Borders are interesting concepts. Like a magnetic field they push or pull and ensure some order to what else could have been conceived as chaos. Unlike a magnetic field it is, however, people and not poles that are being either kept in or pushed out. Further, while the magnetic field uses invisible forces to exercise its influence the power of a border is ultimately the force of violence. The reason why we wait in line to be allowed into a country is essentially the knowledge that one group of people (known as the citizens) has decided to use force against anyone who does not comply with the admission rules. This system of controlled violence has through times safeguarded tribes, countries, cities, packs and other coherent social units against intruders who would take away their territory. Anyone who has owned a male dog would probably agree that a border is not something that was conceptually drawn up in the study of a European renaissance philosopher. The desire to protect the pack’s territory seems quite well entrenched into the nature of animals as well as human beings. Right now the national state is how we on a macro level define a legitimate human pack, cases of illegitimate packs are drug dealers, rebels, terrorists and other groups that want to make a territory which conflicts with that of the national state.
As such I understand borders; if Djenghis Khan and his men could only have been rejected in the visa application process much suffering would have been spared. However, in these modern times where a great many people actually cross borders with the best of intentions and pockets full of hard currency the level of preparations needed to enter some countries seems a little paranoid. In fact I think it can backfire on countries when tourists and business people deselect overly bureaucratic countries. I suspect though that Belarus was quite content that their archaic visa regime in this unique case deterred two Danish bumpkins in a Ford Sierra from going there and picked the more liberal Ukraine instead.
The line inched slowly ahead like a caterpillar. People walked in and out of their cars in the drizzle. It was understood that the process of getting from Poland to Ukraine was time consuming and most people seemed to be at peace with this premise whether they saw the reasons for it or not. The patience these people exposed made sense. Years of practice now paid off and they did not have to expose their health to stressing out over something they were in no position to change anyway. In a cosmic perspective three hours are insignificant. Utterly insignificant. But when you wait 3 hours in line to cross a border which could have taken 30 minutes it is, however, difficult to keep the same perspective. In fact, the urge to tear your hair out to temporarily remove focus from the feeling of your head exploding with frustration is a reaction you feel long before moving into zen mode. I guess people’s perspective on patience differs. In the car we theorized that there seems to be three kinds of patience:
1) no patience, you have ADHD and get frustrated when things are not changing every 2 minutes
2) expectational patience, you are patient as long as things are evolving as fast as physically possible
3) influential patience, you are patient if you recognize that your impatience will not change the pace of events in the given situation.
I think I belong to category 2. While I can wait for Christmas because there is no physical way to rush the calendar, then I do get impatient when things are happening in an overly cumbersome manner “just because”. Admittedly it is a little irrational, because when you stand in the situation there’s nothing you can do to change it. If I should try to defend its rationality then it is this impatience with stupidity that causes revolutions. The desire to have things the way they were supposed to be instead of accepting the way they are. But like with everything else it is of course a balance. Cases in point; the south American system of semiannual political revolutions seems to be just as disturbing to building up a desirable society as the other extreme, e.g. the Soviet Union, where a social order that most people are discontent with is allowed to survive for many decades.
After a little more than three hours we were suddenly the first car in the line. The rain fell hard, and with the antiquated fan system of the Sierra the cabin was seriously fogged up, our visibility was zero. The final stretch up to the covered passport control mostly felt like being a 90 year old attempting to drive through the Niagara Falls.
After having succeeded to get the car up to the inspection area without any fatalities we triumphantly handed over the immigration forms to the police officer. A cheerful “dobry dzien” was added, or at least as cheerful as one can after a night on bumpy roads and Red Bull. We were friends of the Ukraine, there was no doubt.
The officer was a sturdy man in his late 40’s, a man who clearly possessed the authority and perseverance to keep Ukraine free from banditsky.
His trained glance methodically ran through the documents.
“Kak madyel?” he inquired. Unaware of whether his question was a trick or simply a result of unfamiliarity with the latin letters that clearly stated which model our car was we quickly responded “Ford Sierra”.
“Where are you going?”
“Lviv” it had gotten too late now to reach Kiev so we went for plan B.
“You need a hotel reservation to enter the country”. He said it in a matter of factual tone, returned our passports and looked down into his other papers as if to signal that this was the end of the road. Our vision blackened, this was too much. Our thoughts circled around in the unstructured fashion that characterizes the state of sleep deprivation. I went to the car and dug out the business card of my Ukrainian colleague. We fumblingly explained to the officer in a pitiful combination of Russian, English and German that we were going to visit my colleague in Lviv and that we would stay with him. He refused. The situation was critical as we no longer had the opportunity of just writing a random hotel name down without admitting that we had lied to him at least once.
A feeling of despair emerged. The rainfall had now taken on an apocalyptic character and it looked like the border was being closed due to this. We were the last car at the checkpoint. If we could not enter by this border crossing we would for one have to take a major detour. Secondly our plans of driving into Ukraine would probably be reduced to a naive hope. Had circumstances been different I would not rule out that we would have uttered our discontent with his service level in quite clear tones. To our great luck we were both too tired to feel true hatred towards this uncooperative buffoon though and fell into a state of puppy-like submissiveness. He had cracked us. I still ponder if his newly gained victory was what finally enabled him to see through all the bureaucratic nonsense and view this as a case of two curious guys who simply wanted to see and feel Ukraine. He gave us the forms, pointed to the blank field and said “put ‘Hotel Ukraina’ there”.
We scribbled down “Hotel Ukraina” on the visa form, and handed it nervously over to him as if it was our final answer to the Jeopardy grand finale. It was our final answer, our last chance to read the police officer’s mind correctly and fill in the form in accordance with these to us unknown internal procedures.
He studied the forms a last time, found the right stamp and slammed it down into our passports – approved. In this moment everything was illuminated in the light of the past: the wait, the forms, the government’s wish for control, the fact that we were in a way all prisoners of these mindless procedures and forms which some anonymous bureaucrat in a ministry had come up with 70 years ago and nobody had questioned since.
