# 5 - Lagos and the U.S.

Peace of Christ!
and
HAPPY EASTER!

Greetings from Nigeria! Although, as you will shortly read, that is a greeting more generic than strictly descriptive.

For those of you who like organization, order and lists of things, let me begin by putting little descriptive headings on the first four missives that have been sent out - and we hope - received.

1st Letter - John arrives in Nigeria, goes to Benin. December 23 thru December 31.
2nd Letter - To and in Kaduna. January 1 thru January 8.
3rd Letter - In Kaduna, getting ready to leave. January 9 thru January 26th.
4th Letter - Life in Lagos. January 26 thru Feb. 4th.

And now - the sequel - Letter #5 - February 5th through Easter (April 11th, you heathen). John lives in Lagos, learns about life thru doing housework, and returns to the States.

("George, did he say returns to the States? What does that mean?")

Patience, all will be revealed in good time. As I write this, I don't know what the ending is. But in a nutshell, toward the end of March I finally got around to seeing a doctor. A couple of annoying but not serious to the point of interfering much with life symptoms had been cropping up, and I knew I needed to get them checked out, but we were busy.... Anyway, when I finally did get to see the doctor, he confirmed what I had suspected, but he felt it was more serious than I had thought it, and he sent me immediately on a plane to the U.S. for some sophisticated scanning tests. (I can hear the impatient among you scolding me for not yet having mentioned what in the world I am talking about.)

Medical Lesson - Transient Ischaemic Attack - TIA for those who like throw around terms - a minor blockage in one or more arteries, producing a variety of temporary symptoms - partial or complete loss of vision in one or both eyes, headaches, nausea and sweating, vertigo - it can be tricky to diagnose, but fortunately I had only one of the symptoms (loss of vision in one eye) and each time it occurred I paid attention, and was able to recount with some detail the accompanying effects, or lack thereof. So what they will do is run the scans, locate the blockage area, and treat it, either medically or surgically, depending on the location and severity. It is serious, in that it tends to be a precursor of stroke. Caught in time, treatment is effective and the patient (me) goes back to a normal and active life actually much better off than he or she (in this case, I) was before. Or so it says in the textbook. As I write this, I am still in Nigeria, preparing to leave. ASAP in Nigeria carries with it a certain deliberateness. I saw the doctor on Monday evening, the 22nd. Bill Scanlon went up to Abuja on Wednesday, returning on Thursday. My passport, you see, was in Abuja, having my resident visa affixed thereunto.

So I needed to get an exit visa, and a re-entry permit. To further complicate matters, all the resident visas (yes, that thing which I am just now getting) expire simultaneously in the early part of April, when I will probably still be in the States. Further potential complication, my Alien Registration was done, and is still held in, Kaduna. Again, as I write this, I am waiting Bill's return to see what happens next. It may be I have to fly to Kaduna to get an exit visa. (See further down when I talk about the recent 400% hike in internal airline rates.) It may be I will be on a flight out of here by tomorrow night (Friday the 26th). Of course, by the time you have this in hand, faithful reader, you can turn to the back of the book and read the solution. But like any good mystery writer, as I begin this chapter, I have no idea what the ending will be.

This edition of the unauthorized biography of a Jesuit without assignment might be entitled (for those who are into titling things) "Learning to Love Her". I was browsing through one of my earlier epistles, and it read a little like the young man who first is infatuated with a young lady. (That is not a sexist comment; I would not presume to imagine what it would be like for a young lady in the first stages of infatuation with a young man.) Everything is charming.

But as he gets to know her more, the little faults, the peculiarities, the eccentricities - that mole just under her ear - all start to get noticed, and a more balanced view emerges. Well, so too with Nigeria. The first flush is over, and the warts are emerging. Not that there is not still fascination and delight and discovery - but should anyone think from earlier letters that this was somehow a Garden of Eden, please note - we have snakes here too. With and without legs. Individual and systemic.

So this letter is further exploration of life in Lagos, observations and reflections, and more "hard" information about one of the leading countries in Africa - a thought that, as I get to know more about the country, is more than a little scary.

This period really begins with Ash Wednesday, and will go at least until I have some news to report about these silly tests I am going for. So it should be ready to mail hopefully around Easter. That means this letter covers Lent, and for all those who did not do adequate penance during that penitential season, here is some serious mortification.

Peter was back from his travels to the States for a period of 4 days, before heading off again to Nairobi and to try to get into Zaire. (Peter = Peter Schineller, Regional Superior of the Nigeria Ghana Region, and the man in whose palm sits, neatly or otherwise, my life. So to speak.) There has been a lot of upheaval, civil disturbance and just plain shooting, which makes it tough to travel. We have two of our Scholastics at the Philosophate in Kimwenza, though, and if possible he wanted to see for himself how they were doing and what the situation was like. Ash Wednesday I went with him to Pacelli, where we "ashed" the children. Otherwise a very quiet day. For most of the week, Peter was either locked in his room working through the pile of papers that had grown on his desk during his absence, or he and his socius (assistant), Bill Scanlon, were meeting together. I cooked and cleaned.

Well, with the firing of Anthony, someone had to do it. Everyone else had/has a job to do, so I was the logical choice. Certainly the house needed the cleaning, and certainly the quality of the cooking took a major step upwards. It was really fun, at least at the beginning, because everywhere you looked, even a little effort made a tremendous difference. Dusting is normally not an exciting chore; but when the difference is as dramatic as it was the first week or so, even dusting got to be exciting.

