Ikeja Nights n' Days:
After finishing our stint in Ibadan we were shifted south to Ikeja. We arrived safely - after a journey which involved being harassed by soldiers with sub-machine guns, looking for bribes.
One of the weird things that struck me about driving around in Nigeria was the petrol shortages.. We saw plenty of petrol lorries, but the petrol stations were always packed, and regularly ran out (On one occasion we actually ran out of petrol ourselves, while actually in a queue at a petrol station. We had been queuing for the best part of an hour - and when a black BMW hopped the whole queue and pulled in front of us I lost my rag and banged on the hood. A huge, local bigwig started getting out - shouting - and kept coming... My cutters threw me into the back of our truck and locked me in...). from what I hear, even with the new pipelines and technology, fuel supplies within the country are just a chaotic today.
The work in the south was the last stretch of the line, and the end of the job was very different from what Roy and I had become used to.
The land in which we were working was largely swamp, rather than forest. This meant less cutting, but was hard going. There were, of course the usual insects, more snakes, more mossies, plus leeches... I wore long trousers, tucked into my socks, to avoid these. The locals rubbed themselves in engine oil. White guys who opted for shorts suffered. (I should mention that by now I was wearing long trousers all the time and mainly wearing light, corduroy sided and very thin soled shoes when in the bush. I had started out, at the beginning of the job in Ibaden, in high, tough, very thick-soled Dr. Martins boots. In my first week a thorn went right through the sole & entered my foot. I decided that if I was going to have my feet impaled, I'd rather it was through footwear that could be cut off easily. For the next decade or two I padded about in plimsolls or their equivalent for almost all walking & scrambling - this included most of my time in the Zagros, various Spanish Sierras, down the Samaria Gorge etc. etc. - hence hardy feet, even if the rest of me is pretty soft).
Being the youngest and lightest (and sprightliest I guess) I was charged with hopping from tussock to tussock with the paperwork (nowadays I suppose it would all be computer-chips or memory cards) and instruments, while the older, larger, heavier chaps waded through the often waist-deep sludge (despite my staying relatively clean, on my return home, my mum threw away my "swamp-trousers" as "too smelly". I was outraged !!).
We were working in larger teams now, and being swapped around. I was handed-on from Roy to Magson (Mister Chris) - a broad, blunt, albino-fair Halifaxian (who had taken me out to work on my first day with the company back in UK, and introduced me to the three-pint lunch break).
Digs were back at the Enuda Guests Inn. Some of the guys stationed here were now very much "at home" and the atmosphere was very different from Ibaden.. The staff were much more casual (I remember Magson yelling in outrage, as one of the brief-clad houseboys padded by; "Hey - They're my keks" before retrieving the filched underwear there and then) and there were regular "lady visitors" (I recall our arrival, being shown to a room - only to find one of our chaps already ensconced in bed with a local night-moth).
There was also some seriously heavy drinking, and the first of many "lost nights" for me; all I remember, after several beers, a bottle of Mateuse Rose - of all things - followed by bacardi and cokes, is a scatter of images, including me on my back, face-up in a storm-drain, while above me Julian, a workmate, slugged it out with a taxi driver. Waking up at seven the next day, scarcely alive, to go to work in the bush, was not good...
It had been a heavy night all round, and walking back along the trace at midday it was like the Retreat from Moscow, as I came across slumped bodies at regular intervals. At the end of the day's work Julian - still full of beans - had organised a football game with some local lads. No contest. We were crushed like bugs.
Something very new to me...: It was very much the thing for chaps to avail themselves of the local ladies of the night (at the Airport Disco the higher class girls hung around the bar. The down-market girls used the car park for pick-ups). I am glad to say that my natural purity of heart (hah!) and the gloomy groups in the morning, setting off for the local "clinic" prevented me from following their lead... Actually, in retrospect was probably just circumstances (too drunk), lack of interest (I was still carrying a torch for a lass from schooldays) and lack of funds (too tight) that kept me from the primrose path... Probably just as well..
The work progressed this was the "last push") and soon it was all over, and Hey, Ho for chilly UK.
Looking back, the Nigeria trip, though it was sometimes uncomfortable & occasionally troubling, was an amazing opportunity - and one which went a long way to opening up the horizons and broadening the opinions of a fairly simple, Surrey lad. I count my blessings - & wouldn't have missed it for the world.
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