But above all, WE WERE NOW IN UKRAINE!
Sunday 4 November 2007
Thursday 1 November 2007
A travel to the end of the old world (Part IV, the good Samaritan)
Apparently our rush to make it to the ferry boat had increased the already high fuel consumption and meant that we could in fact not make it to the fuel station that was lying 10 kilometres further down the road. Yes, we were stuck on the autobahn, with no daylight and even less fuel. Travelling on a shoestring also means not spending money on emergency road service, so our only remaining means of transportation was our feet. With the car unsafely parked by the side of the road with the emergency lights on and equipped with an empty fuel cannister and high hopes we started to walk in the direction of the fuel station. After a while there was a small bridge, not an exit, simply a bridge. We climbed up. As we stood on the bridge it was apparent that both sides actually looked an awfully lot like dark forests. We picked the direction that looked least deserted in the moonlight, and started walking. Instead of being on the brink of a nervous break down the spirit had reached an all time high as we walked along the road not knowing whether we would have to march to the end of the world and back to get some fuel. It is difficult to describe, but I guess these weird incidents are what makes the road trips so great; the struggle, the unexpected adventure, the feeling that there is a direct link between cause and effect, something that modern man often lacks in his every day life. Accepting that you do not have a schedule but are entirely at the mercy of destiny is refreshing, that's how vacation should be. The whinnying of horses suddenly put an end to our musings. As we walked in the direction of the sound an odd house surrounded by paddocks appeared in the middle of the forest. A dog started barking vigorously from the house. One window on the top floor was lit, we could be in luck.
After having walked back and forth a few times we started knocking on the door. We knocked on the door for 5 minutes without any response barring the dog's increasingly hysterical barking; if somebody was in the house he would know that visitors were trying to get in contact with him. Had we been accompanied by a person familiar with at least the bare essentials within social convention we would probably have gotten the hint that if there was someone in there he did not want visitors and stopped knocking on the door. Instead stubbornness persevered and we continued until suddenly more windows were lit. We were not entirely sure what to expect. The situation could have been taken out of the quintessential Stephen King novel; two young lads broken down on the highway at night wander into a thick forest, find a house and are tortured to death by an inbred family.
“Guten Abend”. A normal looking but not particularly welcoming person greeted us as the door opened.
“Excuse we, we have out of gasoline in the highway”. While our German was far from perfect, it served the aim everybody seemed to be looking for - to communicate what he should do to make us go away without sticking a gun to our face. He was lost in thoughts for a second, then started walking towards the garage. We politely petted his dog to show our good intentions, dog owners usually like this.
“So, what is the history of this house?”
“It's an old Jagd Schloss (hunting castle), I bought it a year ago and am in the process of renovating it”. My attempt to fill the silence was short lived and hampered by a somewhat rusty German vocabulary. Though I actually did have an interest in buying decaying historical property in the former DDR I guess all thoughts really evolved around petrochemicals this moment. If he could have read our minds as he switched on the light in the garage he would probably have seen Golum from Lord of the Rings dancing around trying to spot “precious”, in this case any sort of fluid capable of combustion in a Ford Sierra 2.0 engine.
The atmosphere got almost electric as he pulled out a cannister. Without much hesitation he started pouring the fuel into our tank, with every gulp our smiles increased until it looked like the gates of heaven had opened before us. As he finished the operation the delicate though until now overlooked issue of payment came to mind. In all but a selected few European countries the euro is the legal tender, just not in Denmark. Unsurprisingly we Danes usually don't habitually carry large sums of euros on us, in fact Kristian and I had expected to do all payments with visa card anticipating that our fuel purchases would be done under more organised conditions. But here we were. I feverishly dug out all the euros I could find in my wallet. It totalled to 7, too little for 5 litres of fuel no matter where you bought it. I humbly handed him the money.
“Is this enough?”
He counted the money.
“Barely”
Had he been in less of a rush to get us out of his property he would probably have poured some fuel out of our tank, but this night he, albeit clearly forced by circumstances, took on the role as the good Samaritan and handed us our full spare tank. We thanked him of a full heart and headed off.
As we returned to the car Kristian poured the gas in, we spun the starter engine a few times and zoomed away. It was nothing short of a miracle and if I pass by his house one day I will give him a bottle of wine. Though had I known we could buy 5 litres of fuel for 7 Euro I would have brought two tanks.
After having walked back and forth a few times we started knocking on the door. We knocked on the door for 5 minutes without any response barring the dog's increasingly hysterical barking; if somebody was in the house he would know that visitors were trying to get in contact with him. Had we been accompanied by a person familiar with at least the bare essentials within social convention we would probably have gotten the hint that if there was someone in there he did not want visitors and stopped knocking on the door. Instead stubbornness persevered and we continued until suddenly more windows were lit. We were not entirely sure what to expect. The situation could have been taken out of the quintessential Stephen King novel; two young lads broken down on the highway at night wander into a thick forest, find a house and are tortured to death by an inbred family.
“Guten Abend”. A normal looking but not particularly welcoming person greeted us as the door opened.
“Excuse we, we have out of gasoline in the highway”. While our German was far from perfect, it served the aim everybody seemed to be looking for - to communicate what he should do to make us go away without sticking a gun to our face. He was lost in thoughts for a second, then started walking towards the garage. We politely petted his dog to show our good intentions, dog owners usually like this.
“So, what is the history of this house?”
“It's an old Jagd Schloss (hunting castle), I bought it a year ago and am in the process of renovating it”. My attempt to fill the silence was short lived and hampered by a somewhat rusty German vocabulary. Though I actually did have an interest in buying decaying historical property in the former DDR I guess all thoughts really evolved around petrochemicals this moment. If he could have read our minds as he switched on the light in the garage he would probably have seen Golum from Lord of the Rings dancing around trying to spot “precious”, in this case any sort of fluid capable of combustion in a Ford Sierra 2.0 engine.
