Fuel search

A while ago I headed out on a Saturday morning to Juyin's place. Since I live in Ikeja and she lives in Surelere (these are areas) I had to take a cab. I had forgotten that in her area on Saturdays it is incredibly busy and traffic is terrible due to the amount of events or weddings that go on in that area. But of course after an hour in traffic I made it. We didn't do much that day in fact...but we seemed to get some vital things accomplished. Juyin handed her keys over to me and I took on the task of driving from Surelere to my area, Ikeja. Our first task was to stop at one little grocery store close to her house and buy some food. Once that was accomplished we were on our way. But as we drove we noticed that there were long queues at the fuel stations (apparently 2 fuel tank drivers were arrested by road safety or something probably b/c they didn't have their papers complete and the since all fuel tankers are part of a ____ they all decided to strike refusing to bring fuel into Lagos until the two drivers were released.)So seeing this, we decided we had better get fuel...just in case...and especially for us as we were heading to Ife for the next few days. (Ife is 2 1/2 hours away in another state, Juyin's dads home town). So we would stop at some queues and then leave them as we decided to keep driving to other stations that we felt would be less crowded. As we headed to one station near my house, Juyin wanted to fill the right tire of her car up and so what you do here in Nigeria is look on the side of the road for a tire that says "vulcanizer" and that is where you can change your tire, pump it up...fix it, you name it. So since traffic was quick busy I had to inch over to the side of the road, but i had to also back up. As I backed up there were okada's coming (those are motorbike taxis). As I was backing up slowly, they are supposed to dodge me and since I was moving very slowly it shouldn't have been any problem at all. As okada's passed me I suddenly jumped with fright as it sounded as if I had hit someone and almost had a heart attack, so as I turned my head to look at the front of my car where the noise came from, I noticed that a passenger on an okada purposely hit our car with his fist in anger and was yelling at me. Guess he wasn't too happy that I was backing up making all the okada's dodge me on the side of the road. We just laughed, and I was just happy that I hadn't killed anyone or injured anyone! 

Juyin rolled down her window and called "vulcanizer!" then waited....no one came so she called again, "vulcanizer" and still no one. Finally she called "fuckanizer" and the guy came. While our tire was being filled she explained to me that most of the time people don't know its vulcanizer and call it "fuckanizer" and will only respond to that name. Again, we had a little laugh!

Once we were finished I begged my way back into nose to nose traffic and then eased into a queue for fuel. Not even a minute later we had a man at Juyins window telling us we were blocking the gate to a compound and a man in his car began to come out of the gate. The gate man proceeded to tell us to move...MOVE? move where? i was literally maybe an inch away from a bus infront of me and behind me a car was maybe 4 inches back. Even if i wanted to get out, i couldn't...so how was it that he wanted ME...to move the car to let this other man out?! We just ignored the gate man and his foolish ideas and since we were more or less over half way past the driveway of the gate, it only made sense to move forward again once the queue moved. So of course, that is what I did...but the car behind me only moved as I did and left no gap for the car in the driveway to come out. Now, you would think that the gate man would go and talk to this car...but nope...he was now yelling at me! Meanwhile, Juyin seemed to see that the station looked as if they were closing and jumped out with a jerry can as well as argued with the gate man and walked off to the fuel station. While Juyin was gone, Lara and I sat in the car and the gate man just pointed at us and yelled "Oyibo...now you dey cause am!" basically saying that I caused all this drama with the car trying to get out. I just looked at him and shrugged and Lara and I laughed. I pointed to the car behind me, as to us...it was really them who they should be scolding for continuing to move forward and not us. So as the gate man was fuming at us, the queue moved and I successfully moved from blocking the driveway...but the hilarious part of the story is this. While the gate man continued to fume as I drove out of the way, the car behind me also moved right up behind me and again the driveway was completely blocked. It wasn't until the owner of the car got out to yell at this car behind me that the gate man realized that perhaps he should have been talking to this other car instead of me. It was just too funny!

So as we waited in the queue and Juyin waited for fuel with her jerry can, It began to pour. Juyin ran back soaked but had left the jerry can with someone to watch until it was our turn. Finally after say waiting in queue for about almost 2 hours, it was our turn. Seeing as it was dark, no one really saw me at first. But soon there was this one area boy noticed me. (area boys are boys/young men who think they own the rights to certain things in areas and hold certain power and make people pay them sometimes...long explanation for another time). So since he wanted money from us...he was telling the fuel manager who was filling all the cars and jerry cans that "in this car here was a Romanian and he should help us first" (this was all said in Yoruba and Lara translated for me. We laughed and just ignored the guy. He also said that since Juyin was with us, we should go first. We again just laughed and ignored him. He kept going until one vehicle now bribed the station attendants to let them in the exit and to jump in right behind us to by bass the whole queue came around...he was then onto bigger and better fish I guess.

Finally after being in the car for about 3 hours, we arrived at my place and relaxed and ate some food so that Juyin and Lara could wait out some of the traffic going back to Surelere. 

So the point of the story here is...be thankful that if you have many plans for a day and you get them all accomplished, because here in Lagos, due to fuel strikes, rain, or traffic...you never know what you will get done in a day and what will have to just wait for another day! But as I always say..."life in Nigeria is FAR from boring!"