Ride for Polio Day 12 - D crazy hour, losing Willem in Badagry

Ever since I tagged along on this journey I had acted more like the unofficial photographer, taking and inspiring multiple photographs at every opportunity along the way. I had mostly accomplished this using my camera and black berry, using the camera more on Monday and the early part of Tuesday since there was no MTN service in Togo and I would therefore be unable to update my black berry contacts with the photographs and proceedings. Thankfully MTN was very much available once we crossed into Benin Republic late Tuesday morning and I promptly switched to using the BB as my paparazzi tool with less frequent use of the camera.

Having taken quite a number of photographs over the past few days and engaging in an endless series of feed-back sessions on BB with my friends back in Lagos who were eager to find out what was going on at every moment, I settled more and more into my role and was even confident enough to take a few dodgy shots with my BB at some border crossings and check points (very much against the law o, although I still can’t comprehend the rationale for this obnoxious law).

So just after crossing the Seme border and approaching Badagry at steady pace, I had my camera focused on Willem and shooting away. Just then he pulled up behind a truck and another vehicle and there was a pedestrian standing right in the middle of the road and talking to him obviously thrilled by his quest. I pressed my camera shutter button to capture this interesting sight and just then I looked up and realised we were right in the middle of a Customs check point. An officer who had noticed this ‘impudent’ act promptly walked up to my side of the vehicle and asked to see the camera. I reluctantly gave him at Friday’s urging and proceeded to step out of the car. Friday screamed out to Willem to get him to stop but the great protector had moved on as the traffic cleared. I asked Friday to move on and catch up with Willem while I deal with the situation but he was having none of it so we parked and came out of the car.

The officials then proceeded to give us the story about how it was offensive to use a camera at checkpoints and that they were going to at the minimum seize the memory card and give us the camera. I panicked at the thought of losing all my wonderful photographs from the last few days and   fervently explained to them how we were on a quest for Polio and had to capture several strategic moments on celluloid. We also swore to them that there were no shots capturing the officers or indicating a check point and one of the reasonable officers decided to put this to the test by scanning through all the photographs. As he pressed through picture after picture, I did a double take in my head to reassure myself that I didn’t have any such contraband images on my camera and I was so thankful that I had used my BB more throughout the trip because I would have definitely been sure to have some defaulting pictures if I had used the camera more. Needless to say I intuitively and discreetly reached for my BB in my pocket to navigate it from picture folder to home screen just in case they decided they wanted to search us.

I was even more terrified because I was sure that if the officers had found even one photograph of any border or checkpoint from Ghana to Lagos, they would not only detain the camera but us as well which would most certainly delay or deter Willem from achieving his cycling quest at this 11^th hour.

After viewing every single photograph from Ghana through Togo and Benin, the officer was convinced we were clean and handed the camera back to us with a touching sermon about how we must not do this again. Friday was obviously flustered by this time as he had vainly tried to explain to an officer who asked us what Polio was and what exactly we were doing only to receive more stick from another officer when he informed them we had raised over 100 wheelchairs for polio victims. He just couldn’t understand how law enforcement officers could be so impervious to reason. Thank God for the one reasonable officer who had decided to give us a chance.

We promptly set off to catch up with Willem as Friday hit full throttle in no time. He went into this angry tirade about how the law enforcement officers were a bunch of ‘no-goods’, even daring to challenge him as he politely tried to explain our position and purpose. I just silently listened and nodded in agreement. The truth is I was half expecting him to have a go at me for being so stupid to have a camera up at a checkpoint considering he had once warned me about this at the Togo/Benin border. He was so angry in his tirade on the officers and I was quite surprised that nothing had been said about the root cause of the delay.

Soon enough we discovered that Willem was still nowhere in sight even after driving about 3 minutes at full speed to catch up with him. We were suddenly at a round-about with the option of either turning right off the express road or going straight on. We asked some Okada riders if they had seen any white man on a bicycle to which they answered in the negative. We then asked for directions to Whispering Palms which was our final destination for the day and they indicated that while we could go both ways, we would be better off turning right and away from the express.

 Friday was however more than convinced we had not passed Willem yet and decided to do a u-turn and head back for the check point only to change his mind half way through and make another u-turn at a filling station half way up the road. He drove into the station and asked the patron if he had seen Willem. Apparently they had stopped to say hi to the attendants at that station on their way to Ghana and we were therefore trusting that they would have noticed if Willem had passed since he had picked up a habit of giving a shout out at all such familiar places throughout the return ride from Ghana. They told us they hadn’t seen him but promised to let him know that we were on the look-out for him in the event that he came by.

