Beware of those smooth-talking strikers at Dubai Airport

Do you want to see Dubai free of charge? That will be music in your ears when you have some time to spare upon landing in Dubai, the city of glitz and glamour.

There is not a shortage of smartly dressed men and women who throw you this offer once you clear passport control and head for the exit.

They are the kind of people we call strikers in Lagos. They aren’t so versatile in the use of the English language, but they understand and speak enough to communicate and are quite glib. They are on the payroll of all manner of companies including tour operators, property developers and so on. Their job is to get some of the millions of travellers who use this airport to visit their companies in town for business.

Seriously, you shouldn’t pay them any attention. They are time wasters.  When you get to their offices in town, you are going to be disappointed.

The freebies they promise always have a catch that wouldn’t enable you take advantage of them while your visit lasts.

More seriously, some of them work for advanced fee fraud syndicates. They will try to convince you to invest in some hotel property deal that is guaranteed to yield you thousands of dollars in profit after recouping your investment in a couple of years.

Hello! If you fall for that in a foreign land, you don’t deserve to be called a Nigerian. We are smarter than that.

How Airbnb promotes scam, my experience

Staircase 

A door opening to a hideous recess.

I had heard a lot about Airbnb before I decided to try them out in March when I was planning a vacation in the United States. It turned out to be a huge mistake.

The search

I spent days scouring Airbnb for a suitable apartment I could stay in with my wife for 10 days and finally shortlisted two; one in Queens because it was close to JFK International Airport where we were coming in through, and Brooklyn, because it was close to the areas we were keen to see. The Brooklyn apartment was going to win until we noticed it was a basement.

Queens won

We settled for the one the host described as Rosedale Private residential (SMOKE FREE) in Queens. The winning description in the ad was ‘an entire bungalow’. It was costlier, but we thought it was worth it.

Rude shock

We flew thousands of miles to this destination and discovered the listing was misrepresented. It was not a bungalow, but a basement apartment. That was a big deal for me because apart from the nice Brooklyn apartment, I had seen and ruled out many other basements with better prices and reviews because we were apprehensive of the problems associated with basements, such as dampness, flooding and mould.

To make matters worse, this apartment we opted for was so disappointing that we left almost immediately and looked for a hotel to stay to search for another apartment, into which we moved the next day to spend the rest of the vacation.

Apart from the lie of the actual nature of the apartment, we also found that the sofa in the living room was old; the reading table in the room had seen better days and looked like it would fall apart. The apartment was apparently furnished with what the host discarded from the main building.

We arrived after a rain. Consequently, I stepped into a puddle of water in the master bedroom. The big cooker was rusty. The kitchen was cluttered with stuff used in the main apartment uptairs. A padlocked freezer, ostensibly containing stored food of the host, took up a part of the apartment.

A staircase descends from the main apartment directly into the lobby of this listing. At the top of the stairs, there is a door that is locked with a key from the main apartment. Apart from this, there were at least three other doors that were locked, one with a padlock. Another unlocked door opens to a dark hideous recess.

The tiles bore water marks, signposting possible flooding episodes in the past. Sounds of water running in some pipes within the walls were persistent. Overall, there was a mismatch between the cost and the value of this listing.

Confrontation

I called the host and confronted him with my findings and expressed my disappointment that he misrepresented his apartment. He was quiet for some time and then the line went dead. I tried again and it went into voicemail.

 I called Airbnb and complained. The customer care person who first picked the call sounded sympathetic and requested that I sent evidence of what I was claiming. That took me some time to do, as I had to find a better apartment.

I finally sent the evidence required the following day, when apparently somebody else, a lady had taken over the case. She later reverted that they could not refund me the entire money I paid because I did not stay in the apartment to sort out the issue with the owner, as Airbnb's policy demanded.

I found that odd. If it was a question of toiletry not being provided or a faulty TV or something, I would understand, because those could be fixed. But this was a case of somebody lying about the very nature of his apartment, calling it a bungalow when in actual fact it was a basement. How could he have fixed that?

A more honest host in the same Queens neighbourhood described his own apartment as ‘An Independent Basement’. But this one fraudulently called his own ‘bungalow’. He took nice pictures of the bed, a long shot of the big cooker, and not a single shot of the two staircases in the apartment, one outside, the other right inside the apartment. His whole intention was to mislead people who hate basements into booking it. 

I told them there was nothing that the host could have done to make it right. For me it was a case of deception. With deception, trust is damaged. If I couldn’t trust what you say, how could I stay under your roof overnight?

