ktravula – a travelogue!

Driving in Lagos

One of the most problematic obstacles to driving anywhere in Nigeria is the process of obtaining a driver’s license. Living in Lagos adds an additional layer of having to compete with one of about two million motorists that have to get the new driver’s license being mandated by the Federal Road Safety Commission. From the response I’ve got from those who have applied for this new license, it takes from three months to seven to finally lay hands on the official card. (As some consolation, however, drivers are given a temporary form, also called the permit, with which to drive until the seven months – or whatever length of time one is given – is complete). Oh, the length of time to get said card is also dependent on whom one knows, and how much one has!

It’s hard to talk about this without the inevitable comparison to other places where the highest it takes from the time one passes the road driving test to getting the official certified card is about fifteen minutes, tops! But that now out of the way, it’s important to ask what exactly is the problem with decentralization of card issuance, and government employing more (adhoc?) staff for summer jobs to take care of the backlog? And if the government can’t handle it, what is wrong with outsourcing it to a monitored private enterprise?

I have noted down a few other (less depressing) observations about discovering roads and routes on Lagos roads, but they will come with subsequent blogposts. For now, it’s enough to rail at a government, in 2013, that is still too reluctant to move into the electronic century.

On St. Louis!

Some thoughts occurred to me on the way to St. Louis earlier today that I must have mentioned “St. Louis” more times than I have mentioned the name of the city in which I have lived for the last one year. Here’s why: it’s the closest big city to Edwardsville, even though it is located in a neighbouring. The other big city around here is Chicago, and it is five hours away. I bet that people in Michigan find it easier to get to Chicago than we do in the south of the state. The city of St. Louis is just twenty to thirty minutes away, just by the bank of the Mississippi river, and it offers all that a big city offers.

It occured to me just today how similar to Chicago it actually is, in structures, atmosphere and general attitudes. It’s “South Side” is just as dangerous as the South Side of Chicago depending on the time of the day or night, and everyone had warned me to be careful wherever I went. Chicago, of course, has more museums and monuments, and taller buildings. While St. Louis has the Arch, Chicago has the Bean and many other attractions. And as a point of convergence, the Jazz artist Louis Armstrong has strong ties to both cities. In any case, the contiguity of St. Louis to much of where I live now has made it one city about which you’ll continue to hear so much for some time to come.

The trip to that big city today was uneventful today, contrary to expectations. Maybe it was because I got a GPS at last and had to endure a loud mysterious voice directing me to turn where necessary. I guess the only memorable part of the trip was when I finally got to my destination, and decided around the block that I wanted to buy some plantain chips to have for lunch, the lady at the desk of the African restaurant asked me if I was paying with food stamps or cheque. I knew what food stamps were, but I said I didn’t, and asked her to explain, because I had felt profiled by her assumption and didn’t like it. In retrospect, it was just a random welcome into a different kind of America and I should have embraced it as such. And I did, in the end.

How was your Monday?

Another Monday

There’s a law that I can’t yet name, but it says that if you had all the time in the world, you most likely won’t do as much as you would if you were very busy and occupied all through the day. For now, let’s call it the KTravulaw of Time Management. It is the truth in that law that has prevented me from blogging as much as I should this month, and it’s just as well. Studies are kicking into full gear. If symptoms persist, I will blog less and less until I would be able to write only one post in a month. And maybe that will be Nirvana.

Before then, I will be busy finishing the autobiography of William Shatner titled Up Till Now. As expected, it has a lot of funny stories of the man’s life, from the time a female gorilla held his balls and wanted to sleep with him to his very many risks taken in life and in his career. And then I can get over my obsession with Fela! the Musical, and the life of those who populate the story, e.g Sandra Iszadore who was the only woman ever to sing lead on a Fela track. Who was she? How did they meet? What was her relationship with Fela like? Was the relationship consummated? And if so, why/how did they separate?

And then I will try to go to St. Louis all by myself for the first time tomorrow with or without a GPS. Thinking about it now, it sounds like an impossible task. But I have signed up as a volunteer at the International Institute where they teach and resettle immigrants and refugees from parts of the world. I would be teaching (very basic and elementary) English, and I look forward to the experience. More than just a chance to see how volunteering works, or how second language speaking adults learn English for the first time, I also need the experience for my pedagogy class. I was at the Institute for the first time last week with a classmate and I was impressed by what they do with little funding from the Government, but now I will have to go there all by myself. If I get lost, I know whom to call. That is if the road police don’t get me first for being confused on the very confusing interstate highways.

Many more things have happened to me since a while, but I can’t tell you right now. I should either be sleeping or reading for the week’s classes. The weekend went by too fast. Have a nice week.

Visiting Missouri Again

I drove to Missouri again today, the second time I’m doing so in the last one year. The state border is only twenty minutes away from my location. This time however, unlike the last time where I had to take a sick friend to the Barnes Jewish hospital, I was visiting in order to perfect my driving and adjustment to American road and rule system. For that, I had to drive almost around the state making sure that I tested myself on each type of road and driving conditions. Traveling with a University professor, mentor on and off the wheels, the trip took much of the whole day, going through a few major towns in the state. Missouri is famous not just for the St. Louis Gateway Arch and the Mississippi river but a whole lot of historical hotspots including Mark Twain’s famous residence, the site of the brutal fighting of the American civil war, the famous Route 66 among many others.

