December Nights in Berlin.

I am in the passenger’s seat of the cab.

It is dark. We’re driving along a bridge of sorts. We are headed to the Berlin Tegel Airport.

Oh my God, this is such a fucked up situation. This is so motherfucking fucked up.

I cannot believe I just completely forgot, Jesus. Jesus Christ.

Jesus!

How long till we get to the airport?

I look at the driver.

He’s like Turkish I think. Looks like late twenties.

Not too long, we’ll be there soon.

I’m berating myself in my seat.

Jesus Mayowa, Jesus. How could you fuck up like this- How? Howwww???



I’m just getting back to the dorms at Adalbertstrasse. I think I went out for a skate.

A couple of classmates are on the sidewalk.

I see Jakob.

Fiona is heading inside the building.

Colette is talking to Jakob.

“I think you just need to take time to figure your shit out. You shouldn’t bring her into your confusion…”

I’m somewhat disturbed. I wonder why she’d be saying that to him.

I think it’s very unfair. She’s speaking so harshly to him, and protecting Fiona- her friend- his girlfriend.

I think that’s very prejudiced. Very very. Fiona herself is a problematic person who very well does her part in making his life miserable. But he’s the one getting the scalding words.

I feel bad for him.

When he’s done talking with Colette, I walk up to him and ask if he’d like us to walk back together to Sonnenallee where his apartment is.

He says not tonight, that he’ll prefer to walk back on his own.

I say okay.

A couple weekends ago he messaged me, inviting me to come join him and some buddies at Skatehalle.

Skatehalle is a skatepark.

I think there’s a sizeable halfpipe there. I think that was where they were. At the halfpipe.

I’ve got no experience with halfpipes. I’m comfortable skateboarding on roads, some hills, but skateparks- not really. Every now and then I spend some time at the mini-skatepark at Warschauer Strasse.

Usually I’m supposed to be in class. But no, I’m at Warschauer Strasse. Skateboarding and thinking about my life and racking up academic penalties, while I wonder how exactly you’re supposed to skate on the smooth concrete lump in the middle of skatepark.

I was also somewhat occupied that day. So I couldn’t go hang out at Skatehalle.


I am strolling along the sidewalk with Sadie.

Sadie is the Resident Assistant for my room and a couple others.

We’re talking.

She’s asking me how the semester has been.

I say it’s been problematic.

She asks how so.

I say it’s not clear. That I’m completely immersed in the problems so I don’t have the perspective to properly evaluate them.

She smiles and says “Oh yeah the thing about the fish being in water, and how it would possibly know that it was in water”.

I say yes. Just like that.

We keep talking.

At some point I mention that I don’t feel like there’s room within the school programme to explore my personal passions.

She asks about these passions. Asks if they’re related to Social Change. It appears some people have similar concerns. About not having room to explore passions.

We keep talking.


I am walking up the staircase of the dorm building.

My head is swimming in the miry uncertainty of my very near future:

This semester is over. We’re in late December.

The next semester begins in January.

We’re to move to Argentina. From Berlin. For the new semester.

I’ve never been this uncomfortable about travelling to a new country. I didn’t even know it was possible to dread a flight to a new continent this way.

With respect to academics, this semester has been horrible. Horrendous. Absolutely horrifying. Everything is fucked up. Superlatively fucked up. Nothing makes any sense.

What I need right now, is a break. I need time to sit down on the ground somewhere for a few months and stare blankly into space, while I process all of the things that have recently happened to me.

That Buenos Aires flight is not happening, no. I am not going put myself through another few months of this.

No.

Nah.

Nuh.

Uhn uhn.

Someone calls my name. It’s Sadie. The Resident Assistant.

She says her parents are around. Asks if I would like to join the family for dinner.

I smile and say thanks, but maybe another time.

Dinner is the least of my problems right now.

I keep heading up the stairs.


I am in the sitting room of the apartment I share with two flatmates. They’ve both gone home for the holidays. One to Argentina and the other to Turkey. That’s if they’re spending Christmas in their countries of origin.

Sadie is here with me.

