain the villages situation to me, a colleague of his pinned an A4 sized enlargement of the woman’s tumour-filled belly on the wall.
I returned to browsing the stands with the visiting American Rotarians as they decided which of the many projects on display to fund.

City of lost children

My colleague was washing his feet before going inside the mosque that flanks the square.
“I’ll just go and pray” he said.

“Sure” I replied.
I turned around and standing there, staring at me, was a huge crowd of children.
Kano is a city of children. They stand on corners and junctions, outside cafes holding bowls, leading their infirm parents around, security guards scatter them like locusts but they really have nowhere to go.
“I think I’ve drawn a crowd” I said, and waved at the kids standing there. No one waved back. They contemplated me quietly. Big eyes slowly, unflinchingly, scanned me. Somehow, the white of their eyes seemed to penetrate me.
One who had been sucking a frozen yoghurt pack spoke. He was talking about me, making an observation, but I had no idea what. Their dirty clothes were tattered. If I moved left they followed with their eyes, and then reformed around me. They didn’t touch me, they just looked. I had to get out of there.
What happens to these children? These lost boys? The way they are always under people’s feet, in and out of the traffic, probably sleeping rough, I’d say many of them die before they reach their early teens. Theirs is a vulnerable life. I can’t see how they can survive on begging alone. The very youngest will probably sift through piles of rubbish, where the weak ones will die of disease. They will fight over the limited amount of scraps that fall from the table, the stronger ones will get them, the weaker ones will not. Out on the street many will be crushed by trucks or run over by cars. Also they’re vulnerable to predatory abusers, ritualists, or paedophiles, who exist in every society, no matter how disdainful the thought.
Those that do survive into adolescence must be tough. What have they done to get there, what hardships have they overcome? Standing in the crowd children would walk past me and tap my pocket, just to see what was there. Older ones (maybe they were working together) sneaked the tips of their fingers into my pocket. Standing by the gate to the Emir’s palace I felt the tickle of a pickpocket, and snatched at his hand. I saw the fingers pursed together, made small, like a snake’s head, my eyes followed the arm to his head his eyes snapped forward from my pocket to the procession. I had caught him.
“I see you!” I shouted “don’t even try it!” I wanted to let him know he’d been caught out, that was all, and as soon as I spoke I realised my mistake. A man who was guiding me around grabbed the boy and started beating him. His eyes looked like ice cubes. I saw his face and noticed the scars from acne on his cheeks. I grabbed between them, trying to stop the blows raining down. I shouted: “He didn’t get anything!”, but some other people grabbed him and he was sucked into the crowd.
From then on my two friends stood at either side of me protecting my pockets. But even that wasn’t enough. As we watched the Hawwan Daushe pass through the town, a boy in a white and black striped kaftan stood in front of me as I was taking pictures.
Suddenly there was a sound like a stinger missile swooping through the air and a crack as my guide’s hand connected with the boy’s head. With a yelp he tried to defend himself but more hands started to beat him, and he too was dragged away.
“Did you see him trying to take something? I didn’t,” I said.
“He was trying” said my friend. Picking a pocket while you’re standing in front of someone is the most difficult way. In the UK it’s called “the sucker’s kiss”. I wondered if trying it this time cost that boy his life. What happened to these boys? I don’t know.
If these lost boys make it to their twenties, at a time when they should be most productive, these children will be hardened, illiterate, possibly resentful of life itself.
As we charged down toward Gidan Murtala after the durbar ended I was nearly crushed by a danfo covered by men waving placards and shouting. As the junction we saw more, stomping out their support for a local politician, waving their hands in the air and chanting. In the flickering kerosene light, their flailing limbs looked like giant spiders fighting.
A cleric I met said: “I run a school, trying to educate children, and the parents bring their children there and leave them. They don’t come and pick them up. Where are they, the parents?”

A robbery

I suppose I should have known better than to stick around in the crowd after the new president left Eagle Square. I think it was during the pushing and shoving that erupted when former president Obasanjo walked to his car that my pocket was picked.
After he finished his speech, Yar'Adua returned inside the bullet proof walls of the VIP pavilion for a final round of handshakes, and the crowd pushed forward. Where there had been green jacketed press photographers jostling for a snap, suddenly there were hundreds of young men clamouring for a glimpse.
Where had all these guys come from? Outside the stands, filled with party bigwigs and ladies of substance, behind the chain link fence, thousands of people were pressing on the gates. The police couldn't keep them out, a score of officers were braced against it and it inched open bit by bit.
The floodgates must have snapped open. People were hanging off the balustrades of the podium, shoved tight like sardines in between it and the stands. The mounted guards who escorted the president into the square had to push their way into the crowd. Their scrawny horses nervously hopped from one hoof to the other, spooked by the people around them. The guards, perched on top of their jittery rides, peeked out from under the white peaked helmets, tassels twitching, trying to stay in formation. They were followed by the state limousine, inching its way into the throng, pushing its way bit by bit toward the red carpet. Somewhere guards were holding back the masses from closing in on the new man in power. The crowd swayed and rocked forth and back. People were stepping on my toes, then scrabbling on my shins, as they fought to keep their feet. As the guards pushed the weight of people back it fell on them again, twice as heavy like a breaking wave. I had to hold my camera above my head to desperately try and get a shot of the new president as he emerged and made his way to the waiting car. All I could see was his hat.
After the vice president left the pavilion, the minders flooded in through the bullet proof doors. The stairs were crammed with burley men in suits. During the ceremony they had been lined up on the other side of the glass. I saw one Chinese bodyguard who looked as if he'd stepped out of a kung fu film, wearing a crisp black suit and shades, pencil tie, and slowly cooling himself with a large Chinese fan. Now they were falling over themselves to get in and by their bosses' side. A large Russian type was pulling other guards by the shoulder to make way for him, and a fat Nigerian policeman got into an argument with another body guard, they pulled at each other and the policeman toppled over and fell down the stairs.
Suddenly there was a roar from the crowd, Baba had appeared. He put his hands aloft to recognise the appreciation and there were instantly hundreds of arms in the air returning the jubilation. All through the ceremony he looked tired, sad, even lonely, weighed down with solemnity, standing out on the podium watching the marching troops go by. He looked like an old bloodhound, down in the mouth. But now, as if feeding off the proximity of his supporters, he bounded down the stairs, his guards barely able to keep up. He disappeared into the huddled mass and the crowd went wild. A man nearby looked up at me and said "He is Nigeria's strongman, our strongman, we love him." Shouts went up "Strongman! Strongman!"
I stuck my hand in my pocket and tried to pull out my recorder to interview him, but it wasn't there. My clothes were soaked through with sweat and my pocket seemed to be in a knot. The man stood and regarded me as I went from pocket to pocket, but it wasn't there. I wondered if it had been him who had taken it. "Have you lost something?" he said. I turned on my heel and walked out of the crowd. Standing in the heat going through my pockets for the third time I felt that mixture of anger and shame that follows a robbery. How did I let this happen? I tried to push it to the back of my mind and went to find my colleagues. As we walked to the car one of them said: "You heard him talking about all the progress Nigeria has made? There are many thieves here, and many people who have little money for maize, and then wait to see if God will bring them anything else, if he does not, they go without. That man who stole your midget will probably sell it for as little as N500."