One of the places visited today was the Missouri Welcome Centre, a one-stop shop for every tourist destination in the state. Then I visited the city of Manchester where we’d gone to check up a few books at the Borders Bookstore. Borders is one of America’s largest bookstores. The only Nigerian books there were two new reprints of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, a different cover edition of Purple Hibiscus and another one of Half of a Yellow Sun. There was no Soyinka or any of the other contemporary names in Nigerian fiction. Well, I also found Uwem Akpan’s Say You’re One of Them, which is only proper since Oprah Winfrey had chosen it once as a Book Club Selection. There were a whole tonne of book on the other aisles though, and I had a good time browsing through a few of them

I was a Clayton, and a few other neighbourhoods in the city. Many of the pubs were closed for Labour Day. A few of them were still open, with considerable patronage. My own assessment of the driving exercise was that I’m now ready to take on the country. The downside is having to be in total control of a moving vehicle on such a busy highway as those around the midwest. Worse than Lagos in a few different ways, and better in a lot more, the main minus to driving is only the letting go of the ability to daydream for a few hours every day.

Yesterday…

…I drove to St. Louis.

140920091271

I will save the details of the journey for my memoirs, but I can tell you that it is (one of) my most memorable experience so far in the United States, one that I will not forget in a hurry – except I lose my mind, of course. Thinking about that, no pun intended, maybe I should insure my memory. Now, the vehicle that I drove was an automatic with a very sound engine. I always preferred the shift gear vehicles, but I can’t complain when someone offers me a car to drive for free, and it turns out to be automatic. I have noticed that many cars in America are automatic, even the trucks and trailers. The passenger was female – a painter, and the road was clear because it was night. We set off at around 11pm to the Emergency Room at a certain “Barnes Jewish” Hospital, and we returned around 4am, tired and exhausted. I’ve never felt so alive, plying the many veins that make up the American road network.

Well, let me be a little less cryptic. The female passenger was my friend the artist, and she had broken her ankle earlier in the day while descending a flight of stairs. She twisted her ankle, tripped and fell on her back. I didn’t know how serious it was until she drove into campus and I saw it, all swollen and sore. It surely was an emergency. How she managed to drive to me, I had no idea. When I asked why she could not go to a nearby government hospital, she told me that the healthcare system of the US does not allow her adequate healthcare in a government hospital without having to pay more than she cold afford. A simple visit to the hospital for an x-ray scan might cost up to $1500 in bills. I couldn’t believe my ears. This piece of information only brought home the realitites of the national healthcare reform debate that has rocked American politics for a while now. In Nigeria, you could get a scan for $5 at any standard laboratory, and the government hospital will treat a patient immediately for any emergencies. And one doesn’t need a health insurance. America has the costliest healthcare system in the developed world, it seems. According to Holly Ruff, this is a country where people actually declare bankruptcy after recovering from a major illness, even when they have insurance.

“Barnes Jewish” is a charitable but well equipped hospital in St. Louis which sometimes allows its patients to pay according to their own plan, or not at all, depending on the state of their finances – according to what I hear. The foot was scanned, and the doctor found that my friend had only sprained her ankle, and would need to stay at home for a few more days. The leg was stablized, bandaged and braced, and we headed home. It was my first time of carrying my international driver’s license on me after the wine debacle, and it turned out to be a very good decision.

140920091274 Healthcare is important to everyone, and no one, no one should have to die because they’re poor,, and no one should have to go broke because they fall sick. A society with as many rich citizens like America should be able to take care of it’s poor. This is not Obama’s policy. It is only common sense. The same goes for Nigeria. As I sat in the lobby waiting for Holly to emerge from the emergency room where she was being attended to, I began to think about the number of people who were rushed into the emergency room while I was there. I thought about all the sick people I know, and how much they already suffer, without worrying about having money to pay for it. I have a close family member diagnosed with cancer, and my heart goes out to her. A close friend of mine that I last saw in about 2008 in good health has now been diagnosed with a bone disease. He’s also sickle celler. One of the families here that has been very nice to me has a cancer patient in it. Patrick Swayze, the actor famous for his role in Point Break and Ghost has been announced dead after a long struggle with cancer. Just a few days ago, we had mourned the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy of the USA, and Gani Fawehinmi of Nigeria, both favourite public figures whose lives were cut short by old age, and a terminal disease. It is a world filled with sickness that we live in. We should not make it worse by restricting care and support to only the ones that can pay for it. Helping the weak and taking care of the sick may just be the most noblest act we could perform as conscious human beings, or the sanest reason of our existence.

This post is dedicated to healthcare reform, in the United States where it’s long overdue, and in my country still in need of much more infrastructural and human capital development.