Friday 11 April 2008

A Ghanaian Escapade

For those of you who have heard that Ghana is a horrible place! Nigeria is better than Ghana! You heard wrong my brothers and sisters. Yeah.. I said it.. You heard wrong. Ghana is a place that we Nigerians need to see if only for a fleeting 5 minutes and what we the people of Nigeria need to do after this is to condemn our leaders, the policy makers and anyone else who is in a position to rectify all the wrongs that has been done to our country’s image in the past 20 years. While our leaders were busy raking in billions and billions of dollars, the smart guys who run Ghana were busy planning their country and building foundations that could one day become the true giant of Africa. My people, I entered Ghana and I could have almost sworn that the plane teleported me to the streets of London. Scratch that.. London streets aint that fine. No offense to the folks who are from london. I tell you no lies! I don’t even know how to describe it. The only thing that reminded me I was only 45 minutes away from Lagos were the people hawking “Pure Water” at the traffic lights. Yeah.. I said Hawking. In Ghana, they have people who hawk such things at the traffic lights but the difference is that you will not find them hawking ridiculous things like wrist watches, lanterns, African Viagra and all those other rubbish items flooding the streets of lagos.

I got to Ghana and I was so thrilled. I was with a friend from boarding school days and we just had a ball like old times. It was truly an experience. I was there for 5 nights and during that time, I was fortunate enough to visit a night club in Accra. This is like my first night club in Africa. We were out till about 2 am when things really started happening. It was the Nigerian blood in my veins that made me security conscious enough to return to the hotel and to be quite honest with you, I don’t think anything could have happened to me if I stayed there till 7 am. Full stop.

The highlight of my trip came in the form of a nice mannered Virgin Nigeria Steward aka AW who was working on the return flight to Lagos. As soon as I entered that plane, AW was like allover me! Serious. Infact, I didn’t even say anything because I wanted to respect myself since I was on an airplane and I didn’t want anyone thinking I was a loose chick. As I was talking to my girl, Tolu who accompanied me on the trip, I had my hand on her shoulder in a friendly manner and AW happened to see this. Come and see as this boy embarrassed me! He goes like “ why are you hugging her with me right here” (tolantino aka ajala was already blushing from the faces who were starting to look at me) AW then goes further to say “you should have hugged me instead” By then I was already purple with blushing.. I sha did not say anything. My friend Tolu was making smart remarks and stuff but me I just wanted to disappear into the fuselage. It was soon snack time. AW was serving chicken pie or cake. He walks up to me and he goes like:

AW: I don’t need to ask you what you want. I will give you Muffin, raisin cake and chicken pie. (at this point AW proceeds to dump all three on my pull out tray)
Tolantino: AW.. please take this back. I really don’t want it. I was all forming and stuff. And people were starting to stare. I seriously hate unwanted attention


AW would not have it o. And meanwhile, the guy was doing all this in a very non offensive manner. I was just giggling all the way. Truth be told, I was almost enjoying it. When the guy serving the drinks walked up to us, he was serving that tiny cup you normally get on an air plane. You could either have a tiny cup of apple juice or coke or fanta or something like that. This was how AW appeared from nowhere and dumped a whole bottle of coke and one carton of Chivita apple juice on our trays.

Tolantino: Haba! You trying to bribe me or what
AW: Call it whatever.. you are taking it
Tolantino: Seriously, I don’t want these.. you can have them back


By now, another stewardess called Sola had walked up to us and I asked her to please take it.

Sola: Tolantino, please take it as a gesture from the virgin Nigeria crew

Which kind yeye gesture? Did everyone in economy not pay the same price? If you wanna show gesture, upgrade me to first class. Don’t be talking all these yeye chivita juice and muffin gesture
See me see wahala o. Anyway sha, my cabin baggage was already full and I didn’t have anywhere to put the thing

Meanwhile, the silly old man sitting beside me was already trying to toast me too.He was talking this and that and he even produced a business card and asked me if he could give me a lift home from the airport. I don’t know if it was the perfume I used that morning o. There was just too much attention.

Anyhows, we arrived in lagos safely. I got home, gisted momsie about the trip and AW and did I also mention that I only managed to carry the muffin, raisin cake and the apple juice! Lol! For real o.. I carried it home!

The following day, I was going to some hair saloon in ikeja to get my dreadlocks fixed. My momsie was taking me there and we kind of got lost already. We drove past some guy on the street and asked him for Bobby’s Signature, the guy didn’t know. The next guy I asked gave us the directions. I looked at him again and you will not believe who it was.
AW of virgin Nigeria!

Tolantino: OMG! Mommy.. its AW from virgin Nigeria
AW: (seriously blushing and stuff) OMG! Its you ( I never told him my name)
This boy was seriously cute sha
AW: Ekasan ma ( he greets my mom)


It was a bit difficult to carry on a conversation like that with momsie catching every word. I asked him again where the saloon was as I’d already forgotten what he said from my excitement. I managed to hear that he lived on that street. I said goodbye and my mom drove off..

Gosh..i dunno guys..do you think we should have exchanged numbers? If momsie was not there..am sure he would have sooo asked for my digits. What do you guys think


PS: I will be posting pictures from Ghana shortly..and my word! My time in lagos is up.. My next post will probably be from Mumbai!

8 comments:

Thirty + said...

Ori iya mi o, Tolantino mehn what were you thinking you should have given him your number now.

Psttew if you were near me now I would have given you a tongue lashing for not giving him your number.

Thirty + said...

Ok, God is good sha, next time you see him don't form o. God is not coming down from heaven to give a brother o.

Tolantino said...

@30+
Now you are gonna make me cry! Lol.. Okay.. I'm already cooking up a plan. If it works.. am gonna almost blog abt it.. lol.

Bubblegum Thug said...

Lol. If u really like him, u for waka that side a couple of times. lol. God help you sha. Lol. You will be ok.

Uzo said...

Having lived and worked in Ghana for a few months, i can sooooooooooo disagree with you. After a week trhere, i was ready to slash my wrists. Too slow, people are too laid back and complacent...
But i guess it depends on the individual...I thrive in Lagos, loved Mumbai, thrived in New York, loved Chicago...so i guess i love the hectic ness of it all...

Ghana is a place to go for a weekend but not for me to live

Tolantino said...

@Uzo
My fascination with Ghana comes from what I have seen on the surface and of the immediate environment which was very obvious to me once I got there. You are talking more about the social/cultural attitudes of people there. I'm sure that in that aspect Nigeria could be better or not. But in terms of roads, security, infrastructures, electricity... I'm certain that you cannot argue Nigeria has a long way to go in other to catch up with our neighbors

Anonymous said...

Motty!
ah ahn....
I cant believe this not with all those manchy moves now...
at least you'd have found a way to either give him ur no. or get his...
this story cant end like this o...
see dis my aburo...people do this things nowadays o..they just do it stylishly.

Tolantino said...

Lol @ Sis Jumsky wanting me to jump Adewale. Shey you know that i am very shy now (bates eyelashes)