25 Sep 2008 |
|
| ABA: More Nigerian Adventures in Pictures
On September 15, 2008, I went to Aba in Abia State.
My destination was the Ariaria International Market. The “International” in the Ariaria International Market truly meant something in the days when Aba was a giant among Nigerian markets. Traders came from Ghana, Cameroon, Liberia, Togo, and from even Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Ivory Coast, to buy goods for resale in those countries. Some Europeans considered it a tourist attraction. Ariaria shone and sparkled. Some Igbo and Ghana musicians attempted to capture the vibrant spirit of Ariaria in many still memorable songs. Young school children, including me, went to the market on group learning trips, which we called “excursions”. Oh well, enough of the good old days. I will stop here and show you the pictorial documentary of my adventure. But while these pictures tell one story, I am compelled by a sense of balance and fairness to acknowledge that there are still nuggets of brightness, windows of starry sparkles, and individual monuments of shining beacons, inside the Ariaria market. Why did my camera not capture those bright, shining, starry, lonely beacons? Well, all the pictures that I posted below were taken of the roads and shops along the roads without the flashlight of the camera which would have exposed what I was doing. But the brighter spots were inside the relatively dark and crowded little shops organized in clusters according to types of goods. For example, the jewelry shops were located in one area, clothes shops, electronic shops, shoe shops and so on were located in separate areas. Get this: as soon as I went inside and took the first picture of a shop (a shoe shop), and because these shops were in relatively dark clusters, the flashlight of my camera went off and instantly there were mumbles of protesting voices: “Obu photo ka nwoke a sere anyi?(did that man just take our picture?)”; “A hukwara m flash ahu (I saw that flash too)”; “Onye gwara ya sebe photo (who told him to take the photo?), Gini ka o g’eji photo eme? (what will he do with the photo?) and other bla, bla, bla, bla. As they spoke and surveyed me, I felt and saw the rising negative energy, a sense of self-preservation counseled me to keep moving, very fast, until I was out of that location and turned the corner into the clothes section. From there I limited the rest of my adventure to roaming the inside of other locations of the shops for sightseeing purposes only, my camera tucked deep inside my pocket. I no wan die. ---- Dirt, mud, flood water, squalor, dilapidation, everywhere.  ---- Children, motor bikes, and pedestrians, moving in muds as if these were normal conditions.  ---- This picture does not need description. Filthy.  ---- Look at this picture. Why would shop owners allow so much dirt to accumulate on the top coverings of their shops so much that weeds and grass started to grow on them and no one cared to clean them up?  ----  ---- Weeds, grasses, growing on top of people's dilapidated shops and they just leave them there. If you are waiting for the government to repair the roads, must you also wait for the government to clean your house?  ---- Squalid conditions that made me cringe with shame. Definitely not the Ariaria of my days of childhood.  ---- More grasses on top of people's shop rooftops. Numerous shops were like this.  ---- This one looked like decorative flowers and see how nonchalant these people appear. Is there any doubt that these weeds have been growing there for a while and that the roof is about to cave in?  ----  ---- This Mallam was blocking my way to the "Food is Ready" shop. I wondered if the jewelries and trinkets he is selling were made in Aba or some faraway country.... ---  -- ---  -- Man with big smooth head like me, obviously contemplating some philosophical theory, looks away as I took pictures.  -- --  --- What exactly are these police and traffic officers doing?  --- -- Right in the market, motor vehicles wade through potholes and mud water.  --- This one self pass me well well. I no fit describe am at all.  -- Grass must grow and be left to look like decoration.  -- I wanted to buy female shoes for NVS women, especially Miss ....  --- __________________ have you laughed today?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
# 
Your Comments
Please make The Square an enjoyable experience for everyone by refraining from gratuitous ad-hominem contributions, defamatory comments and off-topic posting. Such posts will be removed.