Joseph Idalu

Waiting for Lapite

Novel extract

Day One

Looking out of the windows, nothing much can be seen, except the newly cut lawn and the high perimeter cement block wall less than ten feet away. The wall is topped with barbed wire. It feels like a prison here. Aside from two six-spring metal double-bunk bed frames standing at right angles to each other, the room is otherwise empty. It smells of a dank, fishy odour left by fumigation, a last-minute effort to keep termites at bay. The walls wear a drab, pickle-green colour, a choice that makes the room appear darker. Dust coats much of it and has browned out the glass louvre blades. Dust-covered sheets of paper litter the floor, remnants of the mess left behind by the occupants of the room from the last camping exercise nearly six months ago.

I set my bag down on the bed farther from the door, but I instinctively hold onto the strap, as if I am not ready to let it go. I wish I could walk out the door and just leave. Instead, I move over to the wardrobe to have a look. Its wide hinged doors have hasps and staples. I remind myself to buy padlocks to lock them as I open the doors. It is cavernous inside—one side with several shelves lined with sheets of old newspapers covered in dust, the other with a metal crossbar to hang clothes on.

The bottom of the wardrobe frames, near the floor, shows signs of frass, and they sound hollow when I bend down to tap on them.

A man bustles in carrying a travel bag slung across his back. He is short, with square shoulders. He flings his bag on top of the other bunk bed.

‘Much of that is decayed,’ he says through clenched teeth, barely glancing at me as I rise from my crouch. ‘The termites are always there, beneath the surface. Fumigation keeps them at bay for only a few months.’ Then he says, ‘Hi, I’m Oli Tunde,’ turning and approaching me with an extended hand. ‘You must be Mr. O.’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘The Head of Accommodation said I would find you here. We’ll be sharing this room. I’m also a member of the Publicity and Protocols Committee.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ I say, meeting him in the middle of the room.

He scans the room as we shake hands.

‘It is ensuite, so that’s a bonus,’ he says moving over to the bathroom door. He throws it open with a quick motion and exclaims, ‘Gaddem.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s dark in here,’ he says at the threshold. He repeats, ‘Gaddem,’ as he steps inside the bathroom.

I instantly notice that the bathtub is stained a dull brown from countless soap suds that have dried and turned muddy when I approach. Although not much daylight filters through the open window, my eyes quickly adjust to the dimness. I also see the toilet seat cover is broken, and the tank is missing its lid.

I move past Oli Tunde to the toilet and peer inside the tank. There is no water inside it. A roll of toilet paper that has dissolved and dried into a horrible papier-mâché figure is resting at the bottom.

‘It stinks like a mouse died inside here,’ I say, and step back.

Oli Tunde returns to the bedroom. When I get back, I find him rummaging through his bag which he has placed inside the wardrobe. The old sheets of newspapers lie crumpled and discarded on the floor.

‘I brought some newer papers,’ he says, turning away from the wardrobe.

‘Thanks,’ I say and move my bag from the bed into the wardrobe. ‘The whole place screams for a professional cleaning.’

‘A professional cleaning?’ His incredulity is barely hidden. ‘We’re here for only three weeks.’ He moves to his double bunk and gives the frame a rough shake. ‘Looks solid. Some of them are quite shaky.’

A tall chap walks into the room as I start to unpack my bag. A canvas and leather satchel is slung across his shoulders.

‘Thank God,’ says Oli Tunde. ‘This is Baita, our electrician. He is here to light us up.’

He winks at me, elaborately, and beams at the man.

‘It’s nice to meet you,’ I say. ‘My name is Mr O.’

‘Welcome, sir,’ says Baita, bowing to me. ‘I come only to fit your bulbs.’

He sets his satchel down on the floor, grabs a few bulbs from it and begins to install them in the empty light sockets in the bedroom and then the bathroom. He is over six feet tall. He requires no ladder to do this.

