I’ve had the privilege of working on MAC teams that were based all over South Africa, including Namibia and Botswana, but Nigeria was most definitely very different from all of them. I have travelled to Nigeria nine times over the past two and a half years, and my first visit there taught me a great deal of things. When I arrived there for the first time, I was absolutely shocked at what the airport looked like, and how it was managed, or rather, not managed. The rules for engagement at an airport in South Africa don’t apply as you travel north of our borders. Outside of our country, you have to make sure that you don’t lose your place in a queue, by taking part in friendly shoving and pushing your way to the boarding desk. Needless to say, if you don’t learn to be slightly less polite very quickly, you will have to deal with staying behind more often than not. We arrived, disembarked the plane, walked to the passport control counters by means of a number of unmarked passages, simply by following the crowd. Having arrived at the downward escalators to the customs desks, the first realisation struck me.

There was a very small hall at the bottom of the escalators leading towards the customs desks, which was not large enough to accommodate all the people arriving from South Africa, which means that there is a risk of the escalator “off-loading” passengers on top of other passengers, already in the waiting area, simply because there is a physical space constraint. Lesson: one has to be very observant and wary to ensure that you don’t end up with a completely unnecessary safety related incident in a foreign country. Having eventually exited customs and passport control, the next challenge was to collect baggage from the only working carrousel in the airport building. After about another 30 minutes, eventually, our baggage started to appear from deep below the airport building. A relief to say the least! We were then greeted and welcomed by an entire team of Chevron personnel on the other side of the baggage collection carrousel, who indicated to us that they would take care of our luggage. We piled the whole team’s luggage onto the trolleys and off we went. I also loaded my laptop bag, which was brimming with documentation needed for meetings during our stay, onto the trolley.

Trying to physically exit the airport building was the next challenge. Imagine a sea of people crowding on the outside of automatic glass sliding doors, through which you need to shove your way clear to get to the bus that would take us to our hotel. Tosay the least, it took a complete change of mental model to get out of there. Walking as fast as I could, I still lost the rest of my party in the hustle and bustle of life around Lagos airport around 01:30 in the morning! This of course led me to believe that I had been caught by the oldest trick in the book: someone offering to take your baggage at the airport in a foreign country, just to realise later on that it was a con artist, and that everything is now gone! My relief was great a few minutes later when I saw the waving hand of the very friendly Chevron employee who took my bags from me when we arrived!

On subsequent trips I was always greeted by the same friendly face, wanting to know how my trip was and how my family is doing. Lesson: sometimes you need to trust, even in a foreign country that you are now visiting for the first time; the catch is to decide when to trust and when to listen to your intuition saying “No Way!” This judgement is only obtained through experience, and that makes it nerve wracking.

The most difficult thing to get used to however when travelling to Nigeria specifically, is the fact that there is no freedom of movement allowed due to the security situation in the country. This means, in practice, that you arrive at your hotel, and get transported to the office complex every morning to do your day’s work, simply to be carted back to the hotel again. The gates to the hotel are then locked, and you are not allowed to go anywhere without pre-arranged armed guards and a so-called “chase vehicle” to accompany your party. Needless to say, this organising of all the logistics is a task so great that it almost defeats the purpose. The effects of cabin fever when visiting for two weeks or longer, gets you to go to great lengths to just get out for a while! Lesson: learn to appreciate what you take for granted in your own country; there are places in this world where concepts like freedom in general, freedom of movement, flexibility, and rights, have a completely different meaning than what we are
used to.

The traffic in Nigeria is a story all on its own! It is something I will elaborate on next time we talk! When you travel north into Africa, ensure you take all reasonable medical precautions and preparations, but most of all, gather as much real and reliable information as you can about your destination beforehand. This will ensure that your first trip is less of a nightmare than mine to Nigeria. Don’t, however, not travel north because of all the horror stories you hear: there is a lot to learn, a lot to see, and it will surely teach us all a lot about the way we live life down south, and about “the other half” living in Africa under very different circumstances. It is different from travelling to other well known destinations, but worth your while most definitely.

Bon Voyage!