She’s typing on my computer. We’re sending an email to Barbara.

I asked for Sadie’s help with the intricacies of my situation:

My German visa expires this December.

I need to fly somewhere.

I recently applied for a gap year. The request was approved, which was wonderful.

Now I just don’t know where to go.

My US student visa is still valid for another year, but I’m not going to the US. I have no plans to get a job or anything of such. I just need time and space to think about my life. The US doesn’t seem like it’ll be conducive for that. Especially at such short notice.

Nigeria is a no no. The boy who travelled to the USA to study, is supposed to come back with pockets brimming with US dollars.

I have no dollars in my pockets, and I have no answers for all of the questions that await me there. So no.

We’re asking Barbara if there’s some last-minute internship work I could do, to raise some money. Sadie came up with that very valuable idea.

I plan to fly to one of the (few, given my Nigerian passport) countries I can travel to, without needing a visa.

I recently decided on Cape Verde. Information online says it’s visa-free for Nigerian passports, and the flight ticket from Berlin is not too expensive.

Sadie says Opodo is where she books her flights.

We go through Berlin – Cape Verde flights on Opodo. I think the website looks nice. The fonts look chubby and cute somehow.


I am at Barbara’s office.

We’re booking the Cape Verde fight.

I think someone somewhere is lending me the money. A staff at the college HQ in San Francisco. Something like that. We’re using her card. Very generous of her.

The flight is booked. I express my gratitude to Barbara.

I have a little over a week of internship work, to raise some money.


I am in the bathroom of my apartment.

I am lying in the bathtub. The tub is full of warm water.

December in Berlin has been somewhat cold, and very dull. I don’t even see the sun anywhere. I find myself walking sleepily around the city, just looking for it.

All of that increases the appeal of warm bathtub soaks. Plus all of my flatmates are gone. I’ve got the entire place to myself.

The bathroom is saturated with steam.

The walls are reverberating with sad poignant music. I’m probably playing Daughter.

It’s been about a week since we booked the Cape Verde flight.

I’ve been working with Barbara. Moving stuff. Chairs. Sofas. Stuff from the dorm apartments.

Right now things are not so bad. The real uncertainty now lies in the next few days. I’ll be flying to a country I have absolutely no experience with, and know little about. I’m taking the time to mentally prepare myself.

My things are ready to be packed.

What am I going to do for income generation in Cape Verde? I have no idea. Well I have some ideas, but I don’t know. There’s a lot to think about. A lot.

I should pack my things. Get ready to move out of the apartment.

Hold on, when exactly is the flight?

I know we’re in the temporal vicinity, but I’m actually not sure of the precise day and time. Somehow that has felt like a secondary detail in the face of spending an entire year in an unfamiliar country where I know no one.

Knowing the precise time of the flight has so far felt like the smallest of my concerns.

Hold on, I think I should go check. So I can begin to make the final steps of checking out.

I step out of the bathroom.

I walk into my room, warm water dripping on the ribbed wooden floor.

I open up the computer.

Hm, where’s the calendar.

Hm.

Hm, an event is about to begin. Something happens in the next few minutes.

Hm, I don’t recall booking anything for today. The semester is over. I wonder what event I’d still be booking on the calendar.

I take a closer look at the calendar.

YEEEEEHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

YEH YEH YEH YEH YEHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I am finished!!!!

HAHHHHHH!!!!

THE FLIGHT IS IN A FEW MINUTES!!!!!!!!

JEEESSSUUUUSSSSSSSS!!!!!!

JEEEESSSUUUSSSS CHRIISTTTTTT!!!!!!

HAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!

And I was there soaking in the bathtub!!!!!!!

HAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!

YEEEEEHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

A FLIGHT WE BOOKED WITH BORROWED MONEYYY!!!


I am at the door of Joy’s apartment.

Joy is a classmate from Nigeria. We’ve been moving furniture together with Barbara.

I am knocking frantically.

Joy opens the door.

From her face she was either sleeping, or she recently woke up.

I begin to explain my situation.