The atmosphere got almost electric as he pulled out a cannister. Without much hesitation he started pouring the fuel into our tank, with every gulp our smiles increased until it looked like the gates of heaven had opened before us. As he finished the operation the delicate though until now overlooked issue of payment came to mind. In all but a selected few European countries the euro is the legal tender, just not in Denmark. Unsurprisingly we Danes usually don't habitually carry large sums of euros on us, in fact Kristian and I had expected to do all payments with visa card anticipating that our fuel purchases would be done under more organised conditions. But here we were. I feverishly dug out all the euros I could find in my wallet. It totalled to 7, too little for 5 litres of fuel no matter where you bought it. I humbly handed him the money.
“Is this enough?”
He counted the money.
“Barely”
Had he been in less of a rush to get us out of his property he would probably have poured some fuel out of our tank, but this night he, albeit clearly forced by circumstances, took on the role as the good Samaritan and handed us our full spare tank. We thanked him of a full heart and headed off.
As we returned to the car Kristian poured the gas in, we spun the starter engine a few times and zoomed away. It was nothing short of a miracle and if I pass by his house one day I will give him a bottle of wine. Though had I known we could buy 5 litres of fuel for 7 Euro I would have brought two tanks.
Unauthorised pit stop on zee Autobahn
It was relieving to be back in the car. We had drinks, could put on music, drive or stop as we pleased, we were sheltered from the elements and could lock the doors at will. Control had been regained and we were out of the darkness and uncertainty that since the beginning of times has been a premise of human life. It is however noteworthy that the feeling of risk and uncertainty is what makes control something relieving rather than the ultimate representation of boredom.
Soon we cruised on the Berliner Autobahnring bathed in its cold projector lights deeply emerged in philosophical discussions and Depeche Mode.
As we drove through Poland the hours got longer and longer and due to the smaller roads our progress slowed down.
We grabbed breakfast at McDonald's on a rainy grey Lublin morning while checking out on the map how to get into Ukraine. We quickly moved on, through big forests and rolling hills. And suddenly, there she was, the Ukraine! Despite delays our plans to meet one of my colleagues in Kiev for some partying that same night were still intact. But then we saw the queue to cross the border. “Shit” even the most patient of men would agree with Kristian's verdict, this could take while.
Monday 22 October 2007
A travel to the end of the old world (Part III, ferry boats and fairy tales)
My last day at work in Copenhagen was much anticipated, yet, departing was not entirely devoid of melancholy. Leaving a place and people you have grown to like always leaves a sense of loss - as if the entire thing would miraculously disappear when I walked out of the office to never resurface again. It is however true that you cannot recreate the past, and that Friday a chapter of my life had been finished, the ink had dried, now blank pages were ahead of me.
Kristian picked me up in front of the office at 16:30. The ever so familiar sense of restlessness started to pump around in my body. An understood nod was exchanged as the grinning faces became impossible to suppress, ahead was adventure, freedom and thousands and thousands of unknown roads to travel, pure bliss. The sunroof went down and our 70's aviator sunglasses went on as some trashy European dance tunes started to blast out of the loudspeakers.
We avoided the worst traffic jams leaving the city and it wasn't long before Copenhagen bid us farewell. The shadows grew longer as we bathed in the sun's beautiful orange glow while cruising south on the highway towards Gedser. When it doesn't rain, the long Danish summer nights really do wonders to you, like a bonus check for enduring the painfully short and dark Danish winter days. Sadly, like everything else in Denmark, this bonus check is heavily taxed by the frequent rainfalls, which only makes it so much more agreeable. As we reached Falster, we had to get off the highway to catch the ferry boat by Gedser which would take us to the German town Rostock. We aimed at reaching the 19:00 connection, but our progress on the south bound highway could not compensate fully for the slow moving traffic around Copenhagen. We had to step on it to make it down to the ferry boat in time. It shall remain unsaid whether it was this increased pressure or simply the treacherous design of the gear box in a Ford Sierra 2.0 engine that made Kristian put the car in reverse instead of first gear at a traffic light in Nykøbing. It is, however, an undisputed fact that as the light turned green we started to reverse. It is cunning how divine insights can be gained from the most absurd situations and I feel privileged to be able to remove one of the “things that only happen in bad movies” from my list. Had it not been because there was a motorbike behind us, who probably turned from concerned as he saw the reversing light turn on to absolutely horrified as the car started to inch towards him, this incident would have been quite entertaining...Ok, ok to tell the truth it took me around 5 minutes to recover from laugh induced spasms and to this date I still break out in spontaneous laughing fits thinking about it, yes, I am immature. Despite these “set backs” we managed to squeeze into the ferry boat on time. A well deserved rest awaited both car and drivers after a fast and furious getaway from Denmark. With the car safely parked we ventured up on the deck. After having endured and outwaited the uncommonly unresponsive service staff we were entrusted with a meal from the canteen. It quickly became clear why they only dared to reward the most patient and persistent of their clients with the privilege of getting their warm food, but at least it filled us up. With the foundation of the needs pyramid firmly laid we went on to the duty free shop to stock up in junk food, soda and other prerequisites for a successful road trip.
We hit Germany around 21:00; the goal was to be by the German/Polish border by 02:00 and by the Ukrainian border by 12:00. A whole night of driving was ahead of us. The sun slowly set in the most beautiful colour patterns as we drove through the fields and pine forests of North Eastern Germany. As we enjoyed this wonder of nature an equally breathtaking event occurred, the car started to stall! You learn a lot of things from driving an old car, one of the most striking ones being the ability to circumvent conventional wisdom. Case in point - when the fuel gauge is in the deep red you assume that it is an indicator that the fuel gauge is not working, not that you actually don't have any more fuel left. It was very dark as the car finally stopped rolling. We parked in the shoulder of the Autobahn, put the emergency light on and dug out our spare fuel tank with cars zooming by at alarming speeds. It was empty. We had earlier, when the fuel situation was under control, debated at much length which would be the optimal place of filling up the tank. We knew that Poland was cheap, and Ukraine even more so. In this very second the woman in Hans Christian Andersen's “The Woman with the Eggs” was probably a better representation of us than the image of savvy fuel traders looking for arbitrage opportunities.
