Nigeria for beginners #004…Rainy season

Rainy season is when Lagos really shows itself, when you stop marvelling at sunny skies and and start noticing drains that overflow, roads that have become underwater cities, tankers pathetically overturned, blocked traffic and water invading your home Rain here is a diva who shrieks and beats her chest to sudden drumbeats and flashing disco lights.

Palm trees and pink and orange wild flowers do not get your attention when you are picking your way through knee-deep chalky brown puddles. The cool breeze brings clarity on Nigeria’s pressing issues.

We used to meet at rooftop bars and by swimming pools. Children used to run screaming in playgrounds and compound courtyards, now many pack and leave for the summer, disappearing to places where the sun still shines and return home at the back end of August bragging about aeroplanes and trains, museums and theme parks.

The local mangoes and papayas disappear from shelves. The leaden sky brings coughs and fevers.

Traffic caterpillers around pools of unknown depth. Office workers huddle under giant umbrellas by the roadside at lunchtimes trying not to think about their commutes home. Pedestrians stranded on the wrong side of the street resignedly roll up their trousers and hitch up their skirts. Only the men in canoes continue to criss cross the Lagoon impervious to the world crashing down around them.