The problem, of course, was the once the layers of dirt had been removed, and the dirt that was simply unremovable remained, one could really see how grimey and grungey and awful much of the house was. We had started the process of getting new curtains while Peter was away, and without telling him (the man was so busy, why bother him with details that were being taken care of?) we went ahead with decorating notions. New curtains required new paint, and so as soon as Peter left - which was Friday the 26th of February, we went to work. The following Monday we started cleaning. Two friends of Bill's came in from Benin to visit, little knowing that they were walking into a working party, and a carpenter and an electrician came to stay for three days, to outline what work needed to be done. During that time we cleaned the downstairs, painted the living room and the chapel, replaced screens throughout the house, cleaned and made the generator as functional as the poor, sick dear is ever going to be, and stripped the floor right down to the basic terrazzo. (Sp?) It took stain remover full strength and steel wool, but it cleaned the floor beautifully. (It also, we discovered very quickly, removes paint from anything it touches, and does a pretty fair job of dissolving at least three layers of skin. Trust me, you do not want to get near this stuff with anything resembling an open cut on your hands.)

Sundays mean two things these days. Mass somewhere - and with the usual shortage of priests, there are always requests - and preparing the evening dinner for the Jesuits. Each week, all the Jesuits in Lagos, and anyone visiting meet twice. On Thursdays, we gather for lunch at CKC (Christ the King Church, the Jesuit parish at Ilasa Maja, around 15 minutes from our house), and on Sunday evening, everyone comes to Surulere. Since I arrived, and got rid of Anthony, I have rather taken over the Sunday event. Tried to make it a little special, rather than just a feeding frenzy. When I arrived, usually everyone was gone by 9pm. Lately people have been staying until after 10, and on one notable evening (I served Irish coffee), they hung around until 11:15.

Sunday the 28th of February had all the Sunday elements, with abundance. I got up early, and added another layer of jello for a layered jello for the dinner event, and went over to CKC by 6:50 am. I had volunteered to help with Sunday Mass for the two outstations.

When I arrived I learned that Rocky (Fr. Robert Dullahan, many years in India, several years in Ghana and now on the staff at CKC) had dropped the jar with the ashes in it earlier, so there could be - he warned me - bits of glass in the ashes, although he was pretty sure he had gotten them all out. We had a driver to get us where we were going - thanks be to God.

Off we went - down highways, then roads, then lanes, then dirt paths, and finally to a church. Sort of. We heard confessions until 8, and then Mass. Rocky celebrated, I preached. With a translator. You realize, of course, that it automatically makes the sermon at least twice as long. I say at least, because on more than one occasion, I would come forth with one or two sentences, and then the translator would go on for a full paragraph or more. Either I had snuck in an extremely sophisticated concept, or else this guy had his own sermon going on on the side. Or maybe he was doing commentary as he was doing translation.

And then ashes. They had not been able to send anyone out to the stations on Ash Wednesday, so this was "Ash Sunday". I can feel the formal liturgists cringing, but sometimes, a pastor's gotta do what a pastor's gotta do. So today we gave out ashes. Thousands and thousands of ashes. Actually, I found it a very moving experience, putting ashes on the foreheads of small children, or a pregnant woman, and saying the words to remind them of their own mortality, of their own dying. Then I got distracted, with the numbers and the pain in my back and the seemingly endless numbers. Then I was further distracted, after I "ashed" one woman, to see a formidable sliver of glass adhering to the ashes on her forehead. I swiped it off, but after that, paid particular attention to exactly what it was I was depositing on these peoples' foreheads - and I was much less forceful about applying pressure.

The 8am Mass was over a little after 10:30 - and then off to the second station, which was, if it can be believed, even further away from anything than the first one. I celebrated and preached - we did away with the translator at this church. Because we were late arriving, Rocky stayed outside the church during the liturgy of the word and heard confessions. (Again, I can feel the liturgists shuddering, but it was either that or have the people wait longer than the 45 minutes they had already waited. Or deny people the chance to go to confession, which to my mind was not an option.) And again, ashes, ashes, and more ashes. I was watching the clock, because I had to get home to cook. But after Mass - surprise! We had to go even farther out, to someone's house, and supervise at an installation of the Sacred Heart. It is a special ceremony where a family places a special shrine in their house, and includes a special blessing, hymns and prayers. And a short homily. (Surprise! Fr. John, would you please speak to the group?) So I didn't get home until after 3 - with a carrot and orange soup to prepare, cook, and chill before 7:30. Not to mention the rest of the dinner. (Lord, I sound just like a housewife, don't I?)

When I got back, Bill was out helping a local woman celebrate a birthday, and there were signs that we had had company. Bill's birthday is the 29th of February, and even though he didn't get a birthday this year, seven people from Benin came over in the morning to surprise him. Visited, celebrated and went back. Benin is about a 3 1/2 hour taxi ride, so this was no small gesture on their part. All came together, although I admit I did not stop moving from the time I got back until the Jesuit guests arrived. We had cold carrot and orange soup, steaks, mashed potato, cold sliced tomatoes in vinegar (that is turning into a great favorite here) and of course, cake and ice cream. Fr. Gerry McIntyre came in from Harare, Zimbabwe, where he had spent a week, so we had a full table, a full house, and full stomachs. Not a bad combination. Good foundation for the work that would take the rest of the week.

Monday, 1 March, was National Pig Day. (Look, I don't make this stuff up, I just report it.) I finished the packet that you know as "Letter #4", although I didn't get it over to the DHL center until Tuesday. Kevin from Benin arrived, a theatre worker, so he joined Bill and me for dinner at "the Chinese Place". This is the expensive restaurant in our circle to be indulged in only on very special occasions, ie when someone else is picking up the tab. This was in honor of Bill's birthday, which I thought was special enough - besides, Peter was away. And it was very nice - total for 3, around 950 Naira. (At the current exchange rate, around $30. Including tip. This is the expensive place.) That included several beers, spring rolls and soup, and more food than a civilized person could eat, and it was very good.