Sigh, it is getting late of hour, so I will return to our little predicament next time and elaborate on how we made it to Ukraine.
Kristian picked me up in front of the office at 16:30. The ever so familiar sense of restlessness started to pump around in my body. An understood nod was exchanged as the grinning faces became impossible to suppress, ahead was adventure, freedom and thousands and thousands of unknown roads to travel, pure bliss. The sunroof went down and our 70's aviator sunglasses went on as some trashy European dance tunes started to blast out of the loudspeakers.
We avoided the worst traffic jams leaving the city and it wasn't long before Copenhagen bid us farewell. The shadows grew longer as we bathed in the sun's beautiful orange glow while cruising south on the highway towards Gedser. When it doesn't rain, the long Danish summer nights really do wonders to you, like a bonus check for enduring the painfully short and dark Danish winter days. Sadly, like everything else in Denmark, this bonus check is heavily taxed by the frequent rainfalls, which only makes it so much more agreeable. As we reached Falster, we had to get off the highway to catch the ferry boat by Gedser which would take us to the German town Rostock. We aimed at reaching the 19:00 connection, but our progress on the south bound highway could not compensate fully for the slow moving traffic around Copenhagen. We had to step on it to make it down to the ferry boat in time. It shall remain unsaid whether it was this increased pressure or simply the treacherous design of the gear box in a Ford Sierra 2.0 engine that made Kristian put the car in reverse instead of first gear at a traffic light in Nykøbing. It is, however, an undisputed fact that as the light turned green we started to reverse. It is cunning how divine insights can be gained from the most absurd situations and I feel privileged to be able to remove one of the “things that only happen in bad movies” from my list. Had it not been because there was a motorbike behind us, who probably turned from concerned as he saw the reversing light turn on to absolutely horrified as the car started to inch towards him, this incident would have been quite entertaining...Ok, ok to tell the truth it took me around 5 minutes to recover from laugh induced spasms and to this date I still break out in spontaneous laughing fits thinking about it, yes, I am immature. Despite these “set backs” we managed to squeeze into the ferry boat on time. A well deserved rest awaited both car and drivers after a fast and furious getaway from Denmark. With the car safely parked we ventured up on the deck. After having endured and outwaited the uncommonly unresponsive service staff we were entrusted with a meal from the canteen. It quickly became clear why they only dared to reward the most patient and persistent of their clients with the privilege of getting their warm food, but at least it filled us up. With the foundation of the needs pyramid firmly laid we went on to the duty free shop to stock up in junk food, soda and other prerequisites for a successful road trip.
We hit Germany around 21:00; the goal was to be by the German/Polish border by 02:00 and by the Ukrainian border by 12:00. A whole night of driving was ahead of us. The sun slowly set in the most beautiful colour patterns as we drove through the fields and pine forests of North Eastern Germany. As we enjoyed this wonder of nature an equally breathtaking event occurred, the car started to stall! You learn a lot of things from driving an old car, one of the most striking ones being the ability to circumvent conventional wisdom. Case in point - when the fuel gauge is in the deep red you assume that it is an indicator that the fuel gauge is not working, not that you actually don't have any more fuel left. It was very dark as the car finally stopped rolling. We parked in the shoulder of the Autobahn, put the emergency light on and dug out our spare fuel tank with cars zooming by at alarming speeds. It was empty. We had earlier, when the fuel situation was under control, debated at much length which would be the optimal place of filling up the tank. We knew that Poland was cheap, and Ukraine even more so. In this very second the woman in Hans Christian Andersen's “The Woman with the Eggs” was probably a better representation of us than the image of savvy fuel traders looking for arbitrage opportunities.
Sigh, it is getting late of hour, so I will return to our little predicament next time and elaborate on how we made it to Ukraine.
Saturday 20 October 2007
A travel to the end of the old world (Part II, the end of reason)
Good, where were we...yes, why did we buy a Ford Sierra from the 80's?
For quite some time we had been toying with the thought of going on a road trip, not like the ones we had grown quite accustomed to, where we (including my elder brother) rented a new car in a western country like Sweden or Germany and then drove around on perfect roads. No, not this time, instead we had been intrigued by the prospects of buying a car for less than 5000 dkk/1000 USD and driving beyond what any sane person in our social sphere would consider insane. While the big ambition was at the scale of driving from Europe through Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Mongolia and back through Russia in a VW beetle, then even people with a well developed aptitude for megalomania have their moments of humbleness/realism. In one of these moments we concluded that a smaller practice trip would probably be advisable. Further, I was in the middle of being expatriated to Benin, meaning that we only had 3 weeks available for the venture. The passion for embarking on this kind of challenge was not sparked by schizophrenic seizures causing me to believe I was Phileas Fogg, even though I must admit to being inspired by excentric characters like him. Rather, the desire to see the world, to do something difficult and different, and to prove to myself and to others that many of the limits by which we restrain ourselves are mainly creatures of our own minds were high on the list of reasons for spending many hours on the road in these, to us, unknown territories. As time passed, we had bought the car and made a few preliminary arrangements such as taking time off work and browsing through the various visa rules in eastern Europe we finally decided on a rough route. Even though the philosophy was to go where the wind took us, we had early on agreed on reaching a few check points, namely Ukraine, Turkey and ex Yugoslavia. This common understanding was necessary to ensure that the trip did not turn into a 2 person reenactment of 'Lord of the Flies'. Our choice of vehicle also centered around this blueprint; a cheap, durable, gas guzzling car with a quite simple engine was found to be the best fit for driving through relatively poor countries with bad roads, a high risk of theft and low fuel prices. Finally it would be impossible to take a rental car from western Europe into these countries, so we had to prepare well in advance by buying and insuring the car etc. to make the trip happen.