Friday and I were therefore faced with some critical decision making. We could either drive back to the check point and face those terrorists again or proceed to catch up with Willem who might be so far ahead by this time and worried sick about what had happened to us, especially as his phone was with us. We considered the fact that the distance from the check point to the filling station was too short for Willem to not have come by after all this time and that meant he had somehow passed the station without their notice and had proceeded far ahead. With this in mind, we hit the express and sped to the round-about again and this time turned right off the express after reconfirming the directions from the locals.

Thus began our long and never ending torturous journey into the heart of Badagry on the search for both Willem and Whispering Palms, whichever came first. But as we moved deeper and deeper, requiring directions from the locals at regular intervals, we realised that Willem couldn’t have taken this route and may have gone straight on the express at the round-about. It was too late to turn back and our only hope was to try to get to the Whispering Palms early enough and if we didn’t find Willem, we’d then work our way back to the express through the alternate  route and hopefully catch him on the way.

By this time, we had lost touch with Willem for about 30 minutes, perhaps the longest time he had cycled without his support vehicle and I couldn’t help but blame my paparazzi self for everything. I had come in to ruin this adventure and a man’s historical quest right on the verge of its completion, needless to say both camera and BB were sitting idly like scourges in between my laps and never to be used till further notice. My head was filled with conflicting emotions and my tummy churned with acid. The optimistic adventurer in me told me Willem was okay and probably excited to be alone for a while and that we would eventually be laughing about this whole thing at day’s end and including it in his daily blog as another interesting highlight of his trip. After all what was the worst that could happen? It wasn’t like he didn’t know where whispering palm was, he had chosen the place before hand, worst case we would go back the alternate route and find him, that is if he wasn’t already in the hotel having a cold beer and waiting for us. On the other hand I couldn’t shake away the nagging feeling of dread that something had hopelessly gone wrong or was about to. What if he had gotten fed up of cycling on without us or waiting for us on the express and decided to turn back to the check point and then not finding us anywhere on the route since we had diverted, became too tired to make it back (bear in mind he had been cycling about 6 hours already and clearly exhausted), or that he had been hit by a motorist signalling the end of the dream, or had somehow taken the same route we took and got lost......hell we could be going round and round in circles, chasing each others’ tails till nightfall. And all the while I couldn’t help but think it was all my fault and the whole world was going to blame for being the Judas of our band.

The longer our journey was, the more agitated Friday got with the whole thing; the check point officers, the long distance between Whispering Palms and the express road and every other thing that is wrong with Nigeria...everything except me, thankfully. Friday is a very cheerful and exciting guy to be with but trust me I didn’t fancy being at the receiving end of his angst.

We finally got to Whispering Palms and I can’t remember being happier at arriving at any other destination in my life. The time was almost 1.30pm, over an hour after we lost contact with Willem and the sinking feeling promptly returned once we were told that no white rider had been sighted.

We had just commenced the long journey back to the express and were already contemplating the alternative route ahead of us when Friday exclaimed...’See Willem!’ I looked ahead and could only see an Okada man with a passenger and for a fleeting moment I feared the worst – Willem on Okada, what had happened? – But then I realised it wasn’t him. Friday again said the words ’Its Willem!’ and though I still couldn’t see him, I can tell you those were the sweetest two words I had heard all day. After squinting and squinting and being accused by Friday of being half-blind, I finally saw the great protector in all his glory cycling up and down the rough muddy road towards us. It was my Eureka moment and I had to restrain myself from jumping out the car to give him a hug, instead Friday made a U-turn and followed him slowly like he had always done through the past 12 days. It was as if nothing had even happened, business as usual. Ha!

Willem stopped to ask if the place was still very far as he was obviously on his last legs. We encouraged him with the sweet words ‘not much longer’ and it was with great relief that we all bundled at the Whispering palms gate less than a minute later. As they opened and we drove in, I could feel a twinkle in my eye and tickle in my mind....all’s well that ends well and I would indeed be writing an interesting story with a happy ending later that day. And of course it wasn’t until one hour later when we were having cold beer and delicious Suya that I was confident enough to bring out my paparazzi tools and resume photographic duties.

P.S. It turns out that Willem cycled only a few metres ahead of the check point and stopped by the waters just after the bridge to wait for us. It was no more than 500 metres away but we missed him because we drove by with such ferocious angry speed after the ordeal with the officers and were in too much of a hurry to catch up with our friend. After a while, he got tired of waiting and cycled back to the post and they told him we had been long gone. He decided to cycle on, got to the filling station where he was told that we had come to look for him and had gone ahead up the express on our quest to find him. He moved on to the roundabout and went straight up the express, not taking the right turn like we did. His was a much straight forward albeit comparably long route and he quite enjoyed the ride without the support vehicle save for a few testy moments where he was in danger of being hit off the road. He couldn’t imagine that we had gotten so worried about him being lost when we finally met again. I guess the optimistic adventurer in me had been quite right after all.