Tropic Moon

One foot off the KLM machine and I am back in Nigeria. Frequent visitors like me hustle up the ramp, through the busted doors and down the long lino-paved terminal to the immigration queues. Every stumbling heavyweight passed along the way, all those who need to pause for orientation, means 5 minutes waiting time gained. I am as ruthless as a race driver in the corners. I swing my carry-on wide and force a charging Indian fellow into a plant-box.

Doing well, I get to the desk pretty quick, for the usual 3-phase passport inspection. 'Cherim!' someone barks, and I approach a big officer with several stripes. 'How long you in for?' He seems to say. Biting-back anything clever, I just say, '3 or 4 days this time,' collect my stamps and am through into the milling crowds outside the terminal moments later.

A driver I recognise from earlier visits strides forward smiling, hand outstretched. 'You are welcome,' he says, seizing my bag and legging it off at speed into the crowd. I half-trot to keep up, drinking-in the smell of a tropical west African night. A bit of decaying fruit, woodsmoke, exhaust fumes, dust, sweat and, sometimes, a whiff of barbeque. This is a homecoming to me, a welcoming sort of smell. Hawkers make half-hearted attempts to sell me wads of Naira, dollar bills from deep in the last century, bottles of water or cell phone top-up cards. We're parked a long way off, but there is a gentle and friendly breeze that keeps the sweat down.

As we reach the car, well past the ramshackle but lighted walkway, it is still bright. I look up and see why: there is a full, gleaming african moon. All the way through the beastly traffic to the hotel, past swerving taxi-buses, shiny Land Cruisers and even a heavy truck visible only by the dangling light of the driver's cigarette, the welcoming moon is beaming across the Lagoon, illuminating the throbbing town.


Lagos, 12th September