Tuesday was start of serious cleaning. Joshua showed up unexpectedly, Christopher came to see the doctor, and Lennie and Shaygun (the carpenter and electrician respectively) arrived. Bob Dundon arrived, returning from several months in Rome. Kevin was already here, and Jerry Aman called from Ibadan to say that he was bringing Gerry McIntyre down to see Dr. Akinbade. Made for a full house. (For those who like to do puzzles, we have three bedrooms, two teeny tiny guest rooms, a community room and a chapel, beside the living room and the kitchen. Put two mattresses in the chapel, another in the upstairs community room, and you can get by. Especially when the two Jesuits from Ibadan decide to stay at CKC.)

Wednesday and Thursday - painting and carpentry and work. Friday, everybody went away. I did a second stripping and washing of the floor, and finished the painting. At that point, we had no idea when Peter would be returning. If he went to Zaire, we would not expect him until the following Tuesday or Wednesday. If not, he could be home at any time. And we really wanted to finish the painting before he got back. So I was working like a madman all the day long. Actually, in a bizarre, perverse sort of way, it felt rather good. More work on Saturday, and Sunday was another Jesuit triumph- this week Scotch eggs, spaghetti carbonara, and frozen rum cream for dessert.

A note on cooking in Nigeria. Challenging. The oven has three settings, but it seems to make no difference whatsoever where you put the dial, the oven stays the same. Materials with which to cook are hard to find. Cream, for instance, only comes in the canned clotted variety, which is very nice with a formal English tea, but totally unsatisfactory if you are trying to whip it. Olives are hard to find and more expensive than scotch. There is lots of cheddar cheese - expensive but plentiful - and occasionally processed cheese. Sometimes you can find mozzarella. That's pretty much it in the cheese department. A certain flexibility is recommended whenever you pick up a recipe. For the Scotch eggs, for instance, I had to buy large link sausages, strip them from their casings and grind them in our meat grinder. It worked, and they were great. Pickles to accompany them, however, would have had to have been made by yours truly (How's that for a complex construction - I always like to drop in something like that for people who diagram sentences as a pastime.) and there was no energy on the schedule for that.

Frs. Aman and McIntyre (remember them?) joined us from Ibadan. Fr. McIntyre had a case of typhoid, and came to stay with us for a while to rest and recuperate. We were delighted to have him, for not only is just an interesting person to talk with and have around, he is terrific cook, and the meals became much more interesting. He is teaching English to the Juniors in Ibadan, and will be moving to Harare to teach at the new Juniorate/ Philosophate that is opening there in July.

In the week following, we had several late night thunderstorms. I had been advocating leaving the windows open at night, to cool the house down. I began to understand why old hands were so fussy about closing windows. I was asleep, dreaming I was at a waterfall, with the foam and water splashing me gently in the face. I awoke, and it was. not a waterfall, but a heavy rainstorm, driving in through the window. (Since I sleep on the floor, I was right underneath the window.) I flew downstairs to close the windows.

Next night, I was sleeping in Peter's bed. (His room has the most wonderful cross breeze in the house, and I seem to be losing the battle with lifeforms with teeth. Maybe because I sleep on the ground, but am regularly awakened in the early morning hours alive with bites.) Anyway, another tremendous storm, and again, I flew downstairs to close windows. I returned to find that in my haste to save the living room, I had forgotten to close the windows next to the bed. The rest of the night's sleep was very cool. A tad damp, but very cool. We are not yet in the rainy season, and in fact, have been having an unusual number of showers for this time of the year. Most are at night - which is fun, because invariably when the rains come, the NEPA goes off - but there have been some very dramatic daytime showers as well. Benin has had rain almost every day for three weeks, and it promises to do serious damage to the spring crops and planting.

This week was highlighted by the arrival of the new curtains and the death of Peter's mother. Peter was still away - we assumed Zaire, but we had no word. On Wednesday, both Bill and I ended up at the airport to meet what had originally been Peter's scheduled flight. No sign of Peter. Wednesday we also received word that Peter's mother was close to death and was not expected to live more than another day. There was no way we could get word to him, so we could only wait until he surfaced. Thursday we again went to the airport, and again, no sign of Fr. Regional Superior.

In the meantime, the curtains were delivered, and installation had begun. The U.S. Embassy sent over a bottle of Jamieson's (we were going to celebrate St. Patrick's on the following Sunday), and I had agreed to give a talk and celebrate Mass on Thursday evening at LUTH, the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. The Consultors were also scheduled to gather for a 2-day meeting on Friday and Saturday.

Thursday morning, around 1am, Peter showed up. It had taken him 2 1/2 days to get out of Zaire. He arrived here to learn that his mother had just died. So the Consultors met Thursday afternoon and all day Friday, and Peter flew out on Friday night. Of course, he arrived on the east coast at about the same time as the great blizzard of 93, so his flight was diverted to Montreal, and it took him another 28 hours to get back to New York. He missed both days of the wake, but he did arrive in time for the Monday funeral.

The LUTH talk was very interesting. LUTH is one of two chaplaincies held by Jesuits, the same Jesuits, in fact. The other is at UNILAG - University of Lagos. There is a Catholic chapel under construction at LUTH, and given the state of the economy and their current finances, I suspect it will continue to be under construction for some time. The first floor of the priest's house is roughly finished, and they use that for meetings and Mass. I had been told that my talk would be at six, followed by Mass, so I volunteered to pick up Pat Ryan at the airport at 8:30. I found the chapel, and there was no one there. When the first people arrived, I was told that there was a full agenda for the evening, including the rosary, time for meditation and questions, and Mass should start around 9pm. I quickly re-arranged that.

