y lo arrastran hasta su propia muerte

where would i be but in abuja to learn about the tidal wave incident. we were sure that the aunties would worry that the tidal waves could somehow make their way to hausaland and affect us. personally, i am opposed to the tidal waves. the idea was to see the country. set out early morning on the 26th from Lagos. it is discouraged to drive at night, the aunties say because of armed robbers, but i think the greater concern is the poor condition of some of the roads. you can't see the holes in the road with enough warning to slow down. franco was going to do the driving. we drove down to one of the big highways that also serves as a market and parked. franco got out and brought back a phone card and a police officer who introduced himself as fester. he was a smiling guy. surya let him have the front seat so the three of us were very cosy in the back. like magic, we made it through every single one of the thirty or so police roadblocks without having to do so much as slow down so they could recognize his uniform. there are roadblocks i imagine at an average of every ten kilometers, though some closer together than others. three or four police pick a spot on the road, but three or so boughs from nearby trees and lay them across the road staggered so you have to drive around them, then just stand there smiling with their big guns. sometimes they have tires to prop up the branches and make them look nicer. at night they light fires ahead. truckers stopping at the side also build fires ahead of their trucks or in the daytimes lay leafy branches along the roads. fester got out at abuja and we stayed with an uncle recently imported from india, still hadn't learned to speak pigeon. he took us out to a nice chinese restaurant and kept offering me cigarettes. his car wouldn't start on the way out and we took a cab. surya saved him from getting ripped off. people get more use out of the roads than anywhere else i've seen. you can see trucks full of yams, cassava, eggs, oranges, plantains, bananas, cows with their necks broken so they can be contorted and stacked on top of eachother but still alive so their meat will arrive fresh at the festival, and dogs packed in wire cages. franco told me that young dogs have sweet meat. we met an oga at the park who told us that guinea fowl also have sweet meat, and the meat of humans is so sweet that if a lion kills a human it must be killed because it will never again be satisfied with antelope meat. another sweet meat is that of the grass cutter. some guy was holding one up on the highways. highways are not also used for transportation but for markets. villagers close to the highway can earn money by selling fruit, yams, and dried meat to travelers. best pick a railroad track or somewhere where cars will slow down, then you want to chase the car holding up your grapes close to the window just long enough so the car might stop if they want it.
cattle herders have to cross highways on occasion. on this bridge in ogun state the herders are now able to cross rivers.
i bought a fresh kola nut from some kids at a gas station. i took the green one because they told me it would give me more power. it gave me power to read all of the economist that arun left behind. after the chinese restaurant we went for a drive around. we wanted to see the legislative chambers, so we started driving down a road towards what we thought was a government house. we ran into a road block and found three very well dressed nigerians with guns, who informed us that we were heading towards president obasanjo's villa. the best-dressed one, who turned out to be drunk, extracted a bribe of five indian rupees from the uncle and told us where we could find some nice sightseeing. he wanted to go with us, but his colleagues reminded him that he was on duty. uncle gave him his business card in case he wanted to buy some electronics, and we got a drunk-dial from him about ten minutes later. we stayed at the national park for a night. we went to a safari in the morning and saw about seven water buffalos and some bushpigs. franco told me they done chop our money and we didn't see anything so we headed back yesterday. without fester the roadblocks were more difficult to negotiate, but we only actually paid a bribe one time. if they ask for a bribe, you tell them god bless you or that the weather is great and they let you go, but this one seemed that he would not go away empty-handed. franco stopped to chop at one place and all the girls selling soft drinks crowded around the car to look at us like we are animals in the zoo. surya told them they could all marry me if they were lucky, but that he himself would be a bad person. when i go marry i go beat a body. they giggled and kept staring. we stopped a bit later to get plantains, and two of the girls made me take their picture. they were shocked to see it come up on the display screen and rushed to show their mother. they asked if they could have the picture, not understanding the idea of an LCD screen. i said i'll bring them a copy next time i come.

at one place they had a checkpoint to check that a body has all the necessary permits to be driving, but this one was manned by area boys with 2x4's with many nails driven through them. we were driving and the boys threw the board nail out and franco stop and one ran up to the car. 'how now' franco yells. the boy pulls out a blue thing maybe it is a badge and looks at the windshield stickers. the board gets pulled back and we can go. from jos to abuja the country side was on fire. fields were getting burned after a straw harvest and many dry areas had caught on. the moon was bloody red and bloated, dim. fires off on the horizon and the air is thick with smoke. my nose was burning. chewing the kola nut made me ambitious but all i was doing was reading the economist so i alternately decided my direction in life should be a chinese go player, a bhutanese villager, an italian financier, an academic of graffiti, a decronstructionist media critic, a children's television writer, a cell phone mogul, a choson refugee camp worker, a nigerian newspaperman, a haitian pro-aristide rebel, a mexican dietician. when the kola nut wore off i was back to square one. dude, did you eat the whole thing? arun asked. well franco ate the whole thing too. in fact he may have eaten two of them. well he had driven about thirty five hours in four days so he needed it.