Drunken haircut and a bus trip to Ibadan

Trip Start Mar 24, 2008
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Trip End May 25, 2008


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Flag of Nigeria  , Ibadan,
Wednesday, May 7, 2008

As my journey started at 6 I had to wake up at 05.30 to be sure that I got on time. That was hard as I ended up going out for some beers with Actor, and that ended around half past twelve. Earlier that evening I tried to post a blog at the local cyber café, but after trying to log in for 45 minutes I gave up after getting into an argument with the people owning the place, as I felt it was wrong to pay for something that I didn't get. They didn't seem to care, so I uttered some Norwegian swearwords as I left the place. After Ibiza we went to another local joint, called Black one café, as Actor wanted catfish pepper soup. After drinking some beers we were one our way home and I noticed that the hair saloon was still open, at 23.30. As I never have had an hair cut while being tipsy I decided today was the day. I got in and started negotiating the price, and ended up at 800 naira (5 US$). He started cutting my hear with a 'sheep cutter' and after some seconds I started regretting the whole thing. He was used to Afro hear, and he poked the thing in my head with impressive strength and it was kind of painful. It was pretty bad after a while and I asked him to shave of the whole lot, but he reaffirmed me that it was going to be good in the end. After instructing him how to do it with a scissor we finally made it look decent, even if I had to cut a bit of my own for it to look ok. The thing is that my hear is so soft and he was used to afro hear so he was used to have resistance, which my hear didn't give him. But I look fine now after I went home and fixed it later that evening.

Tuesday morning I was at the bus place at six as it said we should be. It may not come as a surprise that the bus actually left seven thirty. Most people showed up at seven. At 07.25 they decided to start fixing the bus, after it had been standing there since I got there. WTF! So at 08.00 we finally started rolling. I have described the trip before and I will not do it again, but only a few details. On the web page they say that the bus has a "A 100-km/hour-speed limit", which is a big fat lie. We had some crazy drive passes at 140 km/hour and as the roads are shit it was pretty hectic. The bus is small one, but still a bus, and 140 is gambling. Taken into consideration that I have seen some heavy crashes here in Nigeria, it was very interesting. The bus dropped me off somewhere in Nigeria, and told me to take a taxi. I had no idea where I was so I thought that 250 naira would be enough, but it turned out I was pretty far away from the university, and it took 30 minutes to get to the place. Did not do much that evening, but I printed out my thesis for next day, as I was meeting Dr. Stephen Lafenwa. The printing cost me 1500 naira, which is a lot I Nigerian standard.

Next morning I went to the university and meet up with Lafenwa and after chatting with him for 30 minutes he had to give a lecture. He promised to look at my thesis and come back to me next week, and to give it to another Dr. who is an expert on ethnic militias. After that I meet up with two sociology students I meet the night before and we chatted about Nigeria and Sweden as one had been accepted to a master there. Some students have fun shaking mangos of a tree close by and people were standing below catching. It was kind of cute, BA, master and PhD students climbing trees looking for mangos. Campuses in Nigeria are usually very large, and there are taxis inside the compound. Walking from one end to the other would take around half an hour or more. There are trees everywhere and except from run down buildings the place was beautiful. The rest of the day I did little of importance. Kelvin, the guy I am going to see in Port Harcourt wrote me and said that Prof. Okoko was in the US for eye surgery, but they would try and get someone else for me to speak with. Kelvin said he should try and get one of the leaders from MEND to see me, a name you Political science students should know... So I am not sure what is going on, but I guess I want to go to the Delta no matter what, as it is important to get a feeling of how things are. During the day I walked around Ibadan and got an impression of how the city is. You get a lot of attention walking around as a white person in the backyards in Ibadan and loads of children asking for money. The city is very lively and it feels very safe during the day. During night however, the city turns dead. No light, no people, just darkness. So safe to say, I keep inside during night and went for night surfing at the local cyber café, 300 naira for the whole night, from 22-06. So tomorrow at seven I'll set of for the Niger Delta, and I am pretty exited I might sayJ
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