‘You mean we don’t have light?’ asks Oli Tunde.

‘Sorry,’ says Baita.

‘What about the gen?’ 

‘We are to use the gen only for emergencies,’ says Baita, addressing me. ‘We don’t have electricity now, sir. But we will have, soon.’

He bows again and leaves.

‘We need to get mattresses from the Store,’ says Oli Tunde, moving outside.

‘And padlocks,’ I say, following him.

‘We’ll get those from the mammy market. I need a toothbrush, too.’

He takes an old padlock from his pocket, locks the door, and starts to walk away, taking brisk, stomping steps. Oli Tunde is five feet two inches tall. I am a head taller. I dash after him and soon match his pace.

It is only a five-minute walk to the Store, a makeshift facility converted from a hostel block. The Camp Clinic occupies the opposite end of the building. Both are duly signposted.

A small desk and a chair sit vacant near the Store’s entrance. A heap of old mattresses is stacked on the veranda beside these.

‘Must be ours,’ says Oli Tunde, pointing to the mattresses.

My heart sinks. ‘These ones are proper battered,’ I say.

The mattresses all look worn out and flattened from overuse.

‘You’re lucky it’s not raffia sleeping mats,’ says Oli Tunde, grinning.

Inside the Store, eight sweaty men are busy sorting uniform items from large, white, woven polypropylene bags they each have in front of them. Already, they have hundreds of sets of uniforms laid out on the floor. Each set includes clay-coloured jungle boots with black rubber soles and white canvas lace-up shoes, organised by size on top of each set of uniforms. The polypropylene bags occupy most of the space inside the hall, from floor to ceiling.

A chap about Oli Tunde’s height limps over from behind a cluster of these bags holding a clipboard to his chest with one hand and a pen with the other.

‘Chief Taglagha,’ says Oli Tunde.

‘I’m not a chief o,’ says the man.

‘This is the next in command to the Head of Stores,’ says Oli Tunde turning to me. ‘He is a big man.’ Then, to Taglagha, ‘This is Mr O. He’s just joined us on transfer from Abuja.’

‘You’re welcome, sir,’ says Taglagha in a booming voice. ‘Please, come and sign for your mattresses.’ As we return outside with him, he says, ‘My madam says we can issue two each to you senior officials.’

‘That’s very kind of her,’ I say.

Taglagha sets his clipboard down on the desk watching as I randomly pluck two mattresses out from the top of the pile.

‘Can I have a broom, please?’ I ask Taglagha as I sign for collection on his clipboard.

‘Sure.’ He goes inside and returns with two palm-frond ones. ‘They are new,’ he says.

‘Thanks.’

Oli Tunde riffles through for another minute before selecting his two mattresses. He too signs, and we leave.

We beat the dust from the windows and walls with our brooms when we return to the room. Then, Oli Tunde starts sweeping the floor, raising dust. When I suggest we should wet the floor first, he says, ‘No time for that.’

So, dust particles float heavy in the air, and I can feel them inside my nostrils for a while after he is done.

‘This is hard work, man,’ I say, when finally, I place my mattresses on my bed.

‘The hard work is done.’

‘The room would still need a proper clean, with a rag and soap water.’

‘I’ll get a Cleaner, then,’ he says, rolling his eyes.  

Eighteen new arrivals disembark from a coaster bus parked on the main road near the camp gate and proceed into the camp as Oli Tunde and I walk up along the road beside the Registration Hall toward the mammy market.

‘Declare your hardware now—knives, forks, lighters—’ says a fat Man O’ War instructor sitting on a chair at a reception spot a few metres from the gate as more instructors lead the new arrivals towards him.

‘Any explosive devices you might have on you, including hard drugs, before we discover them,’ says another now standing beside him.

Oli Tunde and I watch as newcomers unpack their luggage in the hot sun. Man O’ War instructors search through the bags for contraband, occasionally finding and discarding items like cutlery or lighters into boxes on the floor.

