You've depleted, your body dey go

Is something I get told fairly frequently. But now it’s not just my weight that is depleting. The VSO Health Handbook says:

Hair loss is a common complaint of female volunteers, whether they are taking antimalarial drugs or not. Usually it is hard to identify a specific cause, and it may be due to the change in environment, a new diet, general stress, lack of sleep and changes in the menstrual cycle.

I read this before I left and decided to file it away with all the other things labelled ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it’. The time has come to cross that bridge. My hair shedding now rivals that of my cats when they malt their winter coats. A particularly grim daily task is unclogging my shower to remove the hair I’ve shed that morning. And sweeping my floor and having to remove handful after handful of hair from the broom. I have no idea what’s causing it. I don’t feel stressed. Or I didn’t until I started to lose my hair. Thankfully the heat and humidity does such unforgiving things to it that I just tie it up wet each morning and forget about it until the next day. What’s particularly unfair is that it’s only the hair on my head that is suffering this fate. I wouldn’t mind so much if my leg hair decided to follow along the same lines given how difficult it is to buy razor blades here, but sadly life’s not that kind. On the plus side, I’m living in the Land of the Wig. Women here change their hair on a weekly basis, meaning I frequently don’t recognise people because one day they’ll have a really short bob and the next they’ll walk into work with long curly hair down to their waist.

Another joyful development this week is that I have become a honey pot for crazy. When I was in the post office a man painted from head to toe in white chalk walked up to me and started grabbing at me and shrieking. The post office manager had to run out from behind the counter and drag him off me. Then I was stood on a main road with Jenny trying to flag down a cab and a crazy man with crazy hair, no shoes and a big stick walked up behind me, smacked me across the ass (am I allowed to say ass on my blog?!) very very hard and shouted ‘May God strike you down’ in my face before running off. I had an impressive handprint for a couple of days.

AND my last moan! I got very frustrated yesterday. I was trying to book flights to Abuja, but I couldn’t find the flight times I wanted on the website, so went to the airport to investigate. I walked up to the man behind a desk that was clearly labelled ‘Ticket Sales Information” and asked if he could give me information on flight times from Calabar to Abuja.

“No.”
“Why not?”
“Have you not seen the signs that are ALL over the airport?” He asked as if I was the most stupid person he had come across for quite some time.
“Which signs?”
With a seriously fed up sigh he stood up from his chair and pointed at an A4 sign across the other side of the airport, which was typed with what could only have been size 8 font. And guess what. The airport is closing. For 2 months. Essential maintenance apparently. Brilliant.

So I asked if he could help me with flights from the next nearest airport. No.

“Why? You’re stood behind the desk that says Ticket Sales Information.”

But he refused to give me any useful information and said I’d have to call the customer call centre number.

So I left the airport even more confused than when I first arrived. Whilst the website wasn’t showing the flight times I wanted, it was still showing flights going to and from the airport during the next 2 months. I could have quite easily booked the flights online only to turn up to the airport and find out it was shut. And my frustrations didn’t lift following a phonecall to the customer call centre. They were completely unable to tell me when the airport would be reopening. I told them the date I wanted to fly back from Abuja to Calabar and they told me to call again 2 days before that date to see if the airport would be open again or not. Given I’m someone who likes to forward plan, and given that the flights are very expensive and have to be paid for in cash at either the airport or at one of the banks listed on the airline’s website, this isn’t something I can do with two days notice.

So I gave up and I am very glad it is Friday and nearly time for beer. Another volunteer has come to Calabar to stay for the weekend so I’m looking forward to doing some tourist type things (I use the term ‘tourist’ very loosely. The above example with the flights demonstrates that the tourism industry here isn’t yet booming).