In essence this was more than drinks by mediterranean beaches and post cards from distant places, it was also embracing and living a philosophy of life, believing that people all around the world are peaceful and friendly, that we live in one world despite different borders, cultures and languages. But most of all it was a deliberate attempt to turn my profound belief that men can be so much more than they are if only they would try into a habit – whenever people tell you that something's impossible, don't believe them, prove them wrong.
But enough reasoning, let's get on to the best part of the trip, the trip!
To give you an idea of what awaits, I've charted our course on below map:
To give you an idea of what awaits, I've charted our course on below map:
Sunday 14 October 2007
A travel to the end of the old world (Part I, good Ford!)
Last week in Paris I had the pleasure of reading through Aldous Huxley's 'Brave new World', a highly recommendable book which despite its lack of strong plot or literary force (for Ford's sake, you're writing a book and not a commercial for the new Focus or Mondeo) left me full of admiration for Mr. Huxley's ability to ask profound questions about the meaning of life and other such troubling issues. Yes, the book made me think, both of our future, and also of my own immediate past.
That same week when I was in Paris finishing my psychology course with an exam and reading 'Brave new World' was also when I learned to whom my younger brother back in Denmark had sold the car that we bought together 6 months earlier. That's when I figured it was time to write a little account of Ford, the world I know and a trip to the temporary end of it.
“What do you say, should we go out and take a look” was the brief text in the email with subject “CAR” that ticked into my mailbox from Kristian that Wednesday afternoon in the middle of April. The email contained a link to an ad for a Ford Sierra 1.6 CLX from 1988. That same evening we went out to a dodgy part of Copenhagen to take a look at this ageing beauty, the first impression of a healthy cruising vehicle persisted despite obvious evidence of the owner's shameful neglect.
“It's a good car...had I kept her I would've replaced the panel by the door”. As the owner pointed to a barely scratched plastic panel it was impossible to overlook the back seat which due to a disgusting amount of small white hairs could easily have been confused with a dog house. He was a man with an odd set of priorities, which made it difficult to assess the true state of the vehicle. At times he would ramble on about minor cosmetic improvements while only making a passing remark of a “minor issue” with the engine which proved to be a little more as we took her for a spin. For one thing it is never a good sign when it takes an otherwise seasoned driver 5 attempts to pull out from the curb because the engine dies on you. Secondly, as innovative as the idea might sound, cars that try to emulate the movements of a kangaroo when they ought to accelerate are awfully uncomfortable and do not give an air of particular trustworthiness, not at all a suitable car for our purpose. The fact that the car had actually been driven for several months in this condition only increased our fears, a little like buying a house from a person who talks about changing door knobs when the walls are falling apart, the fear that unparalleled defects could be lurking right under the surface. Upon finishing the test drive it was evident that the sales contract on this car was ultimately a lottery ticket. The owner had given up on his former “flame” and talked about buying a Mondeo to cement his image as a man of complete desperation, the Sierra was put for sale at a price devoid of decency (4000 dkk/usd 750). We decided to place our bets that night, more out of a gut feeling that sellers like him don't come around terribly often than a clear idea of what we actually had to do to make the car functional.
The spirits were high as we had closed the deal and rolled away in our first Ford Sierra in the beginning twilight, though a strange feeling of unease sneaked in as we noticed the seller's grinning face. He was an odd man, an odd man indeed.
The coming weeks were spent fixing up the car; after having vacuumed enough dog hair out of the cabin to make a complete set of wigs for an 80'ies glamrock band the car's interior started to reach a standard where offering people a ride no longer would put us at danger of being prosecuted under the convention against torture. A visit to a mechanic revealed that the rebellious engine could be appeased by changing some vacuum tubes - cost: 300 dkk (USD 55). Though with one problem less another one entered the stage; the cooling system would at the most inconvenient times leak and splash out the coolant resulting in violent steams pulsing out from the hood - undoubtedly producing vivid deja vus from Stan and Ollie in the minds of most bypassers while at the same time testing my patience with this car to the maximum.
Yes, the Ford was a car with a strong personality, but slowly a relationship of trust emerged and after a month we even had the courage to leave home without a fully equipped tool box(!).
That same week when I was in Paris finishing my psychology course with an exam and reading 'Brave new World' was also when I learned to whom my younger brother back in Denmark had sold the car that we bought together 6 months earlier. That's when I figured it was time to write a little account of Ford, the world I know and a trip to the temporary end of it.
“What do you say, should we go out and take a look” was the brief text in the email with subject “CAR” that ticked into my mailbox from Kristian that Wednesday afternoon in the middle of April. The email contained a link to an ad for a Ford Sierra 1.6 CLX from 1988. That same evening we went out to a dodgy part of Copenhagen to take a look at this ageing beauty, the first impression of a healthy cruising vehicle persisted despite obvious evidence of the owner's shameful neglect.
“It's a good car...had I kept her I would've replaced the panel by the door”. As the owner pointed to a barely scratched plastic panel it was impossible to overlook the back seat which due to a disgusting amount of small white hairs could easily have been confused with a dog house. He was a man with an odd set of priorities, which made it difficult to assess the true state of the vehicle. At times he would ramble on about minor cosmetic improvements while only making a passing remark of a “minor issue” with the engine which proved to be a little more as we took her for a spin. For one thing it is never a good sign when it takes an otherwise seasoned driver 5 attempts to pull out from the curb because the engine dies on you. Secondly, as innovative as the idea might sound, cars that try to emulate the movements of a kangaroo when they ought to accelerate are awfully uncomfortable and do not give an air of particular trustworthiness, not at all a suitable car for our purpose. The fact that the car had actually been driven for several months in this condition only increased our fears, a little like buying a house from a person who talks about changing door knobs when the walls are falling apart, the fear that unparalleled defects could be lurking right under the surface. Upon finishing the test drive it was evident that the sales contract on this car was ultimately a lottery ticket. The owner had given up on his former “flame” and talked about buying a Mondeo to cement his image as a man of complete desperation, the Sierra was put for sale at a price devoid of decency (4000 dkk/usd 750). We decided to place our bets that night, more out of a gut feeling that sellers like him don't come around terribly often than a clear idea of what we actually had to do to make the car functional.