The review

Even though I didn’t like Airbnb’s decision, I decided to move on. However, when they prompted me to leave a review for the listing a few days later, I described what I saw.

I went back to the listing many times thereafter to see my review. It was not there. I lost interest. A week or two later, I remembered to check again and found that it had been published and the host had responded. The host carefully avoided tackling the issues I raised, but instead made an attempt to damage my credibility by concocting lies that had no bearing on the issues I raised.

I brought this to the attention of Airbnb again and they promised to investigate. It took them over 24 hours to get back. We exchanged a few more mails. Their final decision was that they could not remove the host’s response without removing my review. I told them I would not remove my review because that was the only way prospective guests could know what to expect.

Blackmail

Further scrutiny of the listing in question showed that the host had a habit of concocting lies against guests who wrote critical reviews. I saw a review by a gentleman who described himself as a pilot. The man stayed in the apartment in March just before me, but his review had not been posted by Airbnb by the time we were considering the apartment. If it had been posted, I would definitely not have paid for the listing. The man raised most of the issues I highlighted in my review.

Now, Airbnb has a policy of obtaining reviews from both the host and the guest. The host doesn’t get to see the review of the guest until he has given his own review. Now, this particular host left a very good review for this pilot, not knowing the pilot had left a critical review for his apartment. The moment he realised this, he rushed back to comment that the pilot was actually not a good guest. He described him as a drunk and said he was sorry for whoever boarded a plane he was piloting! Airbnb allowed the comment.

In the circumstances, the option for the pilot was to either allow the impugnation on his professional competence to remain on Airbnb site or to ask that it be taken down together with his own review. This is apparently how this guy blackmails guests from leaving a critical review for his listing.

Until Airbnb reviews this policy, by at least allowing guests to respond to any lies against them, many hosts will continue to exploit this loophole and smile to the bank.

Misleading claim

I took Airbnb up on the misleading claim made by the host. Initially, one Airbnb customer care agent promised they would get the host to correctly represent his listing. Another one I engaged on the issue later said other guests had made similar complaint against the man and Airbnb's trust committee investigated and found that the host was doing nothing wrong.

That was odd, but I believe they came to that conclusion because they never visited the apartment and relied on the host's claims. I was in the apartment. The building hosting the listing is a storey building. The apartment is in the basement, below the street level. The host lived on the two floors above the listing. 

Conclusion

Airbnb apparently means well. However, they need to look at their policies again with a view to giving more protection to the consumer. 

Jail time for 'sex' in taxi

When you are in a foreign land, respect their idiosyncrasies and of course their law. How many Nigerians for instance know that you can go to jail for one month if you pucker up to your wife in a restaurant in Dubai? Yeah, that’s right.

So, imagine what will happen if you are caught pants down with a member of the opposite sex in a public place. You are asking for it.

A British woman and Irish man recently accused of engaging in sexual activities in a Dubai taxi have now been sent to jail for three months after which they will be deported.

Rebecca Blake and Conor McRedmond both denied charges of "breach of honour with consent" and committing "an indecent act in a taxi" when they appeared in court last month. They also pleaded guilty to a third charge related to consumption of alcohol in public.

"The court sentenced them to jail for three months and deportation in addition to a fine of 3000 dirhams (R7300) each," their lawyer Shaker al-Shammary said.

Granted that United Arab Emirates is the most liberal of the seven-member UAE federation; granted it wants to be seen as a tourist haven and throws its doors open to all and sundry;  still, the country frowns on acts that fly in the face of their Muslim identity.

So, brothers and sisters, be careful.

Plane crash kills 19 in Nepal

The plane in flames as people watched helplessly. Images: Daily Mail



The wreckage



Victims' bodies being taken away



Kathmandu International Airport (above), a popular start point for journeys into the Everest region

 



Wads of notes recovered from the wreckage



A policeman looks on helplessly as the plane burns

Seven Britons were among 19 people killed when a plane carrying trekkers to the Everest region crashed in the Nepalese capital today.

The twin-engine aircraft, operated by domestic carrier Sita Air, came down minutes after take-off near the Manohara River on the southwest edge of Katmandu.

Witnesses say it burst into flames before crashing into a field just 500 yards from the airport.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it is looking 'urgently' into reports that seven Britons were killed in the disaster.