‘They confiscate forks and knives, too? Isn’t that a bit extreme?’ I say.

An instructor begins to pat the men down. A female instructor does the same with the women. Each new arrival then moves on from there, hauling their baggage, to stand in front of another instructor seated behind a desk beside the Registration Hall’s entrance.

‘Form a straight line in front of me,’ the instructor yells at trainees.

Each person writes their name in a register located in front of her. She then provides them with a small rectangular tag, which they use to enter the Registration Hall.

A bus drops off more people by the road. As they enter through the gates, I tell Oli Tunde that I want to see what is happening in the hall.

I feel instantly repulsed by the crowd inside the Registration Hall.

‘This is chaotic,’ I say.

‘It would be packed like this for days,’ says Oli Tunde, not the least alarmed.

The hall is bustling with hundreds of newly arrived trainees waiting for their tag numbers to be called. Some hold their credentials in transparent folders, while others carry them in piles. A few people sit on the limited plastic chairs available; the rest just mill about clutching handbags or sling bags,their main luggage heaped to one side of the entrance, under the watchful eyes of Man O’ War instructors.

‘Nna,’ a chap pushing back from the front of the hall says to his mate sitting on a chair near beside us, ‘I want to quickly make photocopies for mammy market,’ and shoves past.

‘He go soon know say photocopies expensive for here,’ says Oli Tunde sharply, offended at the shove. ‘Let’s move to the front.’ As we near the front, he gestures toward a man standing on the platform at the end of the hall. ‘That’s Korale Afubu, the Head of Registration Committee.’

Korale Afubu stands aloofly at the left edge of the platform. He is chewing on a stem of his eyeglasses and seems to be surveying the hall. A khaki-green jungle cap sits atop his head. It does not particularly suit him. He is a short man with a large belly. Several members of his Registration Committee are seated at a long desk beside him, noisily handling the unwieldy queues in front of them. The officials are collecting and examining the trainees’ credentials, then passing green-coloured files back to those who meet the necessary requirements to progress. No one has so far been turned back.

An official holds aloft a sample form for the trainees to see and a murmur rises from the front of one of the queues.

‘Name of institution,’ says the official, at the top of her voice. ‘Write the name of the institution from which you graduated.’

Inside the files, there are several forms for the trainees to complete.

Another official approaches a group of about twenty trainees sitting at desks to one side of the hall, holding a megaphone to her mouth.

‘Some of you are not writing. Yes—,’ she replies to a trainee on the fly, ‘—write your name with your surname first.’

‘Ahah,’ hollers Afubu, stomping over to her from the other end of the platform. ‘Surname means your family name,’ he says to the trainees. ‘Not your son’s name.’ He is grins at the sauciness of his remark. Then he turning to the woman, he says, ‘If you don’t say these things explicitly, they will still miss it.’

‘She must feel embarrassed by this interference,’ I say.

‘Nah,’ says Oli Tunde. ‘They’re all used to his style. That’s Mrs Birdling, by the way. She’s his next in command.’

Birdling is dressed in a starched navy-blue silk shirt and skirt, a bow-legged, roundish, woman. She grins and resumes speaking to the trainees: ‘“Call-up number”. Yes. Write all the digits down, beginning with the letters. The numbers stand for your year of graduation, which batch of service, and so on. So, that would be Batch B, 2006. Then, where you graduated. Write. Next, which institution your school is affiliated to. If not affiliated, write, “Not affiliated”.’

The trainees fill in these information as she speaks.

‘Are you all there?’ she asks.

Several of the trainee’s nod.

‘Okay. Let’s proceed to the next line. Who financed your education? Tick as appropriate.’

‘Lets’ leave,’ I say to Oli Tunde. ‘I have seen enough.’

We head out through the exit and walk to the mammy market.

Several trainees idle about near the entrance of the mammy market waiting on tailors briskly adjusting their khaki uniforms as we walk in. We move slowly walking beside the row of shops.