I need a taxi to get me to the airport. I’ve not had a reason to book a cab since I got to Berlin, so I don’t know how to do it.

I looked online briefly before deciding it would be best to talk with someone who already had experience.

Joy says okay, and helps me book a cab. Joy is a lifesaver.


I am in the passenger’s seat of the cab.

It is dark. We’re driving along a bridge of sorts. We are headed to the Berlin Tegel Airport.

Oh my God, this is such a fucked up situation. This is so motherfucking fucked up.

I cannot believe I just completely forgot, Jesus. Jesus Christ.

How long till we get to the airport?

I look at the driver.

He’s like Turkish I think.

Not too long, we’ll soon be there.

I’m berating myself in my seat.

Jesus Mayowa, Jesus. How could you fuck up like this- How? Howwww???


This post is directly connected with a number of others. An index of these other posts can be accessed here.


Image: Somewhere in the dorms.

January 2 2017. Nelson Mandela International Airport, Santiago Island, Cape Verde. [2]

It is daybreak. It is my first morning in Cape Verde.

Rolph has left for Maio.

I feel sad. There’s this poignant, albeit relatively brief, sense of aloneness I experience whenever I’m separated from a travel companion. I felt it when the Mozambican left to catch his flight in Lisbon. Now I feel it again.

The airport here feels small. I felt like I spent almost an entire day exploring the airport in Lisbon. The airport here at Praia looks like it’ll take about fifteen to twenty minutes. Skateboarding is not even a possibility. Relative to airports in major European cities, this place feels squeezed.

It is warm. The air is warm- possibly as a function of the climate here, but at the same time I can also feel the warmth of the bodies moving around in the room.

The floor tiles look like they cost less. Everywhere looks less new and less glossy. It takes a while to appreciate this relative absence of glossiness.

The bathroom reminds me of Nigeria. Not in any negative way, no. The sanitary wares just look like the types used in Nigeria.

The morning air smells of leaves and transpiration and the uncertainty of the future.

I’ve had this piece of paper with me since Lisbon. I’ve been writing poems on it. Poems about heartbreak and nostalgia and anxiety. I wrote one about airports. The title is “An airport is multiple places”.

There are some small planes outside for inter-island flights. This is my first time seeing a plane with actual propellers- so far I have only physically seen planes with jet engines. The blades are black, with one like a fan on each wing.

There was an issue at check-in. I was told that I wouldn’t be allowed to board the plane with my skateboard. I didn’t understand.



What? Why?

The immigration officer talking with me, engages in some additional consultation with a woman who appears to be his boss in the airport employee hierarchy.

He says they’re trying to prevent a situation where the skateboard is used as a weapon to harm the people on the plane.

I am very shocked. I have never heard that before.

Whattt???

Eventually we agree to transport it as baggage. And I don’t have to pay for it. The officer promises to have it transported safely. I think we exchange a knowing look— He himself is surprised by the sudden policy on skateboards. I think his boss is just being irrational this morning.



I am in the plane. It is a small plane, even smaller than the Wow airlines discount flight I used with an Indian classmate a number of months before.

The plane is sparsely occupied. I think I am the only one on my row, which has about four seats.

There is a brightly colored picture of a laughing Cape Verdean woman dressed in very interesting attire. The picture is up in a number of places in the plane. I’ll later see the same picture on the packaging of some traditional Cape Verdean coffee.

There is a guy a number of rows ahead of me. I have heard him chattering excitedly in Creole since I got in. It is most likely his first time flying. He keeps laughing and chatting euphorically and bouncing on his seat and peering through the window.

The environment in this country feels very different from Germany, where I lived for a number of months. Amongst other things, I am still trying to get used to being around so many black bodies.

The plane takes off.


We are flying over Sal. I stare down at the bright brown undulating desert sand, mesmerized.

We touchdown at Aeroporto Internacional Amilcar Cabral, somewhere in the middle of the island.

As I exit the plane, I am welcomed with the warm, relatively-humid air of Sal.

Like Praia, we exit the plane by walking down the stairway at the side. In my previous travel experiences, there was usually this channel that led from the airplane door to the airport- travelers never actually used the stairway thing.