The talk went very well, and the group seemed very responsive. I don't think they they have often been exposed to what I have been told is a slightly "theatrical" style of preaching, but they seemed to enjoy it. With a University group, you can be a little more free with your use of language. The question and answer session was one of those where the Holy Spirit was in full swing, and quite eloquent, and I just tried to stay out of his way. Mass was full of spirit - they sang everything - and it was fully 8:25 before I got out of there. I flew to the airport - and encountered a go-slow at Isolo Road. Went cross-country, trying back roads that I hoped would get me where I wanted to go - and ran into another go-slow on the ramp to the airport. Fortunately, when I made the airport, Pat was still there, so I collected him, and back to the house. At least I am getting to know Lagos enough to be able to take chances with short cuts and alternate routes. Sometimes they don't work, but so far, I have always found my way home.

Got a lovely note from Fr. Charlie Brown in Salisbury recently, (that really is his name) in which he asks me to track down a baptismal certificate for a Nigerian friend in the States. Gives me great detail about the baptism and first communion and the name of the church to try - but neglected to include the man's name. Sneaky way to get me to write a letter back.

Miscellaneous There are so many little things, odd details that stick in the consciousness. At Pacelli, where all the students are blind, the handshake at the kiss of peace is a special moment. You have to touch the child to let him/her know that you are there. Some shake hands, some let their hands lie there, and a few have this habit of shaking your hand, and then pressing their fingers together as you withdraw your hand, almost as though they were squeezing something from your hand.

I really want to take a series of photos of people with things on their heads. Trays of eggs, huge containers of water, engine parts and air conditioners, rolls of newspaper and building materials - there is virtually nothing that doesn't get carried on the head. Except children. They get strapped on behind.

The mail box. Sigh. We have a postal box, and several weeks ago, the lock mechanism wasn't working. I reported it, and nothing happened. I reported it again, and they put up a note, and told us to come to the window to collect our mail. (that tends to be the Nigerian's first response to a mechanical failure. Put up a note. Actually getting around to fixing anything is usually someone else's department.) One day a man came to fix it - he didn't have pliers, so he used a one-hand hole punch to try to hold the nut. I worked on it once, then someone from the Post Office "fixed it", which again put it out of commission. I re-fixed the mail box - again - someone had fixed it in the interval so that the locking mechanism turned but never engaged the door. The technical inexpertise in this country continues to amaze me. "In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." It doesn't take a lot to be a king in Nigeria.

Symptomatic of something or other. Dealing with Nigerian workmen - and I use the term loosely - in getting the living room and the curtains done was also enlightening. There is truly no sense of job completion here other than getting it done. No sense of care of workmanship or quality - when you push them and stand over them, they can do good work. But it is simply outside their realm of experience to do it without being pushed. The decorator person, Mr. Colar, was supposed to come by with the ties and to make some corrections on the way the curtains hang - as of 5 of the pm, there is no sign of the gent. An old-hand here said that his reading was that salary was what you get paid to show up. To actually do something, that's "dash" - what we in the west would call a bribe, although that carries a negative connotation that is absent here.

Yesterday, the local airlines announced a price hike of 500% (I quote the national newspapers), effective immediately. Naturally, all previous tickets were invalid. So the one-way rate from Lagos to Abuja, which had been 504 Naira, now went to 2,600 Naira, one way. (Okay, mathematicians, what's wrong here?) Similar rate increases across the country. The raises were the result of a hike in airline fuel, from 1.05 naira per litre to 5.50 naira per litre. The government stepped in immediately and said the hikes were illegal, so all the airlines simply shut down until the issue is resolved. (Naira is currently around 32.5 to the dollar.)

In the meantime, the molue bus situation continues in typical Nigerian fashion. Several weeks ago, the safety commission and the police announced a series of minimum standards that the molue buses had to meet. This came hot on the heels of a number of accidents involving molue buses, resulting in a number of fatalities, including a particularly gruesome one where the driver escaped and a lot of people burned to death inside the bus, because it had come to rest against a wall, and that side had the only exits. Windows are too small to get through, and there are no emergency doors, so a number of people burned and suffocated. The owners said this was not possible in the time the government had given them, so on the first day of the new standards, there were no buses on the streets. Chaos. Major chaos. And of course, the small buses and the taxis had a field day, raising their rates to obscene levels. The disaster was so bad that the government was forced to grant a two-week extension on implementing the standards. That deadline expired last Monday, and again, most of the buses simply disappeared. So the police announced that they would not be implementing checks immediately, the owners said that unless the government gives them some financial assistance they won't be able to repair the buses, and as the buses have started to return to the streets, the police are, in fact, conducting spot checks and pulling buses over.

And the economy is quickly going to hell. Since I have been here, the Naira has dropped from 23 to a dollar to 34, and moving quickly toward 40. Teachers and striking civil workers were recently granted a 45% pay raise, retroactive to last June - imagine what that does to a local government budget, already tightly pressed? I have seen prices rise in the not quite two months I have been in Lagos. Mayonnaise was 76 a jar, now it's 88. Gin was 62, now it's 75. All across the board, and there is no sign of anything getting better before it gets much worse. One of the Embassy staff (U.S. Embassy) said at our house that the Nigerian government needs a reserve of 40 billion US dollars in order to function. (No one in the world is accepting Naira for anything but bookmarks, so all transaction on the world market have to take place in other "hard" currencies.) Currently, the Nigerian government has on hand around 1/2 billion dollars.