The other passengers included five Chinese and three Nepalese trekkers, while the three crew members were from Nepal, said Katmandu airport chief Narayan Bastakoti.

The pilot reported trouble shortly after leaving Kathmandu airport and appeared to have been trying to turn back, according to airport official Ratish Chandra Suman. The wrecked plane was pointing towards the airport area.

Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the crash and identify the bodies and Mr Suman said he could not confirm if the plane was already on fire before it crashed.

The weather in Kathmandu and surrounding areas was clear on Friday morning and it was one of the first flights to take off from Kathmandu's Tribhuwan International Airport. Other flights reported no problems, and the airport operated normally.

Mobile phone video shot by local people showed the front section of the plane was on fire when it first hit the ground and it appeared the pilot had attempted to land the plane on open ground beside the river.

The fire quickly spread to the rear, but the tail was still in one piece at the scene near the Manohara River on the south-west edge of Kathmandu.

Villagers were unable to approach the plane because of the flames and it took some time for firefighters to reach the area and bring the fire under control.

Hundreds of rescuers, police and onlookers surrounded the burnt-out shell of the aircraft as they looked for bodies and documents to help identify the victims.

The bodies were taken by vans to the hospital mortuary.

A police spokesman said: 'The pilots seem to have tried to land it safely on the banks of the river, but unfortunately the plane caught fire.'

Firefighters brought the fire in the wreckage under control and police rescuers were trying to pull out the bodies, Bastakoti said.

The plane was heading for Lukla, the gateway to Mount Everest. Thousands of Westerners head to the region around the world's highest peak every year for trekking trips.

English mountaineer Alan Hinkes, who has been climbing in the Himalayas for more than 20 years, told the BBC that he had taken the flight from Kathmandu to Lukla many times previously, and that problems usually occurred at the Lukla end.

He said: 'It is ironic that it has crashed in Kathmandu. You are usually worried about it happening at the other end.

'The landing strip in Lukla is a bit like an aircraft carrier with a mountain at the end of it, with a 1,000ft drop at the end of the runway. Normally crashes happen at that end.'

Mr Hinkes said it was unlikely the victims would have been planning to climb Everest, but were more likely to be trekkers or people attempting other mountains in the Everest region.

He said: 'There is quite good weather in October and November for climbing the mountains around Everest.

'It is a bit worrying and upsetting. There are a lot of people and friends I know who go out at this time of year leading treks.

'It is quite alarming. I have lost a few friends in plane crashes in Nepal over the last 20 years.

'It is not the safest place to fly, I must admit, but it is what you have to do to get into the mountains.'

History repeating: The disaster comes just months after 15 people were killed when their plane crashed into a hill in northwest Nepal in May

A spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: 'We understand that British nationals may be involved, and we are urgently seeking to confirm what has happened.

'Our embassy in Kathmandu is talking to the airline and local authorities to find out whether Britons were involved.'

Autumn is considered the best time to trek the foothills of the Himalayan peaks.

The crash follows an avalanche on another Nepal peak Sunday that killed seven foreign climbers and a Nepali guide.

And in May, 15 people were killed when their plane crashed into a hill in northwest Nepal.

Life-like sex doll triggers emergency rescue at sea

A life-like sex doll. Image: Allvoices.com

 

Turkish rescue workers retrieved an inflatable sex doll from the Black Sea after police were notified by panicked residents who mistook it for a woman's body floating offshore, Milliyet newspaper reported.

 

Police cordoned off a wide stretch of beach in northern Samsun province and sent a team of divers into the water to rescue what appeared to be a drowning woman, it said.

 

The team quickly discovered it was in fact a blow-up doll, which they deflated before throwing in the garbage, the daily said.

 

It was not clear where the blow-up doll had come from.

 

The Black Sea is a key tourism destination for Turks and also sees busy international maritime shipping traffic.

Amazing world of amphibious Lagosians

First published in the Nigerian Tribune
 

• They throw babies into lagoon to acclimatize
• Organize parties in floating bars/hotels
• Have own hospitals/maternity, cemeteries,’ police’, kings and floating palace on the lagoon.

It is possible for someone to live in Lagos for 100 years and never get to see all of its aquatic splendour, all of its perilous life styles, incredible filth, and all of the diverse kind of people who make it up. But anyone who cares to investigate would be shocked by the sheer difference between life as it is known by a generality of Lagosians and as it is seen by a smaller group of less privileged others who also live in the self-same city.
 