The spirits were high as we had closed the deal and rolled away in our first Ford Sierra in the beginning twilight, though a strange feeling of unease sneaked in as we noticed the seller's grinning face. He was an odd man, an odd man indeed.
The coming weeks were spent fixing up the car; after having vacuumed enough dog hair out of the cabin to make a complete set of wigs for an 80'ies glamrock band the car's interior started to reach a standard where offering people a ride no longer would put us at danger of being prosecuted under the convention against torture. A visit to a mechanic revealed that the rebellious engine could be appeased by changing some vacuum tubes - cost: 300 dkk (USD 55). Though with one problem less another one entered the stage; the cooling system would at the most inconvenient times leak and splash out the coolant resulting in violent steams pulsing out from the hood - undoubtedly producing vivid deja vus from Stan and Ollie in the minds of most bypassers while at the same time testing my patience with this car to the maximum.
Yes, the Ford was a car with a strong personality, but slowly a relationship of trust emerged and after a month we even had the courage to leave home without a fully equipped tool box(!).
The Sierra and me
But why should we buy a car and why buy it together? Well, that my dear reader I will shed light on in part II of this narrative.Wednesday 15 August 2007
Music and Lyrics
Due to a national holiday I got to spend this Wednesday relaxing, which by all measures is a nice little break in a work week that usually offers around 60 hours of fun at the office. Besides, this allowed me to take a night of darts, drinks and fun with the guys Tuesday which is always fun. Apart from Jordan displaying his until now hidden excellence within the fine art of show wrestling we also had the pleasure of meeting Jamie, an American guy who has been bicycling around the world the last 5 years to promote peace. I must admit that I was very impressed with his mission, and my adventurous side certainly dreams of doing something similar, though that will have to wait. But check out his webpage at www.peacepedalers.org.
Well, normally reading, watching episodes of 'The Office', chilling out by the pool or spotting suitable German mansions to purchase once funds permit are my embarrassingly ordinary top priorities when it comes to spending time outside of the office. Today was no different, and going to the pool at the Marina Hotel with a psychology book was picked as the main event of the day. Before going to the watering hole we did however swing by the Ganhi Market in the vain hope that a copy of Depeche Modes' greatest hits CD could be bought at a reasonable price (I have lately been haunted by the desire to hunt down "Enjoy the silence" which quite frankly is one of the best pieces of music I have ever listened to (you can turn the Patrick Bateman accent off now)). Besides, this past month I have had this unreasonably good French African song on my mind. The only time I heard the song was in a club in Lomé (the capital of Togo) where circumstances and my alcohol inflicted memory didn't permit me to get the name of the song, thus the only memory of it has been a quite inaccurate humming. Yet, due to my mediocre musical skills and my very well developed dislike for public humility I never managed to hum it for Jean, my driver and commercial hitman - the only person who could possibly have found that song for me. So given the circumstances I had pretty much given up on ever finding it.
As expected the guys in the market could not find any Depeche Mode, and since they asked if it was American (please!) I strongly doubt there is a big market for this divine band in Benin. Besides people are too happy here, so the occasional 'yovo' who has a melancholic urge to feed is forced to rely on the internet. Yeah, and to answer your question then take the fact that I even look for physical CDs instead of downloading the music from the internet as a proof of my old age. Aaanyway, as the folks at the market could smell money and had all the time in the world to try to talk me into a purchase it didn't take long before I was going through piles of completely unrecognisable Beninese pop and hip hop CDs, the unavoidable Angelique Kidjo came into my bag... and then it happened, one of the vendors put on a CD with a band called Espoir 2000, and the first track was that song from Lomé! The joy, the relief, I was speechless, especially since I got a CD with their pimped music video on for a little more than 2 USD. Yeah, the small wonders of existence.
But in all events, I thought sharing this great song with all of you would be the least I could do to thank the voodoo Gods or whoever brought this circumstance about, so here you go (besides, the more people watch it the bigger are the chances that it will actually be a commercial hit in the western world):
http://www.kewego.co.uk/player/?csig=iLyROoaftwBU&sig=iLyROoafteXg
The song is from Ivory Coast and is called "Abidjan Farot", the video that they display on this page is rather dull compared to the Sean Paul style video that I've seen, but the music is the same. One could ask why I would spend a blog rambling about a random piece of music, and the answer is equally obvious - I think so far this song really captures my west African adventure – the joy of life, the optimism in spite of challenges, the great smiles of people, the warmth of the place, it's hard to come up with adequate words, but I think this song will be closely tied to my memories of Benin when it's all over, and hell, with such a song they will be good. So listen to it, then you know how it is to be down here :).
Well, normally reading, watching episodes of 'The Office', chilling out by the pool or spotting suitable German mansions to purchase once funds permit are my embarrassingly ordinary top priorities when it comes to spending time outside of the office. Today was no different, and going to the pool at the Marina Hotel with a psychology book was picked as the main event of the day. Before going to the watering hole we did however swing by the Ganhi Market in the vain hope that a copy of Depeche Modes' greatest hits CD could be bought at a reasonable price (I have lately been haunted by the desire to hunt down "Enjoy the silence" which quite frankly is one of the best pieces of music I have ever listened to (you can turn the Patrick Bateman accent off now)). Besides, this past month I have had this unreasonably good French African song on my mind. The only time I heard the song was in a club in Lomé (the capital of Togo) where circumstances and my alcohol inflicted memory didn't permit me to get the name of the song, thus the only memory of it has been a quite inaccurate humming. Yet, due to my mediocre musical skills and my very well developed dislike for public humility I never managed to hum it for Jean, my driver and commercial hitman - the only person who could possibly have found that song for me. So given the circumstances I had pretty much given up on ever finding it.