Some believe - and not without reason - that much of the current economic (and other) crisis is being engineered by President Babangida, the general who led the last coup, who is currently in power, and who is supposed to finally hand over power in August. Many believe that this is a plot to stimulate unrest and ultimately revolt among the people, thereby providing him (and the military) with the excuse for "stepping in", assuming broad powers (again) and postponing elections (again). There is virtually no fuel in the northern states, and now the shortage is starting to hit Lagos. I tried six stations, and none had fuel, even for cash "donations". I offered one attendant 50 Naira for himself to sell me 30 Naira of fuel, and he assured me that there was no fuel in the tanks. One tends to believe him under those circumstances. And diesel and propane have just gone up 100%.

So daily life in Lagos is not without its little excitements. And virtually everyone I talk to is sure that there is going to be major trouble in the not too distant future. I wonder if any of the national papers would be interested in signing on a Jesuit stringer before the revolution breaks out? Once the shooting starts, my retainer goes way up.

Miscellaneous

One of the Scholastics here tells the story of the time his grandfather went out with Coree - probably a corruption of Colonel Rhee, the tax collector for the province. He was, as you can imagine, not a well-loved man. But out he went, with these two young men and his dog, to go to a village and collect the taxes. He set up his table, and was collecting taxes, and Orobator's grandfather came to him and said, "Coree, let's get out of here. I don't like the sound of those drums."

Coree said nonsense, that was just the natives making music and dancing, and he went back to collecting his taxes. A little bit later, Orobator's grandfather came back to him and said again, "Coree, I really don't like the sound of those drums. They don't sound good." Coree listened, and he too felt that maybe the tone of the drumming was slightly ominous. So he packed up his materials, got on his horse and they set out.

When they were just outside the village, Coree looked around and asked, "Where is my dog?" Orobator's grandfather and the other man urged Coree to forget about the dog, but he said nonsense, and he went back to the village to get his dog.

No one ever saw Coree again.

Idle Thoughts: Nigerian oxymorons - Nigerian quality, or Nigerian craftsmanship.

I was reflecting today that I have rather come from one social extreme to another. In Canada, I was struck, especially when I first went to Toronto, at the presumption of honesty that governed most business dealings and simple sales transactions. Unlike New York, where the store owners' presumption is that you are a crook and you are at best going to steal something, at worst kill him and sell his children into slavery, in Toronto, they assume that you are a civilized, polite and above all honest person.

In Nigeria, the individuals are charming people, but the working presumption is that you try to get as much out of the other guy as possible. It's not cheating - it's more akin to the working philosophy of the film "The Sting". It's a little bit of art, a certain amount of technical skill, lots of practice, and that defines the universe in which a certain proportion of life goes on. At gas stations, for instance, I was intrigued when I first came to see that although a station might have two islands with three pumps on each, there would be at most one attendant at each island, using only a single pump. Frequently, only one pump of the six would be working. In the States, and in Canada, you stick a pump in a car and the attendant goes off to handle another customer. Here the presumption is that you can't leave the pump unattended for a second - so everything slows down and we all wait while the one attendant does his thing.

Back to a recurring theme, that the act of doing the job is in the eyes of most completion in itself. What the job actually turns out like has no bearing on the case at all. Our cook, Anthony, when he did the laundry, was the perfect example of that. He put the clothes in the tub, added soap, stirred them around, rinsed them and hung them out to dry. They were washed. It would never occur to him to examine the clothes themselves and see if they were clean or not. Painters are only concerned with putting paint on the wall - or appropriately designated surface. That, in the process, they also get paint on the floor or ceiling or other painted surfaces or furniture - this is outside their sphere of recognition. They literally don't see it, and if you try to point this out to them, you are venturing down a dusky road marked "Frustration Lane".

Cars and other assorted vehicles. The largest portion of vehicles on the road come from other countries. Not that they are simply produced in other countries, they are rejects from other countries. Truly. Each week, thousands of "used" cars come into Nigeria via the port of Lagos, many of them shipped here because they are no longer roadworthy in european countries. Many are "winterized", which causes immediate problems here. And all are sold at exorbitant prices. When Sweden went from right to left hand drive, she had fleets of buses and other vehicles that she literally couldn't give away to other countries. One of the Baltic states tried to negotiate a package whereby Sweden would give the vehicles away (which she was willing to do) and also pay the shipping. That was more than she was willing to do, and the Baltic state didn't want them badly enough to pay for shipping. In steps Nigeria, who not only pays for shipping, but also pays for the vehicles.

Most houses of any size have a wall, and a gate, and a "night watch", someone who lives in a little shack just inside the gate, and whose job is minimal security, including locking and unlocking the gate. Paranoia? Not at all. Robbery is a regular occurrence here, and house robbery is now starting to take second place to car robbery. Not simply stealing your car, but stealing your car from you while you are in it. Every car has the license number etched into all the windows and all the door handles - in fact, into every part of the car. Rather changes the aesthetic balance, but it does make it a little trickier to re-sell the stolen part. The more luxurious (or newer) the car, the more desirable, and the more in jeopardy. Several people (in very nice cars) have been killed. Don't worry - no one in their right mind would want one of the mission cars. Not only do we have "Jesuit Fathers" and "Catholic Mission" painted in large (unattractive) black letters all over all our cars, but the cars themselves are scraped and banged and dented and not very appealing. They do run well - but as with most car thieves, appearance is more important than performance. (Too forestall smart comments, let me observe that the state of our cars is less a reflection on Jesuit drivers than it is normal driving conditions in Lagos.)