Driving over the third Mainland Bridge, many motorists have wondered at the sight of houses, mostly of planks, bamboo sticks and corrugated sheets erected right in the middle of the sprawling lagoon. There is no access to them except by boats, mostly canoes. Many are wont to wonder who the people are. Do they have children? How do they prevent their little ones from drowning? Are they real human beings or spirits? Given the phobia of most Lagosians for water, they are most likely to conclude that the people on the lagoon are spirits.

But as Saturday Tribune found out last Sunday, they are no spirits. They are human beings carrying on their lives in their little watery community, oblivious of how anyone else is living outside their immediate environment.

Welcome to the world of rustic living in the fishing communities of Sokoro, Migbewe, and Adogbo situated just a little above water level on the lagoon.






Woman frying puff-puff in a canoe

The first major challenge of the expedition was transportation. From Iso pako (saw-mill) in Ebute Meta end of the Third Mainland Bridge to the community of this ‘amphibious’ Lagosians, one needs a boat. But being a Sunday, there was no commercial boat. A friendly machine operator who would like to be identified only as ‘Baba Tee’ at the saw mill advised that such an expedition was better done on a weekday or a Saturday when there would be commercial boats.

But are the people friendly, or would they take exception to a young man poking his camera at their faces on a sweet Sunday evening? Did they have any latent propensity to throw strange, pestering people into the lagoon when nobody is looking?

“Ah ah, they are nice people o! Why would they do that?” Baba Tee asked, laughing. “They are real people like you and me. They just happen to be living on water because of where they come from. If they don’t live here (on water) they will fall sick”. Baba Tee said in Yoruba. He repeated his advice for a return visit on a week day.

Floating 'hospital'

But the community was visible from the saw mill and one could not imagine coming that far without being able to accomplish the rest of the task. One could see many canoes being paddled across the lagoon, but as the saw-miller explained, those were privately owned ones and they would not come to the saw mill from where one could convince them to offer charter service.

A long wait at the saw mill however paid off as a young man came ashore to see a friend at the saw mill. He willingly agreed to be an emergency tourist guide, and in a rustic simplicity eagerly ushered one into his canoe without asking for payment. Or did he harbour a hidden agenda to take the stranger to the deepest part of the lagoon, overturn the contraption and swim to safety? He looked harmless enough and smiled very broadly and genuinely. But he had a tattoo of scorpion on his either shoulder.

He wished to be known simply as Folorunsho. The expedition started. Initial trouble turned out to be how to keep the canoe from shaking as if it was going to empty its two passengers into the lagoon at any moment.

“Is it normal for a canoe to shake like this?” one asked Folorunso. It is not the canoe that is shaking sir. It is you,” he replied, smiling reassuringly. “There is no problem” he assured. One had earlier inquired about life jacket and the question drew laughter. What use would it serve, Folorunsho had asked. There was not a single person in the community who could not swim. Even pregnant women would dive into the lagoon should a favourite spoon drop into the brown water, he added..

The entire community is made up of three small ones that would be no more than streets were it to be on land, namely Sokoro, Migbewe, and Adogbo. They used to be separate communities with different baales (chiefs), but now population expansion has removed the distance or distinction between one community and the other. Individual communities still retain their baales.

Hawkers

As it is on land, so is it in this watery settlement. The ‘streets’ are filled with kids and women roaming about with wares to sell. The difference is that the hawking is done with a canoe. What you can get to buy from them range from fruit such as banana, oranges, pawpaw, mangoes; cooked food such as ewa (beans), pap, bread and butter, fried egg and yam, and fried puff puff, hot and fresh, off a sizzling frying pan in a canoe. It was amazing to see the woman maneuver her canoe expertly in the heavy traffic of other canoes, with the charcoal stove on top of which is balanced a frying pan with hot oil, mixed flour, and water for washing her hands.

Employment

The sort of jobs these people do ensure that they do not have cause to go ashore for a very long time. Folorunsho and another son of the soil (or water, in this instance), Mayowa, explained that there are people who have never gone ashore since they came to the settlement from their original villages in Badagry. They are largely fishermen who leave from the settlement for the high sea and return straight into their homes at the close of work.

Buyers of fish from outside visit them in their homes while their wives and children smoke the rest for later sales. Most women are engaged smoking fish and selling them to buyers who come from outside.

There are also fish net makers, boat- builders, crayfish trap makers, barbers, tailors, shoe makers and at least one GSM call center operator, among others.