As expected the guys in the market could not find any Depeche Mode, and since they asked if it was American (please!) I strongly doubt there is a big market for this divine band in Benin. Besides people are too happy here, so the occasional 'yovo' who has a melancholic urge to feed is forced to rely on the internet. Yeah, and to answer your question then take the fact that I even look for physical CDs instead of downloading the music from the internet as a proof of my old age. Aaanyway, as the folks at the market could smell money and had all the time in the world to try to talk me into a purchase it didn't take long before I was going through piles of completely unrecognisable Beninese pop and hip hop CDs, the unavoidable Angelique Kidjo came into my bag... and then it happened, one of the vendors put on a CD with a band called Espoir 2000, and the first track was that song from Lomé! The joy, the relief, I was speechless, especially since I got a CD with their pimped music video on for a little more than 2 USD. Yeah, the small wonders of existence.
But in all events, I thought sharing this great song with all of you would be the least I could do to thank the voodoo Gods or whoever brought this circumstance about, so here you go (besides, the more people watch it the bigger are the chances that it will actually be a commercial hit in the western world):
http://www.kewego.co.uk/player/?csig=iLyROoaftwBU&sig=iLyROoafteXg
The song is from Ivory Coast and is called "Abidjan Farot", the video that they display on this page is rather dull compared to the Sean Paul style video that I've seen, but the music is the same. One could ask why I would spend a blog rambling about a random piece of music, and the answer is equally obvious - I think so far this song really captures my west African adventure – the joy of life, the optimism in spite of challenges, the great smiles of people, the warmth of the place, it's hard to come up with adequate words, but I think this song will be closely tied to my memories of Benin when it's all over, and hell, with such a song they will be good. So listen to it, then you know how it is to be down here :).
Saturday 11 August 2007
Lagos
So, this week I was fortunate enough to spend some days in lovely Cape Town on a business trip which by most measures feels like being on leave into western capitalism when you arrive from west Africa. Don't get me wrong, life is sweet here in good ol' Benin, but having a few days with the world's best steak and wine, real freeways with properly marked lanes (!) plus nice hotels, excellent shopping and bars can be an overwhelming experience. While the trip itself was worthy of elaborate descriptions, not least due to the great hospitality of some of my South African colleagues, this blog will actually focus on an entirely different place – Lagos. I understand if you have problems connecting the dots at this moment, but take a look at the route map of South African Airways, then the pieces will fall into place. Yah, to get from Cape Town to Cotonou one has to fly into Lagos and drive from there to Cotonou. Then of course comes the question of why one should spend time and bites on the internet to describe Lagos, well, that's a little more complicated. For beginners (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-lagos25jun25,0,1166186.story?coll=la-home-center), Lagos is the biggest and wealthiest city in Nigeria, and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. It seems to be the place in Nigeria where most of the enormous riches from the country's booming oil industry is channelled into and undoubtedly the home of most of the Nigerian email scams. Moreover, it is a powerhouse of African contemporary art. Apart from that it is a place with a bleak reputation - whenever the words Lagos and Nigeria are mentioned to people familiar with the situation in Africa, a certain sense of horror invariably sneaks in. The British teacher sitting next to me in the plane opened our conversation saying "so, what is a young white man like you doing in Lagos?" with the characteristic curiosity I myself have developed towards these individuals who deliberately (though often helped by healthy financial incentives) move into countries where a bullet proof vest ought to be part of the dress code. The notion that it is a bad place seems entrenched in the views of most westerners who know the place and the fact that expatriates are kept in heavily guarded compounds and driven around in 4x4s with at least one armed guard is a perfect reflection of a security situation that at best can be described as unstable (http://lagos.osac.gov/Reports/index.cfm). Well, to answer my initial question, Lagos is a place that spurs emotions, hence my preference to write about it.
That evening I naively hoped that scrambling out of the plane would allow me to be one of the first privileged people in the crowd to hand over my very important immigration form and get out of the airport. However, I soon came to realize that hordes of people some way or the other once again had gathered out of nothingness and were entertaining the two immigration officers who were ensuring the nation against intruding villains this evening, so, unsurprisingly another 45 minutes could be added to the expected 45 minutes delay on the flight. Once through immigration I went through the customs and then out of the terminal building where there is a small reception area where big crowds of people are waiting to pick up new arrivals. The place is lit by big projectors, but outside of the small circle of sharp light there is darkness, the kind of darkness where you envision monsters, trolls or more realistically robbers jumping out from. At least a place you don't want to go on your own. It was time to find the driver my company had sent for me, in many ways this resembles 'Where's Waldo?', yet, not quite as cosy, since you can't just turn to the next page if you don't find him – taking a cab could be an option, however, if I wasn't killed in the cab, our security officer would certainly wish to do it for him the next morning. This evening was good, it only took me 5 minutes to spot the driver, compared to last time where more than an hour and three phone calls were needed. The driver quickly greets me and as he confirms my odd name it's evident that no scams are pulled. We swiftly walk out into the warm dark night to a white Toyota pick up truck equipped with lights and sirens, the armed guard is woken up and I'm told to enter the car, we're waiting for some other people that we will be escorting as well, so they start the car to put on the a/c and some music. As we're parked in the side of the road with several BMW and Mercedes SUVs zooming by while the gangster rap is playing in the car with a guard holding his machine gun, it starts dawning on me what exactly it was that was dragging and repulsing me when I saw the vast ocean of lights as we flew in over Lagos. One can say many things about Lagos, but it is never boring. The other people finally arrive and get into the other 4x4, the emergency lights are put on and our two cars depart with an urgency that is characteristic for this place. Soon we're on the highway where traffic is still abundant though nowhere close to the chaos that prevails in the daytime where police officers with golf clubs ferociously smash cars in an attempt to defy the laws of physics and squeeze enormous amounts of vehicles through roads of insufficient dimensions. As we drive across one the long bridge leading to the islands the city lights come closer. The guard and the driver are having a conversation in Nigerian English, which apart from being completely incomprehensible also has the tone of a heated bar fight, not exactly comforting when one of them has a gun. Yet after a while the aggressive appearance of Nigerians becomes a habit, a little like how the early humans learned to handle fire by ignoring their instinctive fear. As we pass through the smaller roads and make stops, it is hard not to sit and look around for dodgy people, the sense of alertness is always there, and while it might not be a permanent adrenaline rush it keeps you on your toes. As one of my colleagues in Nigeria said 'once you start forgetting where you are and you just do things like back in Europe, it's time for you to go back home'. Suddenly we roll into the fenced and guarded expat neighbourhood where the other people in the escort lives. It is a very large neighbourhood with buildings that people in most part of the world would consider highly prestigeous and certainly in stark contrast to the tiny shacks that a majority of the population stays in. We drop the other people off and continue back in the normal neighbourhoods. In the darkness and with the busy traffic the place invariably looks like Mordor from Lord of the Rings – a purpose driven place robbed of normal aesthetics, a place where people are too busy to enjoy the nice beaches and palm trees known from Cotonou and Lome. The city is alive, a heart pumping oil and money around to whoever happens to be in the right spot, and millions of people chasing them.