Tiffany called today - twice, actually, since NITEL cut her off. This is the young lady I mentioned in a previous communication who is planning on visiting me from the Netherlands. She is having problems getting a visa - surprise, surprise - although she did manage to get the forms from the embassy in the Netherlands. But she has to mail the forms and her passport to Washington. So I gave her a friend's address in DC who might be able to help her out. She said she would like to stay for a month - to visit me and see the country. That may get modified when she sees the country. She also said she wants to visit Benin and Togo. I started to suggest that she check with the U.S. Embassy about safety and situations, since Togo is still under martial law and there is a fair amount of shooting going on, but we were cut off the second time before I got that out. She is still shooting for the 1st week in April; I have sent along a warning via my Washington friend about my sudden U.S. travel, which may change her plans as well - we'll see. Bill said that my letter on the Jesuit letterhead, and her putting down that she is coming to see Rev. Fr. Sheehan could make things more difficult. Nothing like a little harassment, apparently.

Miscellaneous Thoughts
Lady Macbeth complex - Nigeria is a great place for people with a compulsion about washing their hands. I find I am washing my hands eight or ten times a day - because they need it! This is a dirty place - to get ventilation, you have windows on both sides of the house. Even with screens, there is a lot of dust that gets in. Much of the world is not paved, and during the harmattan, there is more dust in the air than air.

What this does to electronic equipment still has to be seen. I am trying to figure out just how damaging it is to my computer to have ants inside it. Yup, one sees the little darlings crawling into the keys, or out of the keys, and the other day I looked up at my screen and there was an ant - inside the screen! I tried chasing him with the cursor of the mouse, but it was an obvious case of two different worlds not intersecting at any known point in the universe. I am thinking of changing the shape of the cursor to a little ant, just so the guys inside won't feel lonely or neglected.

Did I mention that we have/had rats? I was sitting in the little porcelain chapel the other day, reflecting on the passing of the universe, and happened to glance down at my feet - where there was a stubby little grey body looking up at me with curious interest. Sang-froid is not always my best thing, and I rather jumped. So did he, and disappeared. (Here they call it a rabbit; what they call a rat is a long black affair, reminiscent of a stoat. Anyone who doesn't know what a stoat is has obviously not read Wind in the Willows and you should go out and do that right now.) I immediately investigated the local options for disposing of grey visitors, and having rejected the paste that you spread on cardboard and in which they get stuck, and the poison that kills them and lets them rot behind the wall, and the trap that is supposed to (but seldom does) break their little necks, I chose a formula that slowly kills them, and once introduced to their system, absorbs all the liquid from their bodies, leaving little mummified corpses behind your walls. The idea, of course, is that the odiferous reminders are virtually eliminated. I am pleased to report that after several days of activity at the "feeding station", all action seems to have ceased, and I can only assume that rat heaven now has several new inhabitants. Deo gratias. The box says that there is a sexual hormone mixed in with this stuff, so the scent gets them excited, and they eat more. It is also slow-acting, so they take it back with the scent, and it stimulates other rats (if - yecch- there are are other rats) to also come and eat. Sex sells, even in the world of the Nigerian rat.

On the Noah's ark front, I can also report, perhaps having something to do with the onset of the rainy season - the very gentlest and lightest of onsets - that we have a couple of lizards in the house. They were not invited in, but they are very quiet and subdued guests, and as long as they eat the bugs and leave the human inhabitants alone, we are prepared to share our living space.

Speaking of living (I love these subtle segues from one topic to another), the downstairs living space is really very pleasant these days. The curtains are up, the ties are in place, the furniture has been rearranged to provide more space and air and circulation, the stereo is now accessible and gets used a lot, the new paint and curtains make the living room a very pleasant space in which to be. The floor is clean, the chapel is (although not completed) infinitely more pleasant, and the house is already assuming a much more welcoming tone.

Undoubtedly, this all means that I will be shortly going somewhere else.

There is a routine. Every week, a Jesuit dinner. Mass at the Pacelli school, lots of visitors, the usual errands and cooking and cleaning around the house. I have been asked to preach a retreat at CKC parish, and am going to sing at a student party at the University of Lagos. I was approached to do a Day of Recollection for a Marian group at the Aguda parish, and an 8-day retreat for some sisters, but those will both be pre-empted by my American wanderings. I have seen my 3-month anniversary in Nigeria come and go, and it is with, come se dice, "mixed emotions". I am, as of this writing, still without an assignment, or even the hint of an assignment, even a guess at an assignment, so I have been unable to even do anything as prosaic as start to learn a language. There are three major languages in Nigeria, and I am unwilling to make a major commitment without some sense that I will be around to make use of it. And there is always the possibility of being sent to Ghana, which is a whole different language system as well.

So I cook and clean and have redecorated the living room and the chapel. All that training in biblical studies so I can haggle with local merchants over the price of green vegetable and agonize over matching the curtain fabric with the new upholstery for the chairs. Hmmm -consolation and desolation. Guess where John is?

Actually, it's seldom all one or the other, and while life is not all beer and skittles, there are some beer and skittles involved. I do help out at local churches, and have done some talks and retreats and private counseling, and I have been useful to the mission and the house, and I have even managed to lose 15 or 20 pounds (my scale is more than a little erratic), so life in Nigeria is not without its little accomplishments.

And the decorating has been successful. I got a donor to give us the curtains and installation, and the chairs, so the actual cash cost has been minimal. The carpentry work here is so cheap it almost doesn't count. We had a delightful folding stool that looks good, is comfortable and collapses easily for storage. We gave it to a Benin carpenter, and he is making six for us. Cost - around $1.80 apiece. I don't know how he even gets the wood for that price. We plan on tipping him outrageously.)