The airport is sparse. There is an excited couple getting their bags. I think the woman is pretty.

At some point I’m the only one in the entrance hall and there’s no other traveler in sight.

It is so bright and sunny here. It is the polar opposite of cold grey Berlin. I will later find myself in situations (mostly in Nigeria) where people do not understand why I sometimes just lie out in the sun.

The dull grey cold of winter in Berlin gave me a deep-seated appreciation for sunlight and atmospheric warmth. People who have spent (usually) all of their lives in tropical climates generally see spending extended amounts of time out in the sun, as punishment and as something to be avoided.

And so it’s exceptionally strange for such people to see me lying out in the sun and “punishing myself”. Although it definitely has to be said that the intensity of the sunlight in Nigeria can sometimes be highly unconducive to leisurely naps.

My skateboard landed safely, as promised.

In about four months I’ll give this skateboard as a gift to a neighbor- the younger brother of the Cape Verdean guy with an estranged European family. I bought it at a skate shop along Market street in San Francisco. It has a picture of rotting fruits on the underside. I liked the picture because at the time I bought it, I felt like I needed some sour stimulus- something to jar my reality.

Skateboarding will not be as much of a priority in a few months. I’ll be spending tons of time, energy and concentration figuring out my plans for the future and for my life. There won’t be much spare energy to channel into skateboarding.

I leave my bags at the airport entrance, and go skateboard in the car park. I do this for about two minutes before airport security stops me.

In my perspective, one major difference between the urban experience in relatively developed countries and developing ones, is the presence of stricter security around buildings (and generally locations) of attraction in developing countries.

In relatively developed countries, pretty much everywhere looks nice. In developing countries the relatively nice looking places highly contrast with the less aesthetically pleasing areas (this is also usually the case with regard to relative socioeconomic advancement) and usually require stricter security to prevent such locations from devolving into the less admirable conditions prevalent in the immediate environment.

A consequence of this, is that people living in developing countries acquire this learned inhibition around these locations. Coming from the West however, these locations didn’t seem overwhelmingly awesome to me — They were nice, yeah- just not to the point where I would feel any inhibition around them. And so I would be skating around a relatively nice looking building- like:

Yeah I used to skate around the buildings in Berlin like this.

To the residents however, my behavior was strange, somewhat disrespectful, and (especially to security) unacceptable. After overcoming the stupefaction they experienced regarding how I was able to move about so freely and carefreely in such a “NIICEEE” environment, they would stop me and generally try to influence me in the direction of a more inhibited and self-conscious disposition.

It always pissed me off.

I pick up my bags and get a taxi to Espargos.

The next time I’ll be inside this airport, I’ll be coming out of a police van after spending the night in a cell at Espargos.

I’ll meet Carlos- the Commander of Police on the island. I’ll perceive him to be a pretty interesting guy- very admirable biceps. Conscientious and determined, yet open enough to smile and be friendly.

We’ll sort out the misunderstanding which led to my arrest. We’ll have an interesting conversation and at some point he’ll attempt to introduce one of the very attractive Cape Verdean women working in the airport, to me as a potential girlfriend. She’ll look even more appealing given that I spent the night before languishing in a dark and unfriendly cell at the station. I’ll be too self-conscious after such an experience, to give much thought to his proposition.

We’ll talk some more- he’ll talk briefly about his childhood, and the determination which drove him to acquire a foreign education. He’ll talk to me about some issues he’s facing on the job. Regarding unwanted immigrants and difficulties with politely returning them to their countries of origin.

I’ll wonder why the Commander of Police is talking to me about these things. I’ll wonder what about me makes him afford me such regard. I’ll wonder why he thinks I could possibly have something helpful to say.

I mean, if I take some time to think I’ll probably come up with something- but I wonder what gives him that impression about me. Me who was brought here in a police van, freshly released from handcuffs and a night in the cell at the Espargos police station.

———

Image: Walking along the major expressway in Sal.


This post is directly connected with a number of others. An index of these other posts can be accessed here.