Friday, April 18, 2008

Mission Accomplished


We made it, through tarred and dusty roads in eleven countries. We drove day and sometimes at night across 12,000kilometers from Lagos to London through the dreaded yet glorious Sahara.


We set out on our Trans Saharan - cross continental expedition of March 9th. The objective of this voyage was to drive from Lagos to London to raise awareness on desert encroachment and desertification. In five weeks, we have traveled through 12, 000kilometers of tarred and dusty roads, through eleven countries in Africa and Europe and across the glorious but dreaded Sahara.

We lived in hamlets and villages with people whose lives are directly affected by the desert’s menace. We also met with Ministers of environment and Mayors of cities who make state decisions on how to tame the world’s largest desert. Throughout ourr journey, we have called for a concerted force of all African states to fight the desert’s menacing march.


On Saturday April 12th, we arrived victorious at our final destination London at 7.30a.m. Whilst this is Captain Newton Jibunoh’s third expedition, it was a first for the other five members of the team.


It has been a great honour to go on this mission with Captain Jibunoh; a first class orator, the rare detribalised Nigerian and a man who is not afraid to ask for directions. And my teammates- Kelechi, Titi, Joshua, Afam, I wouldn't trade them for the world.

Genesis



This journey began for me long before March 9th when we left Lagos for the green desert expedition.

It started in October 2007 when I interviewed Chief Newton Jibunoh for the travel section of True Love Magazine. I knew of his two previous solo expeditions and his many trips across the world. I recall asking him how many countries in the world he had visited and his response: “It might be easier for you to ask me how many countries I haven’t visited.” During the interview he told me he was rearing to embark on his third trans Saharan expedition across thirteen countries in Africa and Europe. My immediate reaction was clear and unshakeable- I was most definitely going along.

At the time, Chief Jibunoh (soon to become- Captain) had only two other team mates- Afam Ugah- Press photographer and IT man, and an auto mechanic- Joshua Adegbaju. So I offered to come as the mission’s correspondent to local and international press.

Even then, Captain didn’t quite take me seriously. But out of fear that I was indeed serious, he did all he could to dissuade me. When his warnings didn’t work, he gave me his book- ‘Me, My Desert and I’ which was replete with accounts of abductions, bouts of hallucinations, endless border delays, attacks by bandits, and photos of dead bodies sprawling the Sahara. I read the book in one day and became to Captain a shackle that wouldn’t break. I bombarded him with fresh ideas and a new perspective for the expedition and quickly became fundraiser, designer for desert wear, project manager and immigration protocol officer for the team.

My official protocol duties started in December when I made our applications for Moroccan and Algerian in Abuja. I got into Abuja late afternoon on December 16 and went straight into a meeting. After the meeting a Dutch friend of a friend’s offered to drive my friend and I home and we gladly accepted. I stacked my luggage in the trunk of her jeep and whilst attempting to climb into the back seat, an old friend who seemed at the time, excited to see me, rushed up behind me and hustled me into the car. But as soon as I felt his cold gun on my arm, I knew he was no friend of fine.

He was not alone. There was a second assailant who had attacked my friend’s friend whilst she was behind the wheel. He snatched her handbag and got into the driver’s seat. Thankfully Friends’ friend made away but regrettably had started the car and in fact turned on some music before her brilliant escape.

So there I was in the back seat with a young, frightened armed robber whose shaky fingers could decide whether I would live or die. His partner, also afraid but clearly more experienced got behind the wheel and took me with them on the longest ten-minute ride of my life. The air conditioner was on and eerie Spanish classical music played in the background. In between wiping the sweat off their faces and looking back to check who was at our tail, they engaged me in small talk.

“What is your name?” “What does that woman do?” “Where is the money?”

All very interesting, very valid questions but none of which I had the answers to, at least not the true answers.

To get to know me better, my personal assailant grabbed my bag, sorry his bag -(it ceased to be mine the moment I saw his gun) and poured out its contents, phones, house keys, chequebook, notebook, everything including my passport and the team member’s passports into the backseat.

They assured me that I wouldn’t get hurt, and in fact would drop me off on the road if I didn’t scream.

I didn’t scream.

