Day 150: Benin City – St Gabriel Parish Abakaliki

We're crossing the Niger! The crossing is quite unspectacular, but it makes us think of Mungo Park and the book “Water Music” by T.C. Boyle. 

East of the Niger, the cities take on a little more contour, the landscape becomes hillier, and the view is a little further despite the smog. 

But the traffic remains deserted. Some drivers make you wonder whether they are completely crazy or tired of life. And people also like to drive in the opposite direction.

We have a whopping 45 checkpoints on the 325 km from Benin City to Abakaliki. Most of them official, only a few highwaymen. At most we are waved through, at a few we are asked for money or gifts. Just once or twice someone just wants to chat. The whole thing makes the journey tedious and slow. 

Today we find a supermarket with a bakery on the way and eat pie. A lunch break actually.

And we find a gas station with diesel and fill it up again – we need a full tank for the next few days. It is as expensive as yesterday, and it will only become cheaper again next week when the strike is over.

In Abakaliki we stay on the grounds of the St. Gabriel Parish Church. Among other things, an orphanage is run here for babies who have been abandoned. 

After arriving we have to wait a while for Father Mike, who is on his way. There are a dozen children around us, curious and shy at the same time. They wait patiently with us and watch carefully what we do.

Later we park at the compound of the orphanage and the sisters – the gang of children moves along and grows. When they are allowed into the compound with permission, they obediently line up in a double row, keep their distance and watch as we talk, laugh and joke with Father Mike and the sisters. 

Unfortunately, we no longer know what Father Mike taught us, but it worked wonderfully: we give a sentence and the kids answer in chorus.

An interesting phenomenon is that we Europeans (because we are not the only ones) like to visit church related locations when traveling through West Africa. We know that it is peaceful, quiet, safe there and even if “church” works differently here, there are things that are familiar. 

Tomorrow we'll go to the rainforest again. Our only tourist detour in Nigeria will take us to the Afi Mountain Drill Ranch, where we hope to have encounters with monkeys.