Caboose

Bit of an early start to catch the boat back to Yenagoa, with Ebenezer, Timi, Amy and Ine waving us off at the jetty.

We had a much smoother ride on the speedboat this time, don’t know whether this was due to a better driver or just better weather conditions. On arrival at Yenagoa we were greeted by an immigration official, who insisted on seeing our papers. He didn’t notice that my entry visa expired several months ago, I hadn’t fished the copy of my extension stamp out of my wallet. Maybe he was just hoping for a dash.

After that we all piled onto machines and headed to the motor park, to get the NDDC bus back to Port Harcourt. We had arranged to meet Kay and Marebec in Port Harcourt, they had travelled down the previous night. It seems there had been a miscommunication somewhere because as soon as we got back into mobile phone coverage we all got text messages asking where we were.

Again, there were many police checkpoints on the way up to Port Harcourt. At one of them a guy on the bus was dragged off by the police and shouted at for a while. We eventually realised that the cause of the problem was his trousers, which had a camouflage pattern but were obviously not military. After a bit more shouting, and somebody else off the bus getting down to join in (and make things worse) the guy was handcuffed to the police van. Eventually they released him, after making him change his trousers at the side of the road.

We arrived at the market surrounding Port Harcourt’s railway station, as we arrived a train was leaving slowly through the stalls crowded either side of the tracks. It was pouring with rain and the roads were all flooding, so we quickly grabbed our bags and sloshed our way round to the bar of a nearby hotel. It was around this time that we realised that Marebec and Kay had mistakenly taken a bus to Aba (in Abia state), instead of to the motor park on Aba Road. We arranged to meet them at the waterside in Kono, from where we’d catch the boat to Opobo Town.

All five of us piled into a small car (six people in a five-seater) for the short trip to Kono, where there was also torrential rain. Kay and Marebec had been waiting in a shelter at the waterside for a couple of hours. No boats were leaving until there was a break in the weather, so we grabbed some food and waited.

Pete had been unable to contact the boatman from the Opobo-Nkoro Community Development Foundation, so in the end we just took a public boat across. Opobo certainly looks different to Akassa, the concrete waterfront is lined with impressive-looking buildings and across the river is a huge (but non-operational) aluminium smelting plant. The waterfront is home to quite a few vultures as well.

Walking through Opobo was a strange experience after our time in Akassa, concrete roads and multi-storey concrete buildings instead of mud and palm-thatch houses. There’s a square with cannons, a large bell and a statue of King Jaja, the founder of Opobo.

We were still a source of much interest to the local children though, being followed through the streets by cries of “Auntie Mary” and “Uncle Peter”. We had a quick stop at the Foundation’s office and were introduced to some of the staff before continuing to Pete and Mary’s house. The house is a nice little bungalow, tucked into a corner between two other buildings, which has resulted in some odd-shaped rooms towards the back of the house.

Tracey, Jenny and I were then shown to where we’d be staying, the house of Charles, a volunteer currently back home in the UK on holiday. Charles’s house is in one of the traditional family compounds, which seem to get very crowded as time goes on and more houses are built within them. The house was dark and damp, being overshadowed by other buildings on every side.

After a quick bit of cleaning and unpacking the others came round and we headed back to the waterfront, to have dinner at Lady B’s restaurant.