Post date: Aug 10, 2014 3:24:43 AM
23 May 1964
Over the holiday I worked on Peace Corps cars and tried to get some visas in Lagos. Lagos is really a city, with rich and mediocre suburbs, a good bus system, and a changing central city. Transport to and from there, thru the Western region, is bad, not so much because of the roads, which are few, but sufficient, but because of the lack of organization of the taxi drivers. For instance, Onitsha is the main trading city of the Eastern Region. The taxis for Lagos leave from there. Before they get out of the city they have to cross a long, expensive, and corrupt ferry. They could better work it like Calabar, which has another motor park across the water, and passengers go across the ferry, then look for a taxi.
Motor parks in the Eastern Region may look like a mess, but they are the epitome of organization. The drivers going to a particular city wait their turn and each one car is filled up and leaves before passengers enter another car. That way the customers get a good deal. The rates are fixed by a drivers’ union, and the rates are very low. Lorries and buses follow the same procedure, and in the same motor park, so you can pick the service you need.
In Lagos, there is no motor park organization. When I wanted to return, there were four buses for Onitsha filling simultaneously, with no guarantee that any would leave that day. There were two taxis filling, and the price was high and strictly between you and the driver or his agent. There are also private cars, not insured to carry passengers for hire, filling just outside the gate, and no union to drive them away. The union (in the Eastern Region) insures that no car is overfilled.
Most of the transport in the Western Region is by truck or crowded bus. The roads are not so good and the people not so mobile that they have Peugeot 404 taxis, as we do in the East. Anyway, most of the owners and drivers in the west are lgbos flrom the East.
We have a new volunteer in Aro—a New York girl. She had to go to Port Harcourt for mosquito screen yesterday and I had to go to a supposed meeting in Orlu, so we had a one-week cram course on how to drive a Jeep after only having driven an automatic—and that on good roads. Yes, we got the Jeep back. I sold my Honda (motorcycle) because of the mud during the rainy season and repairs which were imminent. I think I will leave the Jeep in Aba for a week for repairs and a paint job. Impossible to get parts. But we scrapped one Jeep for parts.
Electricity stopped again, so I am cooking by kerosene lamp. It gives better light, but boy, is it hot! Last night I was in Orlu and it was so cool there I had to wear a sweater and use a blanket at night. Nice. I have only used a blanket two nights in Aro since I have been here! But Nigeria is not nearly as hot as Conakry or Dakar. Of course the coast is hotter. At the ENDC (Eastern Nigeria Development Corporation) cattle ranch at Obudu, they have fireplaces (which they use)—also at Jos.
Word from above: I will probably terminate in August 1965. An interesting trip to Europe would by via the Sahara desert. Probably if I squawk enough I can get out in May, leaving enough time to study German in Germany.