Return to Chronology

For those who like to keep track of dates, I went to see the doctor on Monday evening, the 22nd of March. Bill came back from Abuja on Thursday the 25th, with my resident visa neatly stenciled into my passport, at which point I made the plane reservations. On Friday, the 26th I returned my room to its original state - well, I didn't put all the dirt back, but I did crate up the piano and put the bed back in and leave a couple of drawers empty for visiting other people. In the late afternoon I went over to CKC, where I gave a talk on prayer and penance for about an hour, and then answered questions. Said Mass, preached - this was part of the 4-day retreat the parish was running - and right at communion, the power went out, so the candles became much more functional than decorative. I immediately took off for the airport, and the flight to Rome and then to New York.

I have a gift - I admit it, I have a gift. Thousands of people make trips from Lagos to Rome without adventure, without mishap, without anything extraordinary occurring. Somehow, however, when I enter a particular universe, there are shimmers and tremors and vibrations in the metaphysical structure, and TARA - another adventure!

First, however, a word about the Lagos airport. Those who travel have informed me on several occasions that at airports and embassies all over the world there are notices warning the odd traveller that the Lagos airport is considered the most dangerous in the world, at least as regards security. (And if the article in the newspaper that I read the day I was leaving is to be believed, the situation in the control tower is not markedly different from that at the security gates.) My own experience this night would certainly seem to support these warnings.

Let me introduce you to the process of leaving Nigeria. Not the major pain in the posterior that is the obtaining of the visa and the re-entry permit and the stamp from alien registration. No, none of these, just the "What Do We Do When We Go to the Airport?" On arrival, one fights one's way through a crowd of individuals determined to help you with your bag. For a fee. Once inside the airport, you proceed with your ticket and passport to a little booth where a uniformed individual examines the ticket and examines the passport and examines you and gives you a stamp that lets you move on to the next station. Which is checking your luggage. Long lines, slow moving - because each suitcase is questioned and examined (sometimes only externally, sometimes in excruciating internal detail) by individuals in ugly military uniforms. That hurdle passed, you then fill out the landing card, and proceed to seat selection. More lines. Then on to pay the airport tax - 450 Naira, or $20. Foreigners have to pay in dollars; residents and those with resident visas get to choose. Then to passport control, where your papers are again examined and further stamped. More lines. Then to a security man who asks you where you are going and why and what are you taking with you. Then to another man who asks you how much Nigerian money you are taking with you, and who not- so-subtly tries to elicit a bribe. (There are very strict controls about how much Nigerian money you can take out with you. As though it had any value outside of the country whatsoever except perhaps as a souvenir or child's plaything.)

Then one comes to what those of us who travel recognize as a security gate. X-ray machine, metal detector, individuals carrying automatic weapons at the ready. Again, long lines. Approach Fr. Sheehan - dressed in his travelling uniform of long white soutane, Tilly's safari hat, photographer's vest with more pockets than Joseph's coat had colors, and computer bag draped casually over shoulder. A vision, in anyone's book. The guard told me to come through the metal detector. I pointed out that I was carrying a computer and he said come ahead. (Turned out the x-ray machine for luggage wasn't working. Why was I not surprised?) Naturally, the machine went off. The guard and I had a little chat - I told him where I was going, and where I lived, he told me what church he went to, and asked me to pray for him, and off I went.

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that I - who am normally given to unusually detailed descriptions of stuff - have mentioned nothing about emptying my pockets or turning on the computer to demonstrate that it was not packed full of explosives or hand weapons. That is because none of that took place. After all, I was a "Reverend Father" and so did not have to submit to the indignities of being searched or the having the credentials of my computer questioned. I want to tell you, knowing full well that anyone can walk into a religious goods shop and buy one of these white cassocks, I would have been much more comfortable had I had to empty each pocket.

Anyway, off to Rome. Uneventful flight - little snack, little movie (through which I slept), little nap (for those not already asleep) and we touched down in Rome around 4:30 of the am. To wait for a connecting flight scheduled to depart at noon. Again, security procedures left me a little startled. "Buona sera, padre, com'esta?" And again, a wave through the security gate carrying the computer. This time they did ask me to open the computer case - but I did not have to actually turn it on. They did not wave the metal detecting wand over my somewhat rumpled body or ask me to open my pockets or make me walk through the gate minus the computer. Abu Nadal members, take note.

Announcement: The wonders of the Rome airport can be thoroughly and completed explored in approximately 45 minutes. Leaving the passenger with a 7 hour layover lots of times to meditate on life and international travel and the many possibilities as to why exactly the left eye seems occasionally to wink out. So to speak. I did call one of my Jesuit friends a bit later in the day to chat, and he told me that the English speaking Jesuits were gathering that night for Mass and drinks, and then the New Yorkers would be going out for dinner together. I told him to greet everyone for me, and I went back to observing all the people who had flights leaving earlier than mine.

The flight was scheduled to start boarding at 11:15, so I started watching out for the check-in person around 10:30. I had a confirmed reservation, but no boarding pass or seat assignment, and since I hate sitting next to the window, I am always antsy until I get my aisle seat confirmed. No one showed up until almost 11, by which time there were a surprising number of people standing around the desk. I was not raised and trained in New York for nothing, so I managed to be in the front, and mine was the second ticket she dealt with. I was a little surprised when she took the ticket, and did not return a boarding pass.

To make a long and unpleasant story somewhat more manageable, the airlines - Alitalia, for those who like to keep track of airlines to avoid - had combined two flights into one, thereby destroying reservations made months in advance, disrupting smoking and non- smoking preferences, and turning the travel plans of many into so much pastafazool.

There was a lot of pushing and Italian expostulating, hand waving and multi-lingual interjecting. At the end of which, there were ten extraordinarily unhappy people standing watching a plane being pushed out of gate 32 on its way to New York. Among which group I found myself. I was about to have an extra night in Rome, courtesy of Alitalia Airlines.