Whilst they were driving, I asked myself, if this was the test for whether or not I had what it took to go on the expedition. Or the first of other experiences I would have during the expedition….A healthy fear had seized my mind and I remember praying to God that if he did spare my life, I would never again be afraid to live.

The noble men with guns kept their word and dropped me off on the road somewhere in Wuse. I hailed a taxi and had him drive me back home where my friends had been waiting, hoping that no ill had become of me.

That night, I didn’t sleep, I plotted a new time graph for how I would get new passports and start the visa application process all over again.

I was definitely going across the Sahara.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Babel

Grafitti, the language of the living in Spain.


Nigeria is landlocked by Francophone countries, yet we (Nigerians) don’t explore these countries or take the French language seriously.

Cameroon is in the South East, Niger and Chad in the North and Benin Republic to the West of Nigeria. We cannot get out of Nigeria by road without crossing Francophone territory.

I studied French at University and even I often forget it, but this trip has reminded me of an urgent need to buff my French until it shines.

My mother (and Professor Mabogunje who encouraged me to study the language) will be happy to learn that my smattering French helped me, and the group on this trip from Benin Republic to Morocco and now France.

However, when we were in Spain I vanished into Babellion. Save for agua, gracias and adios, I know no Spanish. I foolishly asked a lady in a pastry store if she spoke English and I deserved the subtle dagger looks she gave me: "What country are you in stupid?"

Spaniard lips moved and the harder I looked the less I understood and the crippling feeling of 'lost in translation' made me deliberate on adding Spanish to the languages I need to learn.

The only inscriptions I understood were the brilliant inscriptions of graffiti that colored Spain from Algeciras to Irun. After two days in Madrid, we set out again gliding through high and low altitudes of the Spanish Mountains.

From 825m-5m above mean sea level, my ears finally popped when we approached a derelict toll both and the toll collector said words that I understood “Il a paye!” Captain NJ had paid for our toll and I was now in France. Those words had me bouncing around in my seat as I drove into France like French was my mother tongue or that I had never heard French spoken.

French signs warn me of imminent danger; signs that may have been in Spain as well but that I couldn’t understand.

We drive into Pau and lodge in Hotel Mercura, and behind our table, an English woman with a curious German accent soothes the ache in my ears with her crisp soft English words. M. Joshua, Titi and I speak Yoruba and border on being rude, just to remind ourselves that we can speak our delicious language. French, English and Yoruba; these languages are the balm for my homesickness.


First fussless signs of Welcome into France from Spain.



Spanish Bull.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

The New Earth.

Genesis 1: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep…And God said let there be light: and there was light...”

On the first night in Morocco was Dakhla where 500 kilometers weighed my eyelids down. The night was the sixth day and God held my hand and I flew with him.

I watched as God made earth.

Clouds of dust became mountains, and smoke balls became hills and flatlands. He made the sky a blue solution to my eye’s sore and his breath became the clouds. He made the clouds close to the earth and the clouds and the sand played together.

God held my hand and we glided over the hills and sat under a dome of sky. And then God sneezed and made the waters of the earth and everything was good.

Then God made fauna and flora and then he made man and covered him with caramel.

After God made man, man made technology and the waters and the deserts fought for prominence. Then man plundered the earth with his modern toys and said he would live in the sea instead.

So man parted the seas and moved the waters to where the land once was. Then God’s great creatures covered themselves in blankets of sand and became the Atlas Mountains. Then the mountains lived under the new sea and man plundered the new earth, which was the sea and decided to part the new waters again.

And God was displeased with man. So that when man wanted to part the waters again God sent a great flood to overcome the earth and man and animals.

After ten days, the floods dried up and the great creatures rose from their sleep. They shoke off the sands on their skins and emerged from under the mountains and became the new man. The great creatures listened to God and kept the sea where the sea should be and the lands and deserts where they should be.

The great creatures were the new man and new fauna and flora emerged from the earth.

The great creatures who was the new man was filled with fear and bowed down to the earth in worship when he spoke to God.

God said this is the earth as I have created it and the evening and the morning were the seventh day.





Flora at Guelmim: The Gate of the Sahara in Morocco.


Winding through the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.


The desert and the sea at war.



Sand Snow in Morocco.




Haughty camels in Nouadibou, Mauritania.




A desert encroached lake in Noudabibou, Mauritania.