‘Many of these trainees are too quick to amend their uniforms—to look stylish,’ says Oli Tunde. ‘And these tailors don’t tell them that khaki shrinks after every wash. Can you blame them? They do good business only in the first few days.’

I purchase two padlocks at a general goods shop, a large one for the door and a tiny one for my section of the wardrobe.  We move to another, and I buy two plastic buckets.

‘You will need one of these,’ says Oli Tunde as he buys a food flask. So, I buy one too.

I return to the previous shop and buy a pillow.

The fluorescent lights in the corridor are on when we return to our block. But the bulbs inside our room are not.

‘It must be due to the wiring,’ says Oli Tunde, staring up at the tangled wires on the ceiling.

‘Perhaps, there’s a fuse box or circuit breaker we can turn on somewhere,’ I say.

‘You want Baita for this. I will get him.’

He dials the man’s number and gets no answer.   

Taglagha says, ‘Madam is not here. She has the key to the room where the Electronics Equipment is kept,’ when Oli Tunde and I return to the Stores to pick up the broadcasting gear. So, we go back outside and sit on the veranda, near the now depleted mattresses, and wait.

A woman in a knee length floral robe and trousers leads a group of about twenty people, mostly women, into the parade ground from the mammy market. The woman moves briskly, shaking a maracas above her head and stops about 70 metres away from us. At over six feet, she towers above the rest as they gather around her. She begins to sing a Yoruba version of ‘Thou Art Worthy, O Lord.’ The rest join in, singing and swaying to the music, some even swinging their hands above their heads.

‘She’s like the Pied Piper,’ I say.

‘That’s Mrs Damisa, the Head of the Mammy Market Committee, with some would-be traders applying for lots to set up kiosks,’ says Oli Tunde.

‘She’s a proper Christian crusader,’ I say.

Oli Tunde chuckles.

‘Some of those traders still must secretly pay her “Egunje” to get lots in decent locations.’

‘Really?’

‘It’s not like our committee where it’s “Monkey dey work; baboon dey chop.”’ He pauses to let his words sink in, then adds, ‘You’ll see.’

It is my turn to chuckle.

The group sings for a few minutes, till someone among them starts to chant: ‘Ominipotent, Ominiscient, Great God of wonders…’

The group responds with loud shouts of ‘Amen,’ to whatever she says. They are quite vocal. We can hear them clearly over the distance.

Oli Tunde soon starts muttering, ‘Arababa, robobosco, rabah, sai. Jah-Jehovah,’ beside me.

I move about ten metres away from him and stand under the shade of a neem tree. I am both surprised and amused at how swiftly he shifts from criticising Damisa to this piety.

The Head of Stores arrives half an hour later. Her hair is braided in cornrows, indicating that she has no time to waste in salons. She appears to be in her sixties, signs of age evident in copious amounts of grey hair around her temples.

‘Hello, my dears,’ she blurts. Oli Tunde and I spring to our feet. ‘Sorry, I went to sort out a few things with the Camp Director. We still have some problems with our requisitions.’

‘Welcome back,’ says Oli Tunde. ‘This is Mr O.’

‘Oh, our new officer. Nice to meet you. My name is Mrs Ashimoye. How are you finding our camp?’ she says quickly and begins to walk toward the Store’s entrance.

‘It’s exciting,’ I say, right behind her.

‘Don’t lie. This place is nothing compared to where you are coming from.’

‘But this place is more interesting.’

‘He is a politician,’ she says to Oli Tunde as we enter the building.

The men sorting out the uniforms now have several more sets of kits stacked on the floor.

Oli Tunde says, ‘They are really fast, aren’t they?’ ‘We stopped issuance of kits momentarily because we still don’t have enough jungle boots,’ says Ashimoye. ‘That’s why I went to the Controller. We will resume issuance, shortly, without the boots.’