This opus is magnus enough, but let me say, I was underwhelmed with this airline from the git-go. In our little group was a family of six - imagine leaving a family of six, with small children. Alitalia did exactly what was required by international convention, and that most grudgingly, and not one bit more. They paid for the room and transport to and from, but we had to force several issues, like making phone calls to alert people about the missed flight. Our legal right, all spelled out, but it took about twenty minutes to get that admitted to. No provision for clothes - all the luggage was on its way to Manhattan - no consideration or concern. I would strongly suggest to anyone travelling to Italy - one of my favorite countries in the world - that there are a number of airlines that fly to this country, and I would recommend any of them above Alitalia.

The plane left at noon, or shortly thereafter, and it took us until after 4pm before we were actually at the hotel. Now I had arrived at 4:30 in the am, so I was a little testy. Also more than a little aromatic. I had called the Jesuits, however, and so after a shower and a sandwich (I also hadn't eaten since leaving Lagos) I took a cab into Rome, and joined my brother Jesuits for Mass and dinner. It was great fun, since I knew a lot of the men there besides the New Yorkers, several of whom were more than a little startled when I showed up. Not only did I get caught up on what people were doing, there and around the world, I learn something every time I go to Rome. We were walking to a little place for dinner - briskly on my part, for I was dressed for Lagos, not for a very cold and windy Rome - and one of the Jesuits asked me if I knew about the church we were passing. It was right by the Trevi fountain, and although I racked my brains, several seconds of intense memory cell searching didn't produce anything. That, I was informed, is the church in which the internal organs of all the Popes are kept. (After they die, of course.) I wondered if my touristical leg was being pulled here, but I was assured that in this church there are jars in which the internal organs of the Popes - which are removed as part of the embalming process - are stored for posterity.

So at least I had a nice dinner in Rome and a pleasant evening in a nice hotel. With my luck, though, it turned out that this was the evening they do Daylight Savings in Europe, so all the clocks were turned ahead. Yup, the one night I get to sleep in a hotel, I lose an hour!

Finally, Sunday, back to the airport, back through security - and this time I did have to turn on the computer, although none of my pockets were checked - and onto the airplane. Uneventful flight back, through Customs quickly (no luggage, remember?), Fr. Jack Ryan there to meet me, a quick game of hide and seek with the suitcase people, and on to Manhattan. Another shower, locked up the clothes I had been wearing since Friday so they would not escape, and dinner at the Jesuit residence. I was supposed to check into the hospital Sunday night, so I packed a few things - in New York, they tell you to leave your valuables at home, so they don't get stolen at the hospital, so I left my wallet and credit cards in my room - and went to check in.

Those of you who have been patients in hospitals know about check- in procedures and all the different people who get to ask you intimate and personal questions and do intimate and personal things to your body. Those who haven't had this experience, I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise for you, so we move on.

I had a roommate - Felix something, everyone called him Phil - delightful guy, had been 14 days when I got there with a leg infection. He knew everybody on the staff, so I got a great introduction to life at Lennox Hill.

The Solution

I remember when I was young, I used to love the Ellery Queen mystery novels, because there was always one point at which the story stopped, and a little notice appeared that the reader had been given all the clues necessary to solve the mystery, and from that point on, the solution would be presented. For those who have turned from the early pages to the back of the book to know quickly what the result of all this testing was - this is the place. And thus, I will - as they say - cut to the chase.

I was in the hospital from Sunday night until Friday morning, and had an echo-cardiogram, a full eye exam, a CAT scan, various sonograms, and donated a whole lot of blood for study and tests. At the end of which, there was/is good news and bad news. The good news is that everything seems in grand shape. Blood vessels wide open, heart pumping like a champion, eyes as good as can be expected in someone my age - all good. The bad news, of course, is that no one is able to say exactly why my eye starting behaving as though it were expecting a patch. The current sense is that I have been suffering from migraine occlusion. The same series of dimly understood factors that produce migraine headaches in some people seem to be producing a limited loss of vision in yours truly. Treatable, and much less serious than are some of the other possibilities. John, the one-eyed Jesuit? Not yet.

So Friday I returned to the Jesuit residence - to discover that in my absence, someone had gotten into the room and had taken all my American money, driver's license and credit cards. Welcome home.

So - here I am in Manhattan. I have not talked with anyone in anything resembling authority, but at this point, my guess is that I will be here for at least a couple of weeks. There are some things I can and should do for the mission while I am here, and a couple of things I should also do for myself. I will certainly visit my mother and sister in Maryland, and hope to be able to spend a few days doing some research in the library at Princeton Theological. I am staying at the Jesuit residence at 83rd Street - Phone (212) 288-6200 for the switchboard, (212) 606-6934 which rings in my room. If you have not received all 4 of the previous mailings, let me know and I will supply what you have been missing. There seem to have been some breakdowns in the distribution system, so I am mailing this edition to everyone on the list myself.

The future? I have no idea. I have been asked to sing at St. Ignatius Church on Park Avenue for Good Friday, but nothing beyond that. I have not even heard grapevine rumors about possible work in Nigeria. While I love the country, my volunteering was for a specific work which longer exists, and my experience there suggests that there are few avenues of work that need my particular experience and skills. On the other hand, there may be plans in process about which I know nothing. I assume there will be conversations before I return.

So although I would guess I will be here until around May 1st, you might call here only to be told that Fr. Sheehan is somewhere else. Ain't it the truth? I would hope to get to see some of you during my unexpected return, or at least have the immense pleasure of hearing your tones, dulcet and otherwise. Until whenever, know that I will continue to remember you when I pray, and that this letter contains not only an abundance of words, but a major hug.