Africa Is Not a Country, Lagos Is My Song

My hotel choice was strategic

Conveniently close to my getaway umbilical cord

The ant-colony bustling Heathrow Terminal 5

A brisk short walk to the domicile of my prey

An urban-jungle shopping arcade

Boisterous by day, eerily quiet and lonely at night

A brief glance at my timepiece

Tick-tocking regally towards the appointed time

And then, on the stroke of the hour

The building’s sphincter splits open its seams

Spewing forth a motley spray of gaily dressed credit-crunched teens

Adults and more teens in jeans

An overflowing concrete jungle, medley of tribes, colours, no greens

Immigrants, global citizens hurrying to catch a bite

Before the conveyor belts start the roll into the long night

My earlier text message crisp as the hotel’s linen bedsheet

“Will wait for you by noon, nice bar at the end of the street”

A brisk short walk from my expensive hotel suite

The rendezvous

To meet a neighbour’s-cousin’s-neighbour’s-daughter I’m yet to meet

We must have recognised each other within the same heartbeat

She with her green and white stripped apron and coy funny hat

I in my couture fitted shirt and Armani slacks

Beaming an Oscar-winning beam I reserve for this act

I pull her off the street

Into the warm embrace of the dimly lit bar

The eager warmth of her clothed skin searing through the defence of my sheepskin gloves

Our orders danced off the à la carte like notes off a song

And off pirouetted the protective gloves and wary smiles

A tall glass of lager, an espresso, and two sulking muffins

Then bla! bla! bla! bla! and more bland blabbing

Steady power, decent transport, people’s power bla, bla, bla

Teeth clenched, ears plugged, five minutes vocal torture, raving mad

She almost got away with it, until she uttered the sacrilegious words

“So when are you back to Africa?” I hear under the silent roar

Jaws droop, eyes widen, forced jaws shut with a thud

Look of incredulity a dead giveaway, mad, why mad?

“What did you say?” the “ay” in my “say” dragging on and away

“If you meant Nigeria that will be tomorrow not today”

Her response an “Awwwh” followed by a partially suppressed giggle

With a heave of her barely clad chest followed by an almost feline wriggle

It’s a continent of 53 countries I scream in my head

Her response, a tilted Igbo babble I barely heard

Like a confluence of a thousand indigenous African tongues

Spoken from the matrix of humanity, voice of all songs

Africa’s womb of which bore the womb that bore her grand mum

Peals of laughter tinkled forth, bobbing the funny hat atop her braids

 “Awhright,” she sighs and cocks her cute little head

I quickly fumble in my pocket pulling out a wad of rumpled bills

And mutter, “From your folks, greetings from Nigeria to these barren hills”

I mumble a hasty goodbye and beat a retreat to the cold street

The still full glass of lager a still-silent witness to my exit

Back to Knightsbridge, back to my cozy hotel suite

The Asian doorman bows with a flourish and pulls open the door

“Nice weather today and please mind the wet floor”

 “I hope you stay the week for this weather will surely hold”

I wince as my umbilical cord to Lagos shivers in the cold

Bed tonight for me and back to Lagos tomorrow my man

He shrugs as if to say he has tried all that he can

I almost scream, Africa, Lagos Nigeria here I come!

A humongous herd of humanity, a paradise baked in the sun

“Ohhh Lagos Nigeria,” I sing like a love song

The doorman’s look says, “There goes another mad one”

Nigeria is my country, just thought that you should know

Africa is not a country but Lagos is my song

 Jekwu Ozoemene

2009