BOOK ONE: Chapter one; /1.

It was raining heavily on that day as my uncles old blue Peugeot 504 salon car was parked outside the departure lounge of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos. We had been parked for a few minute and I was now contemplating on how I was going to escape getting drenched by the torrential downpour outside.

It was quite difficult to see beyond the closed car windows but you could hear the occasional muffled rumble of thunder like drumbeats in the distance and the flashes of lightening flashing now and then across the darkening Lagos sky as the thick slices of raindrops continued to slice downwards.

A white Mercedes Benz car was parked beside my uncle and the driver would bleep his horns intermittently. But the sound from his car was almost completely swallowed up by the droning sound of the torrential downpour, interspersed with the splashing of the water as it crashed with so much ferocity to the ground. The sound of the rain reminded me of a documentary that I had once seen about the Victoria falls. This must be what a waterfall sounds like. I thought to myself.

My luggage was in the boot of my uncles car and I was unsure of how I was going to avoid getting drenched in the rain. An airport porter, who was wearing a yellow Macintosh raincoat was standing in the shelter of the airport and looking in our direction as the man in the white Mercedes continued to bleep his horn. “I’ll get that porter over there in the raincoat to help out with the luggage” I said to my uncle who nodded in agreement. I managed to get out of the car and was able to get to the shelter where he was standing. The jacket I was wearing was immediately soaked in the rain so I had to take it off. “Oga you get load for the boot?” he asked in pidgin English as I approached him, wanting to know if I had any luggage in the car.“Yes”“ Make I help you go bring am?“ he was asking if he could help me to bring it out.
“Yes, please”.
He wheeled one of the trolleys towards the boot of the car and then jacked out my large black leather suitcase onto the trolley.
The horning of the Mercedes car was a lot louder from where I was standing. And the look on the drivers face was that of somebody who was about to explode from anger. My uncles car was obviously obstructing him from moving out of where he had parked…

As the porter wheeled his trolley back to the shelter area, my uncle had horned twice and then given me a thumbs up as he pulled out of his parking spot. The man in the Mercedes car raised his right palm at him spreading his fingers in an offensive gesture known as waka in most West African countries. My uncle ignored the gesture as he drove slowly away, horning one last time as he made his way out of the airport parking space.
“Where you dey go?” the porter asked inquiring where I was travelling to.
“I am going to the Aeroflot check in counter. I’m travelling to Russia this evening.”