We roll into the metal gates that protect the South African franchise hotel I will be staying in until the morning comes and I can safely be escorted back to Benin, polite people greet me and I depart with the driver, go to my air conditioned room with clean bed sheets and no other noises than the humming fan. Another trip from Lagos airport ended without drama.
As the immortal lyrics of Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" start playing in my head, it all falls into place -
Welcome to the jungle
It gets worse here everyday
Ya learn ta live like an animal
In the jungle where we play
If you got a hunger for what you see
You'll take it eventually
You can have anything you want
But you better not take it from me
Yeah, Lagos, the wild west of Africa, the scramble for money, power and for some, survival, has brought this place to where it is, for good and for worse. In some way a glimpse into Hobbes' "State of Nature" and an unfiltered view into aspects of human nature. I love it and I dread it.
That evening I naively hoped that scrambling out of the plane would allow me to be one of the first privileged people in the crowd to hand over my very important immigration form and get out of the airport. However, I soon came to realize that hordes of people some way or the other once again had gathered out of nothingness and were entertaining the two immigration officers who were ensuring the nation against intruding villains this evening, so, unsurprisingly another 45 minutes could be added to the expected 45 minutes delay on the flight. Once through immigration I went through the customs and then out of the terminal building where there is a small reception area where big crowds of people are waiting to pick up new arrivals. The place is lit by big projectors, but outside of the small circle of sharp light there is darkness, the kind of darkness where you envision monsters, trolls or more realistically robbers jumping out from. At least a place you don't want to go on your own. It was time to find the driver my company had sent for me, in many ways this resembles 'Where's Waldo?', yet, not quite as cosy, since you can't just turn to the next page if you don't find him – taking a cab could be an option, however, if I wasn't killed in the cab, our security officer would certainly wish to do it for him the next morning. This evening was good, it only took me 5 minutes to spot the driver, compared to last time where more than an hour and three phone calls were needed. The driver quickly greets me and as he confirms my odd name it's evident that no scams are pulled. We swiftly walk out into the warm dark night to a white Toyota pick up truck equipped with lights and sirens, the armed guard is woken up and I'm told to enter the car, we're waiting for some other people that we will be escorting as well, so they start the car to put on the a/c and some music. As we're parked in the side of the road with several BMW and Mercedes SUVs zooming by while the gangster rap is playing in the car with a guard holding his machine gun, it starts dawning on me what exactly it was that was dragging and repulsing me when I saw the vast ocean of lights as we flew in over Lagos. One can say many things about Lagos, but it is never boring. The other people finally arrive and get into the other 4x4, the emergency lights are put on and our two cars depart with an urgency that is characteristic for this place. Soon we're on the highway where traffic is still abundant though nowhere close to the chaos that prevails in the daytime where police officers with golf clubs ferociously smash cars in an attempt to defy the laws of physics and squeeze enormous amounts of vehicles through roads of insufficient dimensions. As we drive across one the long bridge leading to the islands the city lights come closer. The guard and the driver are having a conversation in Nigerian English, which apart from being completely incomprehensible also has the tone of a heated bar fight, not exactly comforting when one of them has a gun. Yet after a while the aggressive appearance of Nigerians becomes a habit, a little like how the early humans learned to handle fire by ignoring their instinctive fear. As we pass through the smaller roads and make stops, it is hard not to sit and look around for dodgy people, the sense of alertness is always there, and while it might not be a permanent adrenaline rush it keeps you on your toes. As one of my colleagues in Nigeria said 'once you start forgetting where you are and you just do things like back in Europe, it's time for you to go back home'. Suddenly we roll into the fenced and guarded expat neighbourhood where the other people in the escort lives. It is a very large neighbourhood with buildings that people in most part of the world would consider highly prestigeous and certainly in stark contrast to the tiny shacks that a majority of the population stays in. We drop the other people off and continue back in the normal neighbourhoods. In the darkness and with the busy traffic the place invariably looks like Mordor from Lord of the Rings – a purpose driven place robbed of normal aesthetics, a place where people are too busy to enjoy the nice beaches and palm trees known from Cotonou and Lome. The city is alive, a heart pumping oil and money around to whoever happens to be in the right spot, and millions of people chasing them.
We roll into the metal gates that protect the South African franchise hotel I will be staying in until the morning comes and I can safely be escorted back to Benin, polite people greet me and I depart with the driver, go to my air conditioned room with clean bed sheets and no other noises than the humming fan. Another trip from Lagos airport ended without drama.
As the immortal lyrics of Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" start playing in my head, it all falls into place -
Welcome to the jungle
It gets worse here everyday
Ya learn ta live like an animal
In the jungle where we play
If you got a hunger for what you see
You'll take it eventually
You can have anything you want
But you better not take it from me
Yeah, Lagos, the wild west of Africa, the scramble for money, power and for some, survival, has brought this place to where it is, for good and for worse. In some way a glimpse into Hobbes' "State of Nature" and an unfiltered view into aspects of human nature. I love it and I dread it.
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