Recklessness revisited.

I have been in Nigeria for almost eight weeks now, and in the first seven weeks nothing severe has happened to me. No traffic accidents, no assault or mugging, no kidnapping, no being in mortal danger. There were situations in which I haven't felt too safe, true (just remembering the bus trip from Abuja to Lagos and back, the dead people on the expressway, taking public transport back from work, crossing the highway outside Gwarinpa, being followed by a group of guys by car, ...) But nothing has happened to me. Seven weeks. And then the last three days happened. I am wondering whether its due to my own recklessness (maybe I have been less careful because I feel safe most of the time) or whether its Naija, finally living up to what people tell you about it. Before I went to Nigeria, I have heard all the scary stories. People getting shot in the streets. People getting mugged, kidnapped, raped. I have heard it all. My experiences here so far have been rather different. I am not trying to downplay the dangerous bits, they definitely exist, and I have been careful. But the picture that is painted outside Nigeria is overdramatic. The panic that is created is unneccessary. Speaking for Abuja at least (and judging from my little trip to Lagos) it is not all that unsafe. So I thought. For seven weeks.

The past three days have been crazy. Within only 56 hours I have been involved in a traffic accident, I was very close to being kidnapped (or at least mugged), and I got hit by a freaking keke napep. The accident happened on Monday, while I was coming back from work. I was in a taxi and we were pretty close to my house when we got stuck in the usual bit of Gwarinpa 6 o'clock holdup. My driver was doing what people do here when there is holdup, they just try to overtake from any "lane" (basically, they just try to use any available piece of path to get around the holdup), so we were stuck in the roadside ditch (because his idea of trying to overtake from there proved to be not so innovative, several other cars had done the exact same thing). So while we were waiting, some Jeep decides to turn into the street right before us. My driver can't really move, as there are several cars in front, behind, and besides us. The Jeep driver is starting to become impatient, is giving us light signals and a fair amount of honking, while my driver is trying to somehow get the fact across that we couldn't move. The Jeep driver decides not to consider that little detail and just turns into the street, which is blocked by my taxi. My driver tries to move out of the way, can't find a spot, and thus gets hit laterally. Poor guy, his car didn't exactly look good before the accident, it looks worse now. Luckily, it was only a car body damage and nothing happened to anyone, but I was still under shock for a little while. I decided to walk back to my house (which in the end might have also been faster than being stuck in the holdup).

On Tuesday, I took another taxi back from work. Some rather sinister guy with a very weird voice decides to take a "shortcut" through a pretty run-down area close to Gwarinpa. He leaves the expressway to drive through the bushland and some small ghetto that doesn't have paved roads. It was a strange feeling to begin with, but I only got scared when a bunch of area boys showed up out of nowhere, trying to block the path by just throwing themselves in front of the car. My driver locks all doors and tries to wind up the windows, but taxis are not exactly in a very great shape here, so winding up is a privilege that this specific taxi didn't have. While we were trying to pass, the boys were hitting the car with wooden items, sticking their hands through the half-way wound up windows, trying to open the doors, while yelling at me and the driver. It was scary. At a point my driver just speeded up the car, I think he was freaking out too. The car hit several of the guys, but we got out without the car being totally bashed. When we got close to my place, the stupid driver has the nerve to ask me to pay more than we agreed on, because he avoided holdup and got me out of that situation (the situation he brought me in!). You can imagine my response.

Yesterday I was walking around Gwarinpa at about 7pm. The "pedestrian path" was clogged up by cars parking there, so I had to use the road to walk on. While I am trying to squeeze myself onto the outer corner of the road (recent experiences with traffic around that area left their marks), some keke right next to me engages in a jink, and fully hits me. Instead of at least getting out to check whether I was okay (I was very okay, nothing really happened as he was going rather slow), he stares at me for 30 seconds and then just flies. I got a lot of sympathy avowals by bystanders, and people cursed the keke driver on my behalf, so I guess it was alright.

Let's see what happens after work today.. I am getting used to the idea of somehow being in danger while I go home. I still wonder whether I am the one being reckless or whether it's Naija trying to live up to expectations. I hope I will make it through in one piece ;)