Okay, you know you are a Second Life junkie when you arrive at an African Village and immediately begin looking at your environment in terms of prims!
I was supposed to travel to northern Nigeria a few days ago but unfortunately the Christians and Muslims decided they would like to start mass murdering each other. I looked in my suitcase and realized that although I packed 765 pairs of shoes, I brought absolutely nothing to wear to a religious bloodbath! Isn't that always the case? Fashion can be so restrictive at times.
I am writing posting here because I am bored out of my skull and need some sort of connection with my first and second life. Here is a brief story of my first hours in Lagos.
I have no idea why, but the minute a plane lands I have to urinate immediately. This isn't a subtle "time to go pee pee" feeling but more of a "OMG if I don't find a bathroom in 5 minutes I will explode!"
I am the first person off the plane and as I search the airport for a bathroom there are Nigerian police with huge guns everywhere just waiting for a reason to extort my US Dollars from my wallet. I decide I'm just not in the mood to deal with that many payoffs and head through customs.
Miraculously I made it through both immigration and customs without having to pay even one USD! I almost fainted.
When the adrenaline of dealing with the Nigerian airport authorities wears off the pressure in my bladder returns with a vengeance.
I walk outside into a mass of hundreds of people separated from me by only a small metal barracade. They stare intently on the big flashing neon dollar sign above my head. I befriend a sassy Nigeria woman with a cell phone who keeps the occassional con artist away with a quick sneer. She offered all the protection I needed for a mere $5USD. A small price to pay in my book.
Finally my expediter arrives...late! It is always nice to pay someone to expedite your entry into the country and then they show up 30 minutes after you've passed through customs.
We make our way to a Ford Explorer with bulletproof glass and we are on our way out of the airport. Unfortunately because my expediter was late we are stuck behind an endless sea of non-moving traffic. Ten minutes, twenty minutes, forty-five minutes with no movement. I am not experiencing real physical pain and looking longingly at the empty soda bottle on the floor of the vehicle.
Traffic begins to move and we see the cause of our delay. There is a huge truck overturned in the road that was holding up traffic.
Unable to deal with my bladder I say to the driver that I need to stop somewhere immediately to use the bathroom.
He and the expediter have a conversation that I don't understand and then we pull over to the side of the road beside the remnants of a long discarded building. There is one section of concrete wall remaining.
I run to the wall and unleash upon my new continent. This just confirms one of my life mottos, "Nothing is as overrated as bad sex or as underrated as a good shit." In this case it was a good piss.
Refreshed and relieved I walk back to the car and we are off to the hotel.
Looking out the window I see a billboard on the side of the road that says:
=========================================
Have you gone to school to get an education and better yourself and you still...
Then it lists items.
1.
2.
3.
4. Urinate and defecate in public?
If so, what was the point?
=========================================
So basically there is a huge campaign that refined people shouldn't urinate in public.
Oh great. I've just travelled for eighteen hours to have a billboard in a developing country tell me that I am unrefined. I swear it's enough to make you want to fling shit on the walls.
More as it develops.
Neehai Zapata

)
