Saturday 24 February 2007

All too typically Nigerian

Assaulted on the bus

I happened on a bus journey from Shoreditch through Tower Bridge, though I have now noticed, if my journey involves more than one interchange I hail a black cab.

So, sitting down I found there wasn't much space for my thigh length but I managed all the same, the journey would only be for a few minutes. As I adjusted myself, a lady boarded the bus and chose to sit beside me as she plumbed herself down with her imitation Louis Vuitton bag hitting me in the arm.

Not a word of apology as she pulled her bag away - I would surmise low quality bags induce such poor social manners.

Hardly had she settled, her mobile phone went off in a happy-clappy gospel tone with an ear-drum shattering 80 decibels, mercifully, she answered the phone and began a conversion that could have read 120 decibels in an accent only too recognisable to those who know.

Sentence constructions only typical of Anglophone West Africa, using "locate" for find and so on, my ears ache.

Church titles a-plenty

She was going to a church meeting, where a pastor was to meet another pastor but the former had gone to pick up the apostle and the brother should help the sister get into the free parking space - well, we had a story painted to our hearing, the irritation of it all began to feel like a comedy in its delivery.

The sister apparently required counselling and had been waiting outside the church gates for almost an hour because entering the car parking space would have required a payment. Sometimes, I think people would get better help from secular therapy than spiritualists who feed voyeuristically on matters that require more determined activity than a surgical Jesus and Amen chorus.

As she conversed, another Yoruba conversation began on another phone and I thought he asked for a second name five times also at the top of his voice, oblivious of all surrounding him.

Annoyance in Diaspora

Then as I was getting off, the bravado of one portly man who was trying to getting {this should have been get as highlighted by police's comments} the attention of a lady on the bus with babe, babe, babe - un-chivalrous to the extreme - I was about the ask the lady if she was having trouble with the man.

As I get all the brickbats for this write-up, what I had witnessed was all typically Nigerian - Nigerians in London and these were not integrating themselves in such a way as to be considerate and reasonable in public, I cannot suffer this for too long - back to the black cab, at least, most of the time, the driver only speaks when he is spoken to.

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