Houses

The houses are made of planks, bamboos, corrugated sheets or palm fronds and related materials. But one rich person sank a block house right in the middle of the community. How he managed to do this without the technology of Julius Berger would get many modern construction engineers scratching their heads.

Folorunsho tried to explain the technique, and it turned out not to be dramatically different from the one employed by construction companies in constructing bridge pillars in the water. The only difference is that this local effort did not profit from any technological assistance. It was pure brawn. An area of the lagoon was encircled with very strong planks, closely planted into the base of the lagoon. Then the circle was filled up with sand and concrete till it was elevated above water level. Folorunsho explained that it was very expensive. He personally would have preferred to use money for such a venture to go and buy land in town.

It takes about N15 000 to erect the common plank and bamboo house on the lagoon. It can be erected in a few days and can be very fast when the owner has all the money ready from the onset. 50 percent of the entire community are living in rented houses. An entire house of two rooms and a parlour goes for N600 per month. Rent is paid strictly per month and no landlord is allowed to ask for more than one month at once.

Some of the houses are tastefully furnished. Most of them have black and white television. There is one with a colour Television, Video cassette player and a VCD/CD player. The gentleman even has what qualifies to be called a rug, a two-seater cushion chair, and has his treasured pictures hung on the bamboo wall.

Electricity is tapped from town but no NEPA man has yet been bold enough to visit the community to serve bills or collect money for light consumption. One or two houses also have generators.

With the structure of the house one wondered if they never caught cold especially during the harmattan period. Folorunsho and another community member, wale said on the other hand heat was their biggest problem. According to them, most people sleep on their verandahs to avoid heat.

Community Police

The community has its own arrangements for security. Folorunsho explained that this was necessary since the regular police in Nigeria were reluctant to come into the lagoon to enforce the law.

“Police don’t like to come here to arrest people. The water used to scare them” Folorunsho explained in his imperfect English. Our expedition made a brief stop over in the house of the overall head of the community’s security apparatus. The man looked too young for someone who is the equivalent of Nigeria’s Ehindero on the lagoon. He seemed happy to see our little party. He was okay, except that the repercussion of bleaching was catching up with him in all the wrong places. If the ‘IG’ was this badly bleached what would the criminals in the community look like, one thought.

His job was said to be easier than Nigeria’s IG’s, because there is hardly any theft in the community.

“First nobody can come from outside to steal here. Secondly, everybody knows everybody very well. So you cannot steal from your brother,” Folorunsho explained, adding however that in the event that anybody did, the community police took care of the person in such a way that he would never try it again.

Community damsels

The community was complete with its own damsels. A couple of them were sighted strolling on the hand-made overhead bridge that led to the most popular floating hotel at Sokoro. Elsewhere, you could see young ladies with made up faces in t-shirts and trousers commuting in canoes to destinations within the community.

Then there was the shocking sights of topless ladies smoking fish in many verandahs in the community. There were a couple with nothing on besides panties.

Folorunsho explained that the business of smoking fish was a very difficult one which got the women very uncomfortable.

“It is one of the most difficult jobs here. You know the smoke is entering your eyes and the heat is too much and you are sweating. So some of them just don’t care about clothes”, he explained. But would that not bring all the young men coming in droves to buy fish they have no use for, one asked.

“Ah ah, no. Why? “ Folorunsho answered laughing. “There is no such thing. But may be some people do it. But it is not common. You know the women are not really beautiful at such times. You even pity them. And again they are our sisters.”

Promiscuity level

The community frowns seriously at men who sleep with other people’s wives. All the men and their families are known to each other and bond very well. But as Folorunsho explained, it had been known to happen for a man to have affairs with women they are not married to. When the original husband catches the philandering man, he is free to administer any punishment he deems fit, or he may just call in the community police who takes the offender to the chief. But there is said to be a very strong traditional curse that afflicts women who indulge in extra marital affairs.

“They will begin to bleed and if they fail to confess they will die”, Folorunsho explained. Although he had not seen anyone so afflicted but the belief is overwhelming among the community residents. Many male residents would rather go over to the floating hotel where some call girls are said to reside and pay for sex.

The singles are however free to do what they see fit. Under the cover of the night some of them cross the overhead bridge into the floating hotel to earn some money, pleasuring men.

Throwing babies into lagoon

“But is it true that you people throw your babies into the lagoon to ascertain whether they are bastards or not”, one asked.

