The Africans/2

Nigeria’s Independence Day celebration comes up on October 1st and this was slightly more than 2 weeks after I arrived Rostov-On-Don with my batch of 9 students. And on the first weekend after we arrived the Students Union organised an impromptu meeting, which was to formally welcome us to the town and also to inform us of their plans for that year.

During this meeting Ken, the events manager, who was also the Social secretary of the Students Union had encouraged each of us to think about putting together some kind of performance for that day, which should have a very strong cultural flavour.

“We need to do something different that shows that we have a rich culture.” Ken was saying. He was in his penultimate year at the University, where he was studying for a Russian diploma in International journalism, and had come in the year of the demonstration. He appeared to be the only outspoken member of the student leadership.

When he stood up to talk i noticed that he was not as tall as Ugo or Seyi but that he was well-built. He was of a dark skin complexion that had a shine to it, which was different to those of us who had just come out of Nigeria. Maybe it had something to do with the cold weather. He also had a well-trimmed goatee beard and that look of somebody who actually lived abroad; the akata look. The kind of look that a lot of Nigerians dream of achieving once they've managed to come abroad, but which remains so very elusive for so many; a look that was lacking in the rest of the tense looking members of the student union leadership. One of them, who nursed an Afro looked like somebody who forgot to shave that morning. His bell-bottom trousers, which looked a bit tight at the hips, gave him the appearance of somebody who had been specially picked from a village stuck in a Nigeria of the 60's and then dropped into Rostov-On-Don. This fellow introduced himself as the president of the Nigerian students union.
"Ha!" was the only comment Ugo made after he had finished introducing himself earlier on. I didn't quite understand what Ugo had meant by that, but i guessed he must have been thinking the same things that were going through my mind. Was this a joke or something?!

“So I want you guys to come up with ideas for the celebration in the next few days. And then you need to start practicing from like yesterday because we have to show these people that we can deliver a show of a very high standard!” Ken was saying sounding so confident and polished with the president sitting to his right. “We need to show these guys that Nigerians are a proud people…” Ken said.

After the meeting, the executives invited all of us for dinner to the 4th hostel where the bulk of the older Nigerian students lived. Most of the students from the University including Ken couldn’t come with us, since their hostel was located in a different part of town that was a bit far away from the Centre. We then split up into small groups with me ending up with the President and two other new students like myself; one of whom was my room mate Ade.

The 4th hostel, which is one of the hostels of the Medical Institute, is a 9 storied building located with its twin...the 5th hostel...in a little residential close that is just off Lenin's street. And it was here that most of the undergraduate medical students and a few postgraduate doctors lived.

To get there we needed to travel on electric trolleys and then on the autobus. The trolleys are electric buses that are attached to electricity by their own cable systems but unlike the Trams do not run on rail lines, while the autobus is the usual bus that runs on fuel.

As we left the venue of the meeting we walked down towards Engels street to the nearest bus stop. And as we approached, a bus was just pulling in and it looked relatively empty. The president advised that we make a run for it. The driver saw us sprinting towards the waiting bus and as soon as Ade got close enough and was about jumping in, he’d quickly closed the doors and then pulled out of the bus stop. And as he drove away he made a gesture with his hands, which he showed to us. He had stuck his thumb in-between his index and middle finger and pointed it us. Most of the passengers had kept a straight face as the bus pulled away but i noticed one little boy towrads the back laughing and then repaeting the gesture with his fingers, as some of us were bent over still trying to catch our breathes from that very long Olympic-paced sprint...

“What was that all about?” Ade asked still trying to catch his breath. “Didn’t he see us?”“ Of course he saw us. Didn’t you see him waving at us?!” I said.
“He wasn’t waving at us” said the president “that’s one of those gestures Russians make when they want to act funny. Just like we have our waka in Nigeria”
“Did he do that because we’re black?!” asked Ade.
“I don’t think so. Sometimes some of the more foolish drivers behave that way, when they’re having a bad day. And they do it even to their own people”. The good old president said.

By now most of the other groups of Nigerians had arrived at the bus stop. I noticed a few of the natives who stood nearby throw furtive glances at our group as we continued to jabber away very loudly in pigeon English. A young man who had staggered to the bus stop in a drunken wobble belched loudly and then made a face, which suggested that he was disgusted with the taste the belching left in his mouth. He then said something loudly in Russian and stood defiantly in front of the president who peacefully walked away from the man.

“The man said we should shut up!” reported the president from a relatively safe distance.
At that moment a trolley pulled into the bus stop and we all pushed our way in.
"Dis come be like say person dey catch Molue for Lagos" muttered Eddy as he pushed himself into a comfortable position, stating that it all felt like trying to get on to one of those dilapidated tin buses, which are used for mass transit in Lagos and which people simply call Molue.

The drunken man had remained on the bus stop apparently not able to push his way in. And as the trolley slowly pulled out of the stop my eyes briefly locked with that of the man; he raised his right hand and showed me his thumb stuck inbetween his index and middle fingers...