“Oh I 've heard people say that. They say if the baby is a bastard he will sink and if not he will float. I don’t know if other community do that. But we do not. You cannot know a bastard like that. What we do is we throw our childrens into the water to become friends with it so that they can never be killed by water again. But the childrens must be well at the time. You must not throw sick childrens into water. Our childrens know how to swim before they can even talk self because when their mother is swimming she throws them into water too,” he explained.

Accidents

On the most popular ‘street’ in the community which qualifies to be the community’s equivalent of Oshodi, the ‘traffic’ was chaotic, even for a Sunday. Canoes bumped into each other and finding where to dip your paddle sometimes was a problem.

“Do you have traffic accidents here?” one asked.

“Yes, but not like the ones on the land. People don’t die in such accidents. Some people may not be looking at where they are going and seriously hit you. You just settle it and go your way. But engine boats can be very dangerous because they sometimes lose control. If there is one coming your way and you see that he has lost control, you just dive into the water before he hits your canoe.”

Folorunsho also explained that for there to be sanity, engine-propelled boats had been banned from hawking in the ‘streets’. Even when they are going to the high sea , they use paddle until they get out of the community.

“Our chief is a tough man. If he catches you, there will be trouble. There are many children using canoe. You cannot just ‘drive’ anyhow.” Folorunsho said.

One Canoe per person

Despite the spirit of communality, canoes are one thing that community members don’t share. A canoe or two is parked outside each house as people park cars outside their homes on land.

“Nobody will borrow you his canoe. Everybody has his own. Some even have five. If you have many childrens you will like to give them their own canoe to move around. And you must keep your paddle very well. If you go out and park your canoe and leave the paddle inside, somebody may just take the canoe away. So you must take the paddle with you or put it somewhere else.

A carved boat is to this community what a Mercedes Benz is to the people on land. A small carved canoe costs N5000 and can last up to 20 years. A carved boat with an outboard engine is to this community what a Pajero Jeep is to the people on land. It is owned by the rich. Apart from carved boats, there are ones built from planks. They cost between N2 000 and N2500 and do not last more than about two years. A huge fishing boat of this type costs N10 000.

Cemetery

There is a common cemetery for burying people who do not wish, or are not rich enough to be taken to their original village. According to Folorunsho, the cemetery is a tiny island further down into the lagoon. But when the water level rises during raining season, the so called cemetery is submerged.

Consequently the lagoon has on occasions returned some dead bodies to their owners before the beer bottles used for the burial ceremonies are parked away.

Filth

The stench that wafts into the nostrils of commuters on the highways (waterways) in this community is incredible. It is a mixture of the murky smell of fresh fish, smoked fish and human waste.

In the densely populated Migbewen, human waste plops up beside your canoe now and again as you navigate the lagoon.

The reason is simple. The toilet system in the houses is the more original form of water closet (WC), whereby you squat on a platform and do the business directly into the water below.

Five minutes of navigation on this brownish water fills your mouth with saliva, but the residents find nothing wrong with it. A child not more than ten was even sighted doing a backstroke in the evil-looking water beside their house while his parents look on.

“How often do people fall sick here?, one asked.

“Oh we are very strong people. We don’t fall sick. But we have many hospitals and clinics. I will take you to the biggest one. But you are only going to find pregnant women there waiting to deliver. People don’t fall sick here” Folorunsho said proudly. But that’s a shock because if normal people were to have a dip in the evil smelling water in the community, they are sure to land on their back in a hospital, being treated for a combination of cholera, stomach disorder and respiratory and urinary tract infections.

Friendly people

Whatever their problem, these amphibious Lagosians are generally friendly and easy-going. They greeted the Saturday Tribune crew with smiles and took no exception to their pictures being taken. Some of the children even shouted that their pictures should be taken. Most of them have not seen the four walls of a school. They speak pidgin and say sorry when they splash you water with their paddles or when their canoes bump into yours. There are only few lucky ones as Folorunsho who went as far as a secondary school before returning to the community to commence fishnet making, shoe cobbling and singing.

“I went to the high sea for fishing once and nearly died in an accident. Since then I’ve been doing other things. My ambition is to be a popular musician. I can rap in English and my dialect. I have a demo ready and hope to find a sponsor someday,” he concluded as he completed his task as a guide, bringing the canoe to a final stop at the saw-mill.

In another few minutes and with an unsolicited tip in his pocket, Folorunsho would happily row back to his community and his usual routine which he must faithfully maintain to keep his head above water until his big dream comes true.

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